The most common version of this call is not a crisis. It is somebody drinking to hold off the shakes: a shot before work, a drink in the morning because stopping physically hurts, or the one that turns into all of them once it starts. If that is where you are, you are not an unusual case here. It is the most ordinary reason people come to us.
The reason to do this here rather than at home is straightforward. Alcohol is one of the more dangerous detoxes, and along with benzodiazepines it is one of the two where stopping on your own can genuinely hurt you. That is why there is an anti-seizure protocol for alcohol detox, nursing on site around the clock, and a physician looking at your history before you arrive. It is also why we would rather hear from you before it gets bad enough that making the drive is hard.
You do not have to be at a particular point to call. Thirty years or the last six months, daily drinker or weekend binges, one ten-minute conversation settles what the right next step actually is.
