More contact, when it matters most
Detox is not a weekly-appointment problem. Support here steps up while the physical part is loudest and steps back down as it settles, rather than running to a fixed schedule that suits the diary.
Services / Addiction and recovery
Detox support
Intensive counselling support through withdrawal, for people coming off alcohol or other drugs.
What detox support here actually is
Symptomatic care during a drug or alcohol detox means treating the withdrawal symptoms while the body clears the substance. The aim is to keep the person safe, comfortable and medically stable.
Not all of symptomatic care happens here. The medical half, the vital signs, the fluids and anything prescribed, sits with a doctor or a detox service. What Advance Minds provides is the rest: support through the symptoms, reassurance, and relapse-prevention planning, working alongside whoever is handling the medical side. In full, it can include:
- Monitoring vital signs, hydration, sleep and mental state
- Managing nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, pain, sweating and headaches
- Supporting anxiety, agitation, cravings and insomnia
- Providing fluids, nutrition and prescribed medications when clinically appropriate
- Watching for serious complications such as seizures, hallucinations, confusion, severe dehydration or suicidal thoughts
- Offering reassurance, emotional support and relapse-prevention planning
Symptomatic care does not necessarily remove withdrawal altogether. It reduces the distress and helps prevent complications while withdrawal runs its course.
Contact between sessions
The hard hours are rarely the ones with an appointment in them. Reaching a therapist who already knows your history, instead of explaining yourself from scratch to whoever answers, is most of what makes the difference.
The reasons underneath
Getting the substance out of your system does nothing about what it was doing for you. Sleep, anxiety, grief, trauma, boredom, pain: whatever it was managing is still there on the other side, and that is the actual work.
An honest answer about medical detox
Sometimes the right advice is that this is not the place to start. You will get that answer plainly, with help to find the service that is, rather than being kept here because you asked here first.
What it helps with
- Deciding whether you can stop safely where you are
- Cutting down, when stopping outright is not realistic yet
- The first fortnight, when the physical part is loudest
- Cravings that arrive faster than any plan for them
- Sleep, anxiety and low mood in the weeks after stopping
- The days after a clinical detox, when the structure disappears
- A relapse you have not told anyone about
- Going back to the same house, job and phone contacts
When a medical detox is the right call
Not every withdrawal is safe to do outside a medical setting, and the difference is not about how determined you are. Alcohol and benzodiazepines are the two where stopping suddenly can be dangerous rather than simply miserable, and either can need a doctor supervising it.
So that question gets asked here first, before anything is booked or planned. If the answer points to a medical detox, you will hear it plainly and be helped to find one, and the counselling can pick up on the other side. A practice that only ever recommends itself is not much use to someone in withdrawal.
If you are drinking daily, or taking benzodiazepines regularly, speak to a doctor before you stop. Today rather than afterwards.
Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal can be life-threatening and should not be attempted without medical assessment. Severe confusion, hallucinations, seizures, chest pain, breathing difficulties or loss of consciousness need urgent medical help. Call 000.
Common questions
Do you run a detox clinic?
No. Advance Minds is a counselling practice, not a hospital or a detox unit. There are no beds, there are no admissions, and nobody here supervises a withdrawal medically. What we provide is the counselling and the day-to-day support around detox, and a referral to a medical detox where that is the safer path.
So what does detox support here actually mean?
Intensive counselling through the hardest stretch. That usually means more contact than ordinary weekly therapy, often several sessions a week while the physical part is loudest, and someone who already knows your situation when things get difficult between appointments. It is the support around a detox rather than the medical management of one.
Can I book a detox here?
No. What you can book is a conversation about detox, which is where it should start anyway. In that first appointment we work out what you are coming off, how much, for how long, and what has happened the last time you stopped. That conversation decides what comes next, and sometimes what comes next is a doctor rather than us.
How do you decide whether I need a medical detox?
By asking, before anything else. What the substance is, how much and how long, whether you have had seizures or hallucinations when stopping before, and what else is going on with your health. Some of those answers point straight to medical supervision. If yours do, you will be told plainly and helped to find it, rather than signed up here.
Which withdrawals need medical supervision?
Alcohol and benzodiazepines are the two where stopping suddenly can be genuinely dangerous rather than just unpleasant, and both can need medical supervision. That is not a call to make from a website, including this one. If you are drinking daily or taking benzodiazepines regularly, speak to a doctor before you stop, and speak to one today rather than after you have stopped.
Do you prescribe anything?
No. Nobody at Advance Minds is a doctor, so nothing here is prescribed, dispensed or medically supervised. Anything of that kind belongs with your GP or a medical detox service, and we are glad to work alongside them.
What happens after the physical part is over?
That is usually where the real work starts. The fortnight after a detox is when the structure disappears, the reason you were using is still there, and most relapses happen. Detox support here is built to carry straight on into ordinary counselling rather than stopping the day the physical symptoms do.
Can my family be involved?
Yes, and it often helps. The people around you are usually exhausted, frightened and out of ideas by the time detox is on the table. Support is available for them in their own right, whether or not you are a client here. See support for families affected by addiction.
Who you'd be working with
Shuv Homsi
Lead Therapist · ACA-Registered Clinical Supervisor
Shuv brings extensive experience in addiction counselling alongside relationship and mental health work. His own journey through addiction and recovery shapes how he works: empathy and authenticity first, then practical strategies that hold up in real life.
Marco DeLuca
Addiction & Rehabilitation Counsellor
Marco guides people through addiction recovery and the work of rebuilding afterwards, including substance use, behavioural addictions and co-occurring mental health challenges. He specialises in relapse prevention.
You will be allocated to the therapist who best meets your needs once you have booked. You do not have to work out who you need to see before you have spoken to anybody.
Not sure whether this is the right place to start?
Book an appointment and say what you are coming off. Working out whether this is the right setting, or whether you need a doctor first, is the conversation, not something to decide before you have it.
Before you book: the form asks for a few details, including an emergency contact. If you do not have a diagnosis, writing "none" is a perfectly good answer. And if you are booking for someone else, say so in the "relationship to client" field and we will work it out from there. If there is a particular therapist you would like to see, put their name in the "Additional Information" box and we will take it into account.
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