Their drinking. Your decision. From a chair outside the room.

A briefing for the person making the decisions on someone else's behalf. The shape of UK private treatment. What the bills actually look like. What the brokers do. What the family solicitor needs to know before signing a directed assessment. Same author who runs sober.guide. Different reader. Same standards on what gets named and what does not.

Open the briefing

One person, no team Independent of every rehab, in both directions £149 introductory · £195 thereafter Crisis routes never paywalled

James, 50, Tenerife. The same independence rules apply in both directions: no clinic pays in, no broker takes a cut.

James — theirdrinking.guide chat private · no account

James

Where in the country are you, what's the budget envelope, and is this a partner / parent / sibling / employee decision? The shape of the answer changes by all three.

You

North London. £18–25k all-in. Husband, 47, partner at a City firm. Daily drinker for nine years. He is lucid in the mornings and has not yet been confronted at work. We have not told the children.

James

Three things sit ahead of choosing a clinic in this picture. First — the work line: City firms have an HR pathway that, used early, protects pension and partnership; used late, they protect the firm and not the partner. Second — the children: telling them is not an event, it is a sequence, and the sequence depends on their ages. Third — admission route: at this budget you are choosing between four to six UK clinics that are clinically appropriate, and three of them take direct admissions while two only come through brokers (who add £1,500–£3,000 to the bill without disclosure). The Clinic Compare Brief is the document for the third question. The first two are an evening on the £49 session.

Continue this conversation

The brief you have been given

You are the one being briefed, and the brief is incomplete.

The people closest to a drinker have the most emotion and the least clinical visibility. The people on the outside — parents, siblings, relatives, family contacts, sometimes a trustee or family solicitor — have means and decisions to make, but they get the picture in fragments. A phone call. A forwarded letter. A second-hand account. A rehab brochure that has been chosen for them by someone selling beds. By the time the brief reaches you, it has been edited — usually by people who are exhausted, sometimes by people who are paid.

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 the people on the outside were trying to read — and I now know, with the benefit of being on this side of it, exactly which parts of the brief they were getting wrong, and why.

The bot is for the questions you cannot put to the family solicitor, the GP, or each other — what is the medical picture actually likely to be, what are the realistic options, which clinics are which, what does an honest assessment cost, what does an aftercare cliff look like, where is the broker stink. 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 the picture you have is incomplete

The gap in what you know is structural, not personal. You are being given partial data by design.

If you are reading this from outside the house, the picture you have is not a function of how much you care. It is a function of where you are standing. The drinker manages disclosure. The person living with them manages crisis. The information that reaches you has been through both filters before you see it — and then through a third filter, the rehab marketing industry, before the options reach you. Each filter is doing what it is designed to do. The result is that you make decisions with the least information of anyone involved.

The cost of partial informationYou are usually being briefed by an exhausted person who is themselves coping. They are not lying. They are conserving themselves. The numbers, the dates, the actual unit count, the GP’s actual words — you are getting a summary that is already two days old by the time it reaches you.
The cost of acting without a clinical viewMost family decisions are made before any clinician has seen the drinker. An independent assessment — a real one, not a rehab admissions call — is rare in private cases and almost always worth commissioning before any bed is paid for.
The cost of paying for the wrong bedA bed in the wrong clinic, at the wrong moment, costs the family £8k to £25k and produces a discharge cliff three weeks later. The honest writing on which clinic suits which presentation exists. It is not on the websites of the clinics or the brokers placing the call.
The cost of the call you cannot ignoreThe thing the family is usually paying for, in the end, is space between you and the late-night call where someone else’s emergency becomes your decision. Distance, time, plausible competence. Worth naming. Worth pricing honestly.

The forty-nine pounds is not the question. The question is what the brief in front of you is actually missing, and what it would cost the family to find out the wrong way. Usually a great deal more than forty-nine.

Those on the outside have the least information but make the most significant decisions. This site exists to close that gap.

The thing nobody sells

The best help I could honestly have asked for, when I was in it, was love. Nobody sells that. The second best help is straight information from someone independent of every clinic, every broker, and every fellowship in the directory. Almost nobody sells that either. So this is the next best thing.

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 careful, indirect language people use when someone they love is drinking.

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 a structured response looks like — from the outside

Most of what is written about this is written for the drinker. This part is for the people commissioning the response.

1. Get the medical picture

Before any clinic is contacted, before any bed is paid for, the question is: what is the medical picture? Daily drinking, unit count, last drink, withdrawal history, prior treatment, current medications, mental health overlay. A GP letter or a private addiction psychiatrist’s assessment is the document you want. Without it you are buying blind.

2. Commission an independent assessment

An independent addiction assessment — one that is not paid for by a rehab or a broker placing the bed — is rare and almost always worth the cost. Examples of known UK providers include UKAT, Castle Craig, the Priory and Smarmore Castle; each runs its own admissions call, which is not the same thing as an independent clinical view. A consultation with an independent addiction psychiatrist commonly starts around £400 depending on the provider, and gives you something you can compare clinics against rather than be sold to by them.

3. Shortlist clinics without broker influence

If you are paying privately, the brokerage industry will find you within hours of the first Google search. The honest shortlist is shorter than the broker shortlist and it changes by presentation: severe physical dependency goes one way, dual diagnosis another, executive presentation another, family-history of failed treatment another. The Editorial Standards page sets out how this site names clinics — and what it will never do.

4. Decide who in the family does what

One person should hold the medical picture. One person should hold the financial decisions. One person should be the named contact for the clinic. They should not all be the same person. Family-systems language for what is otherwise often a single exhausted partner doing all three jobs at once.

I will write each of these honestly, including the parts that are not flattering to me, the industry, or the people who tried to help.

What this site will not do

The rules in plain English.

No referral fees, in either direction. No rehab pays me. No broker pays me. No commission is taken on any clinic placement, ever. Full disclosure is on the Editorial Standards page.
No invented clinics, prices, or phone numbers. If a price is on this site it is sourced. If a clinic is named it has been visited, called, or has had its admissions process tested.
No pop-up. No chat widget. No sticky bar. No newsletter. No retargeting pixel.
No pretending one path — private rehab, NHS detox, outpatient, fellowship, medication, none of the above — works for every presentation. The right answer depends on the brief, and the brief is yours.
No pretending Al‑Anon is the only route for the people on the outside, or that it is not worth trying.
No pretending that protecting yourself, or the rest of the family, while the drinker is still drinking is selfish. It is sometimes the only thing that keeps the family standing.

You are not a therapist. You are not a sponsor. You are the person being asked to make decisions on incomplete information. The reason this site can be useful is structural: we have no commercial reason to give you the wrong answer.

If a thing helps the people on the outside 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

The people on the outside of an alcoholic’s life who are being asked to make decisions about it.

The parent asked to sort it out
The sibling managing it from abroad
The adult child watching a parent drink
The relative funding the treatment
The friend who has known them since school and is the one being phoned
The HR director making a confidential enquiry
The solicitor or trustee trying to understand the options
Anyone working with an incomplete brief and a real decision to make

Whether the question today is what does the medical picture actually look like, should we commission an independent assessment, is this clinic a real clinical operation or a brokered referral, what does aftercare actually mean and who pays for it, or we have done the bed, what now — 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. If they have just left a clinic, discharge.guide. If they have just slipped, relapse.guide. Same person, same fee, same standards.

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.

Spain: 112 for immediate danger. 024 — national suicide and emotional‑distress helpline, free, twenty‑four hours, Spanish and English. For you as well as for them. Teléfono de la Esperanza: 717 003 717 — free, twenty‑four hours.

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 outside an alcoholic’s daily life often have the worst information and the biggest decisions. This site exists to close that gap — honestly and independently.” — James, Tenerife, April 2026