Holborn · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Addiction counselling and rehab advice for Holborn
Typing 'rehab Holborn' between Chancery Lane meetings usually means hunting for one answer: who sets up treatment for the drinking or drug use, yours or a partner's. For Camden residents, that is CGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service. My part is private one-to-one addiction counselling, and since the Hove room lies 100 minutes' drive from Kingsway, we meet by secure video, whether you are the one using or a worried relative.
The practical facts for Holborn
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Holborn by car
- About 100 minutes with clear roads (54.2 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free local drug & alcohol service
- CGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service (Change Grow Live Camden), 020 7485 2722
- Fees
- £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90, £120 for 120. The first 15-minute call is free.
- Registration
- BACP registered member, no. 109340 (check the register); UKCP student member in advanced psychotherapy training.
Inns of Court, Hatton Garden and the drink nobody counts
Holborn runs on reputation. Barristers and clerks have worked around Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn since medieval times, the Hatton Garden jewellers deal in diamonds and jewellery, and the newer offices and hotels along Kingsway and High Holborn bring deadlines of their own. Between the chambers and the jewellers' counters, someone can hide heavy drinking or drug use for years while still being first at their desk and still winning the case. Camden's public health profile records a lower prevalence of alcohol abuse or dependence in the Holborn and Covent Garden ward than in the rest of the borough. A ward figure like that can make your own situation feel stranger, as if nobody nearby would understand, yet it describes recorded numbers and never a particular person. Only about 11,400 residents are projected for the whole ward, so on weekdays its streets belong mostly to commuters who live elsewhere. Families tend to notice first: the partner who hears the second bottle hit the recycling, or the grown-up child uneasy about a parent living alone off Leather Lane.
What CGL Camden arranges, and what our sessions add
For Camden residents, treatment starts with a call to CGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service on 020 7485 2722, the borough team that Change Grow Live operates. Its staff look at what you drink or use, agree with you whether you need help in the community, a medically supervised detox or a bed in residential rehab, and organise whichever you choose. If you work in Holborn but live in another borough, your own council's drug and alcohol service is the one to contact, and our sessions carry on unchanged wherever you live. What I provide is outpatient counselling, one hour a week, that can come before an assessment, run alongside treatment or carry on afterwards. In a professional world where reputation feels fragile, much of the early work is simply saying the true numbers aloud for the first time: how much, how often, and what you have been telling colleagues and family. From there we explore what each drink or drug has been doing for you, perhaps easing the comedown after a long hearing, filling a silent flat or muffling an older hurt, and what could take its place. More than 25 years of practice, and a recovery I have lived myself, go into each hour we spend on this. Partners and relatives can book separate hours entirely for themselves.
Four starting points around Holborn
An assessment through CGL Camden
Camden residents can contact CGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service on 020 7485 2722, where decisions about detox, residential care or community treatment are made with you.
A partner or child is using
Some Space Camden is Change Grow Live's service for family and friends, and an hour with me can be kept entirely for what you have been carrying.
Quietly becoming someone's carer
Camden Carers supports people looking after another person, worth knowing when a partner's or parent's drinking has slowly turned you into the one holding everything together.
A parent ageing alone nearby
Holborn Community Association runs wellbeing activities at Holborn House and Millman Street, plus a lunch club for over-55s, company for an older relative while you get support yourself.
Public health figures for the area
These are local authority figures from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. "Similar to England" means the difference is not statistically significant. The figures describe a whole population over a period, not any one person.
Free drug and alcohol support for Holborn
Change Grow Live runs both the main Camden treatment service and Some Space Camden for relatives. Mind in Camden and the Reach Out Camden collective offer wider mental health support, while the Camden Crisis Sanctuary, run by Hestia, and Central London Samaritans are there on the hardest evenings. Private counselling with me works alongside any of these, as an addition to treatment.
- Free drug and alcohol serviceCGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service (Change Grow Live Camden)020 7485 2722Free and confidential.
FRANK (on 0300 123 6600) and Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 are free and confidential, and Alcoholics Anonymous and SMART Recovery run peer-support meetings you can find online. For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
If raising someone's drinking or drug use with them feels unsafe, or someone at home is hurting, threatening or controlling you, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247. In immediate danger, call 999.
Detox and residential rehab are arranged through the free local drug and alcohol service named here. It assesses what you need, arranges medically assisted withdrawal where that is safe and needed, and can refer for community or residential treatment. My part is one-to-one counselling before, alongside or after that treatment, to help the changes last.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
Locally, the Camden and Islington Crisis Single Point of Access is on 0800 917 3333. Local drop-in crisis support: Camden Crisis Sanctuary (Hestia) (check opening times before you go).
If you, or someone you live with, drink heavily every day, or take drugs such as benzodiazepines or GHB daily, do not stop suddenly without medical advice. Withdrawal can cause seizures and can be dangerous. Your GP or the local drug and alcohol service can arrange medically assisted withdrawal. Call 999 or go to A&E if someone in withdrawal is shaking visibly, unusually restless or agitated, confused, seeing or hearing things that are not there, or has a fit. For milder symptoms, such as a slight tremor or sweating, contact your GP or NHS 111 the same day (NHS guidance). Counselling works alongside medical support, not instead of it.
What people in Holborn ask before starting
Who arranges rehab or detox for someone who lives near Holborn?
If you live in Camden, the route is an assessment with CGL Camden Integrated Drug and Alcohol Service on 020 7485 2722, which then organises support in the community, a supervised detox or residential care, depending on what is safe for you. If you only work in Holborn, contact the drug and alcohol service in the borough where you live. Wherever you live, weekly video counselling with me can start ahead of that assessment and continue through treatment and beyond.
My husband works in Holborn and keeps his drinking hidden from me. Where can I get support?
You can have help whatever he decides. Change Grow Live runs Some Space Camden for the relatives and friends of anyone drinking or using, and Camden Carers is there if you have become the one keeping the household running. Sessions with me can belong entirely to you: the lying awake, the excuses you have made for him, and what you are prepared to keep carrying.
Could I see you in person rather than by video from Holborn?
The room is in Hove, about 100 minutes' drive from Holborn, so weekly work runs on secure video. When a face-to-face session matters, Thameslink from Farringdon, or from City Thameslink except on Sundays, reaches Brighton directly, and a short hop takes you on to Hove. We can book a longer session for those days to make the trip worthwhile.
Will anyone at my Holborn chambers or office find out I'm having addiction counselling?
You refer yourself, so no employer, GP or professional body needs to be involved. What you say stays confidential, with only the standard safety exceptions I explain at our first session, so nothing reaches your clerk or managing partner. Joining by video from home keeps it out of the office altogether. Heavy daily drinkers should check the alcohol withdrawal note in this page's urgent help box first, because stopping suddenly is not always safe.
How much do sessions cost, and is the first call free?
Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for 120 minutes, the same in person in Hove or by video. The first 15-minute call is free, with no obligation to book. There is no NHS referral needed to see me privately.
A confidential first conversation, away from the office
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.