Insights
Notes from thirty years on the front line
Honest, practical writing on addiction, recovery and family, from the people who sit with it every day. Written for anyone trying to help someone they love.
What thirty years has taught me about who actually recovers
The polished, articulate patient is the higher-risk intake profile. The plainer prognostic features: unprompted honesty, who drove the admission, and where the consequences have landed.
Read For FamiliesWhen someone you love won’t get help: the legal route South Africa gives families
Act 70 committal is civil, not criminal: no conviction, no record. Applications succeed or fail on the dated incident file, not the family's distress.
Read On AddictionAlcohol is South Africa’s most underestimated addiction
Rule-making about drinking is itself a progression marker. The markers in order, a family self-audit, and the thresholds that require a doctor.
Read For EmployersThe signs a colleague is struggling, and what managers get wrong
A worker in recovery misses 3.6 fewer days a year than the average employee. The three-incident threshold, the conversation protocol, and the safety-sensitive exception.
Read For FamiliesThe family is the patient too
Trained families engage 64 percent of treatment-refusing drinkers; the staged ambush engages 30. The enabling audit, five discharge rules, and trust as verifiable behaviour.
Read On RecoveryThe first week: what actually happens when someone arrives
Opioid withdrawal is rarely fatal; alcohol withdrawal can be. Detox criteria, a worked example, the communication protocol, and the objective day-seven markers.
Read For FamiliesHow to talk to someone about their drinking without starting a war
Confrontation by trained therapists predicted worse drinking at twelve months. The timing criteria, deflection scripts and single-request close that replace it.
Read On RecoveryRelapse is not failure. It is information.
The median number of recovery attempts before stable resolution is two. The relapse autopsy protocol, concealed-use signs, the 24-hour disclosure rule, and readmission criteria.
ReadIf this is your family, you are not the first.
Every conversation is confidential. No commitment, no judgment - just an honest way forward.
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