One-to-one sober coaching. Private, online, anywhere in the world.
Nobody's worried about you. That's the problem.
You hold the job. You pay the bills. Nobody has staged an intervention and nobody is going to. And every evening around six you start negotiating with yourself, and every morning you find out you lost.
Twelve questions. Nobody sees your answers but you. No email needed to get your result.
Sober since 14 March 2016. Every call is with me. I don't run ads and nobody pays me to send you anywhere.
Day3,813
Some of this will sound familiar.
- You've quit before and it went well. That's exactly why you started again.
- You count drinks in your head, and you round down.
- You drink faster than the people you're with, so you slow yourself down on purpose.
- You have a rule (never before six, never spirits, never alone) and you keep quietly moving it.
- You've read something like this at one in the morning and closed the tab.
- Your body is fine. You're a bit heavier, you sleep badly, your doctor mentioned something once.
- You're not really worried about the drinking. You're worried about how much of your head it takes up.
I'm Bart. I lost a company, a relationship and most of my twenties to drink, I've been sober 10 years, and I'm not a doctor and I'm not going to send you to a meeting.
Or just message me on WhatsApp and don't book anything. People do that. I answer.
Before you close the tab
What this isn't
Not rehab.
You don't go anywhere. You don't tell your employer. You don't disappear for 28 days and explain the gap for the rest of your career.
Not AA.
No steps, no God, no higher power, no standing up and calling yourself a word you don't accept. If AA works for you, use it, it has saved a lot of people. It didn't work for me.
Not therapy.
I don't diagnose you and we don't do your childhood. I'm not qualified to, and it isn't what stops the drinking on a Tuesday. If you need a therapist I'll say so, and I know what that sounds like coming from someone trying to sell you sessions.
Not an app.
No streak counter, no badges, no daily notification you'll mute by week two. It's me, on a call, saying the thing your friends are too polite to say.
Start with the honest question, not the big one.
The big question is "am I an alcoholic?" and it's a trap. It's unanswerable, it costs you a whole night of arguing with yourself, and whichever way you land you do nothing in the morning.
Here's a better question. Is alcohol currently taking more than it gives?
Twelve questions, about three minutes. It runs in your browser, so I don't see your answers unless you press send. You get a straight read at the end, including one result that tells you to talk to a doctor before you change anything, because for some people stopping suddenly is genuinely dangerous and I'd rather say that than sell you a call.
No email required. No result gets held hostage.
I'm not guessing.
By 28 I'd lost the business, the girlfriend, the apartment and the benefit of the doubt from everyone who had already given it to me twice.
I was never drinking under a bridge. I was drinking in decent bars, in good clothes, with a phone full of people who thought I was doing fine. That's the part nobody warns you about: you can lose almost everything while still looking employed. The collapse doesn't announce itself. It just quietly takes one thing at a time, and every single time there's a reasonable explanation for the thing it took.
I stopped 10 years ago. Not in one heroic decision on a mountain. It took a run of failed attempts, a couple of conversations I didn't want to have, and one person who talked to me like an adult instead of a patient or a project.
Now I live in Bali, I'm married, I have a baby, and I run a healthcare company here. I'm not telling you that so you'll be impressed. I'm telling you because when I was where you might be right now, I could not picture any of it, and nobody could describe it to me in a way I actually believed.
Who I work with
Who ends up on a call with me
Mostly men in their thirties and forties who function. Founders, engineers, chefs, tradesmen, expats, dads. People whose drinking has never cost them a job, only their mornings, their patience, and their sense of who they are when nobody's looking.
Not only men. Women hire me too and the work is identical: what you drink, what you're reaching for when you reach for it, and what goes in that gap instead. I write the way I talk, which is like a Dutch guy in his forties, so some of this reads male. That's my voice, not a door policy.
The high-functioning drinker
Nothing has gone wrong yet. That's the trap.
Dads who drink after bedtime
The two hours that are supposed to be yours.
Founders and business owners
The stress is real. The solution isn't.
Expats in Bali and Southeast Asia
Cheap beer, no structure, nobody who knew you before.
Women who drink alone at home
Nobody sees it, which is why it grows.
Quitting without AA
You are allowed to not want the meetings.
Every one of them started here
Day1
No surprises
How this actually goes
The check
Three minutes, private, no email. You get a straight read on where you're at, and for some people that's the whole thing they needed.
Fifteen free minutes with me
Video or voice, your choice, camera off is completely fine and a lot of people pick that for the first one. I ask what's going on. You say it out loud, which for most people is the first time. At the end I tell you honestly whether I can help. If I can't, I tell you who can. Nobody gets pitched at, because a pitch to someone in your position would be a disgusting way to make a living.
A first real session
$95, sixty minutes. We don't do your life story. We build the next two weeks: what you're doing tonight, what you're doing at the thing on Saturday, and what you say when someone asks why you're not drinking.
A stretch of weeks, if you want one
Most people don't need me forever. Most people need somebody in their corner for about ninety days.
Every number, on the page
What it costs
Every price is on this page, because the industry you're afraid of getting sucked into is the one that won't tell you a number until you're on the phone with a salesperson.
Free
The free 15 minutes
15 minutes, video or voice
- You say out loud what's going on, most people for the first time
- I ask the three or four questions you've been avoiding
- I tell you honestly whether I'm any use to you
- If you'd be better off with a doctor or a therapist, I say so
There is nothing to buy at the end of it.
$95
One session
60 minutes
- We don't do your life story
- We build the next two weeks, specifically
- What you're doing tonight, and at the thing on Saturday
- What you say when someone asks why you're not drinking
One session is one session. It helps, and plenty of people take one useful thing away and go and use it. But drinking doesn't come apart in an hour, and if you already know that, buy the thirty days instead.
$340
The first 30 days
Four weekly sessions
- Four sessions, 60 minutes each
- Me on WhatsApp between them, for the actual moments
- A written first-month plan after session one, one page, specific
The commitment is the product. Someone who has booked four sessions shows up to session three on the week they most want to cancel, and that week is where the work happens.
$890
The 90 days
Twelve weekly sessions
- Twelve sessions, 60 minutes each
- WhatsApp between all of them
- One emergency call you can trigger whenever you need it
- The plan rewritten at day 30 and day 60
Ninety days of this costs less than three months of drinking. I've done that sum with clients and it has never once been close.
Prices are in US dollars and they're the same wherever you live. If money is the real barrier, say so on the free call. I keep a couple of reduced-rate spots and I'm not going to make you prove anything to get one.
If you're not ready to talk to anyone
Fine. Genuinely. Here's what I'd do in your position, for free, without ever speaking to me.
Count for seven days. Every drink, written down, in terms of what is actually in the glass and not what the menu calls a serving. Don't cut down. Don't change anything. Don't perform. Just get the number.
Almost nobody gets the number they expected. The number is the whole beginning. Everything else people do at this stage (the reading, the promising, the researching) is a way of not getting the number.
Then read something. Or message me on WhatsApp and don't book anything. People do that constantly. I answer, it's me typing, and I'm not going to chase you afterwards.
What people say after
There's nothing here yet, and that's deliberate. I've asked the people I've worked with whether they're willing to be quoted, and until they say yes in writing there is nothing to put on this page. When quotes go up they'll be first names only, exactly as written, nobody paid and nobody given a script.
One thing I need to say plainly
If you drink every day and you drink a lot, stopping suddenly on your own can be dangerous. Not unpleasant. Dangerous. Alcohol withdrawal can cause seizures and a condition called delirium tremens, and people die from it every year, including people who thought they were fine because they were still going to work.
If you shake in the morning, sweat through the sheets, feel sick until the first drink, or have ever had a fit when you cut down, talk to a doctor or go to an emergency department before you stop. A doctor will not be shocked. They see this every week, and there is medication that makes those first days safe.
I'm a coach, not a doctor. I'll work alongside your doctor happily, and if you need one first I'll tell you that instead of taking your money.
United States and Canada: 988 (call or text)
United States, SAMHSA: 1-800-662-4357, free, 24 hours, confidential
United Kingdom and Ireland: 116 123 (Samaritans)
United Kingdom, drugs and alcohol: 0300 123 6600 (FRANK)
Netherlands: 113 or 0800 0113. Alcohol Infolijn: 0900 1995
Australia: 13 11 14 (Lifeline). Alcohol and drugs: 1800 250 015
Anywhere else: findahelpline.com gives you your country's number in about ten seconds
This site is not emergency care. If you or somebody else is in danger, call your local emergency number now.
Fifteen minutes, free, and there's nothing at the end of it to buy.
Worst case you spend a quarter of an hour telling the truth to a stranger who has heard all of it before, has done most of it himself, and isn't going to flinch.
I'm in Bali (UTC+8). I keep early-morning and evening slots so Europe and the US aren't stuck calling me at four in the morning.
Sober since 14 March 2016. Peer recovery coaching, not medical or mental health treatment. I take no referral fees from anyone.