What a Sober Coach Costs, and What You Are Actually Paying For

One session is $95 for sixty minutes. That’s the number, and you can stop reading here if it’s all you came for.

Before the price list, the thing that outranks it. 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, don’t buy anything on this page. See a doctor first. Alcohol withdrawal can cause seizures and it can kill you, and it’s treatable, which is the important half. That’s a medical decision, not a purchase.

What do I charge?

All of it, on one page, with no form to fill in first.

• The first call: free. Fifteen minutes, video or voice. There’s nothing to buy at the end of it.
• One session: $95. Sixty minutes.
• The first 30 days: $340. Four weekly sessions, me on WhatsApp between them, and a written plan after the first session. One page, specific.
• The 90 days: $890. Twelve weekly sessions, WhatsApp between all of them, one emergency call you can trigger whenever you need it, and the plan rewritten at day 30 and day 60.

Prices are in US dollars and they’re identical wherever you live. I don’t charge Americans more and I don’t charge Indonesians less, because I couldn’t defend either version out loud.

Should you buy a single session?

Probably not, and I’d rather say so before you click than after.

One session is one session. It helps. People take one specific thing out of it and go and use it, and that’s a real result. But drinking doesn’t come apart in an hour, and if you already know that, don’t buy one. Buy the thirty days, or buy nothing this month and read the site instead.

The reason the month works isn’t extra content. It’s that somebody who has already booked four sessions shows up to session three in the week they most want to cancel. That week is the entire product.

What do other sober coaches charge?

I went and looked, because you’re going to.

Sober coaches commonly charge $150 to $250 an hour. Sober companions, who physically stay with you, are a different category with day rates most people can’t seriously consider. Weekly therapy runs about $150 a session in a lot of places and is sometimes partly covered by insurance. Residential rehab starts around $15,000 for a stay. The facilities here in Bali start around $10,000.

So coaching is the cheap end of this market, not the premium end. I’m not $95 because I’m a budget version of something. I’m $95 because I run this on my own, with no building, no staff, no admissions department and no marketing budget.

Why won’t most of these sites tell you a price?

Because the price is the objection, and the standard play is to get you on the phone before you hear it. Leave your number and a friendly person will call you back. By the time the figure arrives you’ve already described the worst week of your life to a stranger, which makes it very hard to say no.

There’s a second reason and it’s uglier. A lot of the helpful looking directories, quizzes and phone lines are paid per admission. The page that appears to be neutrally comparing your options is sometimes owned by one of the options.

So, plainly: I take no referral fee from any treatment center, ever, for anyone. If I send you somewhere, it’s because I think it’s right, and I get nothing for it. You have no way to verify that from a webpage, which is exactly why I put the sentence on every page it belongs on and then behave like it.

What are you actually paying for?

Not information. Everything I know about the first thirty days is on this site, free, and if you read all of it and do it on your own, that’s a completely legitimate outcome and I’d be glad about it.

What the money buys is narrower.

• Somebody who knows the excuse before you make it, because he used it. I halved the number for years, including to myself.
• A fixed appointment in the week you most want to disappear.
• WhatsApp at six on a Thursday, when the decision is actually being made, instead of a debrief about it the following week.
• Somebody who won’t be shocked, isn’t in your life anywhere else, and won’t be carrying it around at your next dinner party.

That last one matters more than people expect. Telling a friend costs you something with that friend forever. Telling me costs $95.

What is the drinking costing right now?

Six drinks a day runs roughly $400 to $600 a month in most countries. Bar prices are a different and much worse conversation.

I’m not putting that there to close you. I’m putting it there because almost nobody has ever added it up, and the number tends to land in a way that no article about your liver ever does. Go and count three months of bank statements. It takes twenty minutes and it’s the most useful unpaid work available to you today.

If you want a more structured version of the same exercise, the honest check is twelve questions, three minutes, private, and there’s no email box at the end of it.

What if you can’t afford it?

Say so on the free call. I keep a couple of reduced rate spots and I’m not going to ask you to prove anything to get one. No form, no means test, no documents, no awkward conversation about your circumstances. You tell me money is the real barrier and I believe you.

And the free options are real options, not consolation prizes. AA costs nothing and it’s everywhere. SMART Recovery costs nothing and runs online. A doctor’s appointment may cost you nothing at all depending on where you live, and it’s the highest value hour on this entire page. None of those need me in the room.

What happens if you buy it and hate it?

Buy a package, do the first session, and if you decide it isn’t for you, tell me and I’ll refund the rest. No form, and no conversation about it unless you want one.

I’d rather carry that risk than have somebody sit through eleven more sessions they stopped believing in during the second one, because the money was already gone.

What I won’t sell you at any price

If somebody shows signs of physical dependence, the only thing I sell them is “go and see a doctor”. No exceptions, including when they want to buy.

People do try. Buying something feels like acting, and a doctor’s appointment feels like an admission, so a payment can look like the easier door. It isn’t. The doctor has already heard worse this week, probably before lunch.

The other thing worth knowing about the price is why there’s no funnel around it. I can’t advertise. Google and Meta ban recovery advertising from anyone without LegitScript certification and I don’t hold it. So there’s no countdown, no limited spots language and nobody calling you back. The only distribution I have is people finding the writing, which means the writing has to be worth something even if you never pay me anything.

The only number on this page that’s actually about you

It isn’t $95. It’s what you spent last month.

Go and add it up. Most people never have, not once, and whatever you decide afterwards, you’ll be deciding it with the real figure in front of you for the first time.