theirdrinking.guide · for the people who cannot name it yet

Their drinking is starting to shape your life.

I am James. I went to Delamere in June 2020 and have been sober since. I was the drinker. I know what was happening in the house around me because I lived in it — and because the people around me told me, afterwards, what those years were actually like for them. Some of them never used the word. They said “his drinking”, not “his problem”. They said “I’m worried about him”, not anything clinical. I know why. This site is written for the people who were there, watching, using the same careful language you are using now.

The encyclopedia is free. Forty‑nine pounds, paid once, and you talk to me. I sit with the people watching someone else drink — through the call you did not pick up, the dinner you made excuses for, the recycling you check on a Tuesday morning, the conversation you have rehearsed fifty times and never had. No subscription. No account. No rehab pays me. None of them get a cut. That is the whole point. Crisis routes are never paywalled.

Forty‑nine pounds, paid once. Continued private access to one person who has been on the other side of it.

Sober since June 2020. UK residential rehab myself. Five years and counting in the years that followed.
I was the drinker. People around me used the same words you are using now: “his drinking”, not “his problem”. I know why. I know what was happening in that house from the other chair.
Independent. No rehab pays me. No referrals taken. None offered. None coming.
Crisis routes free, always. 999, 116 123, A&E, GP — never behind the paywall, on any of the four sites.

Talk to James now How the site works

Start with what you cannot quite say. Begin privately.

James, 50, Tenerife. Sober since June 2020. The drinker who cost people around him years they cannot get back. The bot is me with the patience and the honesty I did not have at the time.

The room you are standing in

You are watching someone drink. You have not named it yet. That is exactly where this starts.

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from watching someone drink and not being able to say the word out loud. Not to them. Not to a doctor. Not even to yourself. The word feels like a door you cannot open yet — because once you open it, everything changes, and you are not sure you are ready for everything to change.

I am James. Fifty. I do not run a rehab, a fellowship, a coaching business, or a charity. I have no commercial interest in which path you or the person drinking takes. I am here because I was the drinker — and because I know, with absolute clarity now, what the people around me were carrying while I was still drinking. They did not use the word either. They said “his drinking”. They meant the same thing. This site is for them. For you.

The bot will chat anything you are carrying — what to say, what not to say, whether to say anything at all, how to protect yourself while they are still in it, what to do if they finally ask for help. I will say plainly when you have come to a door I cannot answer for. What I will not do is pretend I have been in your chair. I have been in the other one. That is enough to be useful.

Why you cannot say the word yet

The word is a door. You are not ready to open it. That is a reasonable place to be.

The name matters, and the name is also the hardest part. Once you say it — to someone, out loud, in full — something shifts that cannot shift back. So you use the softer language. “Their drinking.” “What is happening.” “Things have been difficult.” That is not weakness. That is the way almost everyone in this situation starts.

The cost of the language gapUsing “their drinking” instead of the clinical word is not denial. It is caution. But the gap between the language and the reality has a cost — because it makes it harder to ask for the right help, find the right information, or say clearly to another person what is going on.
The cost of being the only one who sees itOften one person in the family or friend group is carrying the full picture while everyone else is working from a partial one. That isolation is its own kind of weight — and it tends to grow the longer the soft language holds.
The cost of waiting to be certainYou do not need a clinical diagnosis to act on what you can see. You do not need to be able to say the word before you are allowed to ask for help for yourself. The certainty you are waiting for may never arrive in the form you expect it to.
The cost of protecting them from the wordMost people watching someone drink are also, at some level, protecting them from the weight of the label. That is love. It is also expensive. The word will not make it worse than it already is. What you are watching is already the thing.

The forty-nine pounds is not the question. The question is what you are still carrying alone, and whether there is a faster way through than the route you are on. There usually is.

You do not have to be able to name it before you are allowed to ask for help.

The thing nobody sells

The best help I could honestly have asked for, when I was in it, was love. Nobody sells that. So this is the next best thing — written for the people who were giving it, and who needed something back.

James — Tenerife

How the site works

Everything Google already knows is here, in one place, free. The bot is the bit Google can't do.

The encyclopedia — free

Everything Google already knows, sorted. No referral fees, ever.

For the people watchingAl‑Anon, Adfam, NACOA, CRAFT. The evidence on what helps the person who is not drinking. The evidence on what does not.
FellowshipsAA, SMART, LifeRing, Recovery Dharma, secular routes — plain descriptions, no endorsement.
Medications^*Naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram, the Sinclair Method — named, sourced, without judgement.
Rehab in the UKTwenty‑one residential rehabs. What they cost, what they are, who they suit — with bias declared.
The question of stepping backWhat the evidence says about protecting yourself. What you are allowed to want. What help looks like for you, not just them.

^* Medications are named for awareness, not as recommendations. Talk to your GP.

The bot — one‑time, forty‑nine pounds

What the encyclopedia cannot do is sit with you on a bad Tuesday.

That is the bot. My voice, my bias, my standards. It knows the territory from the inside. It holds context across months. It tells you the truth when you ask it for the truth. It stays available through every quarter of the first year, and every year after.

One‑time fee. Paid once, used for as long as you need it. No subscription. No upsell. No chasing.

Built aroundMy voice, my bias, my standards, the evidence under it all.
Holds contextRemembers who you are across weeks. Picks up where you left off.
Speaks plainlyNo jargon. Plain English. Spanish if you write in Spanish.
Knows its limitsA companion, not a clinician. Crisis routes are never paywalled.
Stays with youAvailable through every quarter of the first year, and after.

No subscription. No account. No login. The unlock lives in your browser. Crisis routes and the full encyclopedia are always free.

A note from the writer

On the language people use when they cannot say the word.

The people around me, in the years I was drinking, did not say “James is an alcoholic.” They said “James’s drinking.” They said “we are worried about him.” They found ways to hold the truth without quite pinning it down in language, because pinning it down felt like a step they were not ready to take. I understand that now in a way I did not at the time. The word is heavy. It changes things. The people who could not say it were not in denial — they were being careful, and the caution was expensive. This site is for them.

I am not a therapist and this is not therapy. It is a quiet way of saying: I know what was happening in that house, and I know the language you are using, and I know why.

If the drinker themselves is asking, the same James is at sober.guide — written for that moment specifically. Same person, same fee, same standards. discharge.guide is for the weeks after rehab. relapse.guide is for a slip.

What it means to step back from their drinking — for you

Most of what is written about this is written for the drinker. This part is for you.

When you first name it

The moment you say it — even just to yourself, even in the softest language — something shifts. You have been carrying a picture and not showing it to anyone. Naming it, even imprecisely, is the first move. It does not have to be the word. “Their drinking is affecting me” is enough to start.

When you start looking for help

The help for the people watching is less visible than the help for the drinker. Al‑Anon exists. CRAFT exists. A CRAFT-trained therapist is rare but real. What you need is a space where the conversation is not about fixing them — it is about working out what you are allowed to want and what you can actually do tomorrow.

If they stop

When the drinking stops, the feelings do not. The relief is real but it comes with an unexpected flatness, and then the relationship has to be rebuilt rather than resumed. The version that existed around the drinking is gone. What comes next is something new — and building something new is hard even when both people want it.

If they do not stop

You are allowed to protect yourself. You are allowed to make decisions about your own life that are not contingent on what they decide about theirs. The hardest thing the people around a drinker learn is that their own agency and the drinker’s agency are separate things. The bot can help you find the line.

I will write each of these honestly, including the parts that are not flattering to me.

What this site will not do

I will not tell you to wait until you can say the word.

No pop-up. No chat widget. No sticky bar.
No telling you that you have to use the clinical language before you are allowed to ask for help.
No pretending one path — stay, leave, say something, say nothing — works for every situation.
No pretending Al‑Anon is the only route for the person watching, or that it is not worth trying.
No pretending that looking after yourself while they are still drinking is selfish. It is not always. Sometimes it is just the only thing that keeps you upright.
No pretending you are not allowed to be angry. Or frightened. Or both at once.

You are not a therapist. You are not a sponsor. You are a person watching someone they care about, using the softest language you have, trying to hold this together.

If a thing helps the person watching and the evidence is honest, it goes on. If a thing is faith‑based and helps people, it goes on, labelled as such, so you can choose with your eyes open.

Who this site is for

Anyone using the phrase “their drinking.” Whether it has been six months or fifteen years.

The parent watching an adult child drink
The adult child watching a parent drink
The sibling who is the only one saying it out loud
The friend who has started making excuses for them
The colleague who covers in afternoon meetings
The partner who has not reached the language yet
The person who no longer recognises the situation they are in
Anyone who says “their drinking” because they cannot say the other word

Whether the question today is how do I say something without making it worse, am I enabling them, is this actually serious or am I over-reading it, how do I look after myself while this is happening, or I have already stepped back and I still need to talk about it — there is a door here for it. The encyclopedia does not care where you are starting. The bot does not either.

If the drinker in your life is asking for help themselves, the same James is at sober.guide. That is the right door for them. This one is yours.

The drinker themselves

Same James. Three other doors. One for each moment.

This site is for the people watching. But if the person drinking is also asking, or if the situation has moved on, the same bot lives at three other addresses.

sober.guide

If the drinker is asking. Should I stop, how do I stop, do I need rehab, which one. The moment before. Same James, same fee, same standards.

relapse.guide

If they just slipped. The night of a relapse — plain, useful, no lecture. Also for the person sitting next to that night.

discharge.guide

If they just left rehab. The discharge cliff. The first ninety days. Written for the person who came home — and for the people waiting when they did.

Forty‑nine pounds, paid once, gets you James on this site. The same fee on each of the four. Same person. Same standards. Independent of every rehab, in both directions. No referral fees, ever.

Start here

Pick the door that fits today.

If today is dangerous.

If someone's safety is at risk: 999 now. Leave if you need to. Take anyone who needs to go with you.

Samaritans: 116 123 — free, twenty‑four hours, they pick up. For you as well as for them.

A&E or GP: if the drinking has become medically dangerous, seizure risk, or withdrawal — a clinician, not a website.

Domestic violence support: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 — free, twenty‑four hours, confidential. Relevant whether you are living with them or not.

The bot will surface these plainly when needed and stop being clever. Crisis routing is never paywalled.

“The people around me said ‘his drinking’, not ‘his problem’. I know why. I built this for the people who were standing in that house, using that language, trying to hold something together while I was still taking it apart.” — James, Tenerife, April 2026