About · Who wrote this site

About James Roberts

I drank every day for twenty-seven years. The people on the outside of my drinking — parents, a sibling, a husband, the relatives who funded the calls and read the brochures from a thousand miles away — had the worst information of anyone involved. They had means. They lacked situational visibility. This network exists to close that gap.

If you are reading this, you are probably the parent up at midnight working out whether to phone, or the sibling holding the family together from another country, or the relative being asked to fund a private bed and decide which one. I was the drinker the people on the outside were trying to read. I am writing theirdrinking.guide because the brief in front of you has been edited by people who are exhausted, sometimes by people who are paid — and almost never by anyone who has been on this side of it.

The dates

I was born in Manchester in February 1976. I am 50.

My parents were strict. I did not drink before university. I made up for it after.

From 18 to 45 — every day. Some days a glass. Most days a bottle. Some days more. Twenty-seven years.

I was a functioning alcoholic. I ran a headhunting firm of twenty staff, placing executives across travel and hospitality, in offices and hotel bars from London to Dubai to Cape Town. I made money. I kept friends. I held a marriage together. I drank through all of it.

Functioning alcoholism is a major issue for my generation. Most of us are still drinking. Some of us are dead. A few of us got out.

June 2020

I went into residential treatment in Cheshire in June 2020. Four weeks residential. Medical detox, then the rest of it.

The medical detox was not optional. Stopping a twenty-seven-year drinking habit without medical supervision can kill you. Seizures, delirium tremens, cardiac complications. If the person you are watching is a daily drinker, they should not detox at home alone. The page on dangerous withdrawal signs on sober.guide explains why, with sources.

I have not had a drink since.

I am not going to write a redemption arc here. Rehab is not a cure. It bought me a structured month away from alcohol with people who knew what they were doing. The work was after.

Tenerife

In December 2020 I moved to Tenerife and bought a finca outside Icod de los Vinos. I called it Casa Salvia — salvia is sage in Spanish. I burnt sage in the mornings.

Casa Salvia ran as a 9.7-rated BnB for several years. I hosted guests in recovery from many walks of life. I ran sober golf events. I sold the BnB recently.

I do not currently live in the UK. My clothes are still in a house in Scotland I have not been back to. My ex-husband has visited me here. He has supported me through this in a way no money could buy. Genuine love. That part of the story is not finished.

Why this site exists

In the first year of sobriety I started understanding what I had put my family through. They had been doing the maths for years — working out whether to phone, whether to fly over, whether this Christmas was the one. They were the buyers rehabs want long before I was, and almost no honest writing had been put in front of them.

I had money. I had panic. I had a family who wanted me fixed. I read everything. Most of what I read was written by people selling something — a rehab bed, a programme, a book, a sponsorship pipeline.

The honest information existed. It was buried. NICE guidelines, peer-reviewed papers, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, NHS pages. Not optimised for Google. Not written for someone in week one. And almost none of it was written for the partner watching it from across the kitchen.

Six Doors is my attempt to put the honest version where the buying happens.

partner.guide — for the person living with a drinker
sober.guide — for the person who has stopped drinking, or is trying to
theirdrinking.guide — for the parent, sibling, child watching it from outside the house
lovedone.guide — for the family member trying to help
discharge.guide — for the days after rehab ends
relapse.guide — for the day after the slip

Each site has a bot. The bot will not invent a rehab name, a phone number, or a price. The encyclopedia pages are written in plain English with sources you can check.

What I am not

I am not a doctor. I am not a therapist. I am not a counsellor. I am not in recovery as a profession.

I am a man who drank for twenty-seven years, stopped, and built the resource I wish had existed in June 2020 — for me, and for the people who lived with me.

If you need medical advice, see a doctor. If you are in crisis, the crisis links on every page are never paywalled and never will be.

How this is funded

Six Doors is independent. No rehab pays me. No broker pays me. No referral fee comes to me from any clinic mentioned anywhere on these sites. I have no financial interest in any treatment facility, broker, or referral business.

The bots are paywalled past a free conversation length because running them costs money. The encyclopedia, the crisis routes, and the directory information are free and will stay free.

If a clinic ever pays for placement, the page will say so at the top in plain English. That has not happened and is not planned.

The line

I am unique. But this is the truth.

We all are.

If you want to talk this one through with someone who has been on the other side of it: ten messages free, then twenty‑nine pounds, paid once. No subscription. No account.

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