Beyond Recovery — For Creative Industries
If this is a conversation your organisation needs to have.
I'd be glad to have it — confidentially, without obligation.
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Most people advising you on this have either clinical training or industry experience — rarely both, and rarely either alongside real, lived recovery. I bring the last two. I spent 20 years as a creative director in branding and advertising, at a senior level, inside the exact pressures — deadlines, egos, late nights, the culture that quietly rewards burning bright and burning out — that sit underneath so much of what gets labelled a performance issue. I'm also decades into my own recovery, decades earned, as I've spent that time mentoring people at every stage of theirs.
I'm not a clinician, and I'll never present myself as one — where clinical or occupational health input is what's actually needed, I'll say so and help you get there. What I can offer instead is something a clinical pathway often can't: a conversation with a struggling senior creative from someone who has actually been in the room they're in, on both sides of it. -
Your best people are sometimes your most at-risk people. In creative industries, exceptional output and genuine struggle can share the same root — the same intensity, the same drive, the same refusal to switch off. Standard HR processes, EAP hotlines, and generic wellness programmes are built for problems with clear edges. This isn't one of those problems, and treating it like one usually just teaches the person to hide it better.
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Discreet, one-to-one support for individuals — alongside your existing HR and clinical processes, never instead of them. Practical guidance for line managers and HR teams who are watching a problem develop and don't have a framework for approaching it. Confidential, structured conversations that protect the relationship between the organisation and the individual, rather than forcing a choice between the two.
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I'm not a substitute for occupational health, HR process, or clinical treatment, and I'll always say so plainly if that's what's actually needed. I don't paper over problems to make them disappear from a report. My value to you is the same thing it is to any individual I work with: I tell the truth, even when it's inconvenient, because the alternative costs you far more later — in retention, in reputation, and in the wellbeing of the people you depend on most.
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If this is a conversation your organisation needs to have, I'd be glad to have it — confidentially, and without obligation.
It's a chance to find out if this is the right fit — and honestly, for me too, because this isn't for everyone, and I'd rather tell you that upfront than after you've committed to something that isn't right.
Our journey beyond recovery starts here.
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No script, no worksheet. It's conversation — the kind that asks the question you didn't know you needed asked, and lets you find your own answer rather than handing you mine. It will be uncomfortable, messy, and at times difficult. It will also be brutally honest and beautifully fulfilling. But whatever you find in it will always be yours, and yours alone. Some sessions we'll do step work. Some we'll sit with a dream that won't leave you alone. Some we'll talk about nothing recovery-shaped at all — just life on life's terms, the moment you finally said the thing out loud to whatever you call your higher power — None of it separate. All of it the same work.
I can't really explain this part. I can only warn you. If you stay in long enough, something changes. You stop putting on a show for me or anyone else. Recovery starts moving through you. People who race cars talk about a moment when the car isn't something you drive. You become part of it. The world blurs. You sit still in the middle of it. That's as close as I can get to what knowing feels like. Not believing. Not faith. Knowing. Nobody can tell you what that's like. You have to get there yourself.
I can't give you that moment. Nobody can — I can keep you in the moment, honest enough: you move from faith to belief. Then you know. Knowing is where peace lives. So when it comes, and it will — you won't be alone.
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No. Programs have steps and an end point. This has neither. If you're looking for something to complete, this isn't it — but if you've already completed something and you're still here, still working, this might be exactly the place.
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People who are clean, sober, or otherwise "recovered" on paper — and know it isn't the whole truth. If you've done the meetings, done the work, and you're still waiting to feel arrived, this was built for you.
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You're still welcome here. But be warned: this doesn't sell comfort, and it doesn't sell a finish line either. It sells the truth that the work doesn't stop — which some people find more useful earlier than they expect.
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Then keep them. This isn't a replacement for your program, your sponsor, or your fellowship — it's not trying to compete with what's already working. It exists for the part even a good program and a good sponsor sometimes can't reach: the part that's still restless after the steps are "done," still circling the same false arrivals in new clothes. Your sponsor gave you the ground to stand on. This is for what you do once you're standing on it and still not at peace.
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No, and I won't pretend otherwise. I'm a mentor and a guide — someone who's done the work, still does it, and has spent years learning to listen with my ears instead of my wounds. If you need clinical care, get it. This sits alongside that, not instead of it.
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Some of it, no — the writing, the fragments, the ongoing work will be free to read. Where mentoring or deeper work is involved, yes, because I don't believe good work should exist only as unused knowledge, and because "everything for free" is its own kind of false arrival — the illusion that value shouldn't cost anything. What it won't do is put a price on struggling, or dangle recovery itself behind a paywall.
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If you're in immediate danger, or thinking about harming yourself, please don't wait for a reply from this site. Call 999, the Samaritans on 116 123, any time, day or night - https://www.aa.org/ and https://na.org/
This work is here for the long haul — but it isn't built for emergencies, and pretending otherwise would be its own kind of false arrival. -
A free 30-minute conversation. No script, no sales pitch, no obligation on either side. It's a chance to find out if this is the right fit for you — and honestly, for me too, because this isn't for everyone, and I'd rather tell you that upfront than after you've committed to something that isn't right.
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What you tell me stays with me. No exceptions made lightly, no stories repeated, no names dropped even anonymised. The only limit is the same one that would apply in any meeting or any room: if I believe you or someone else is in real danger, I'll act on that, and I'll always tell you I'm doing it rather than go behind your back. Beyond that — what's said here, stays here.
Most of what actually changes a person doesn't happen in a single conversation.
— It happens in the third one. The tenth. The one where you finally say the thing you've been circling for months, because someone's still there to hear it — That's what this is.
Ongoing Mentoring
Not a course. Not a program with a start date and a graduation — A sustained relationship.
— Where I remember what you told me last time, notice the pattern you can't yet see yourself, and call it back to you when it actually matters, not on a schedule — Aways in the moment, exactly when you need it most.
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The first conversation isn't a sales pitch, and it isn't a formal session either. It's the same free 30 minutes described elsewhere on this site — a chance for both of us to see if this is right before either of us commits to anything.
If we go ahead, we agree on a shape together, not from a template: how often we talk, what days work, how you'd rather reach me between sessions. Some people want a call every two weeks, some want more — sessions typically run 60 to 90 minutes. That's a conversation between us, not a fixed rule.
A core conversation every few weeks — enough space between them for something real to surface, enough frequency that nothing goes cold. These aren't structured like a therapy session; there's no agenda we're working through. You bring what's actually alive for you that week, and we go wherever that leads — even if it's nowhere near where we started. So long as we get you where you need to be.
Between those calls, you send me what needs saying when it needs saying — a voice note, an email, a few lines of text, whatever it is you need to work through — and I listen, properly, before I answer. I'm not on call, and this isn't built for crisis — but the relationship doesn't go silent between sessions either.
Every few months, we check in honestly: is this still earning its place? If it isn't, we say so, out loud, and stop. There's no graduation ceremony, because I don't believe in one — but there is an honest ending, when an ending is what's true. Some people leave because they're genuinely done. Some leave because life changes. Either is fine. Staying because it's comfortable would be its own kind of false arrival, and I'm not in the business of selling those.
The door is never closed, and the window is always open: If you leave and want to come back, you're always welcome to pick up where we left off — whenever that is, whatever that looks like. And if not, the window of opportunity is always there for you, in whichever form you find it. Wherever you need to take it. It will always be yours.
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I'm not a therapist. Not a counsellor. If you need clinical care, get it — this sits alongside that work, never instead of it. And if you're in crisis, this isn't the right door; I'll help you find the right one.
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Where mentoring with deeper work is involved —I don't believe good work should exist only as unused knowledge, and because "everything for free" is its own kind of false arrival — the illusion that value shouldn't cost anything — What it won't do is put a price on struggling, or dangle recovery itself behind a paywall.
A single session — a stand-alone conversation, no ongoing commitment implied. This costs me roughly £120 to offer properly. Pay within £60–£180 based on what's honestly true for you right now. If you decide to continue into ongoing mentoring, this fee comes off your first month — trying it shouldn't cost you twice.
Ongoing mentoring — the sustained relationship described above. This costs me roughly £500 a month to offer properly. Pay within £350–£750, same principle: honest, not negotiated down out of guilt or up out of obligation.
Either way, no explanation needed, no judgment either way.
If money is genuinely tight
The range above isn't a wall. If you're a student, rebuilding financially, or otherwise genuinely stretched — including if money itself is something being controlled or withheld from you — say so. We'll find a number that works. No justification required.
Pay it forward
If this gave you something worth more than you paid for it, you can fund someone else's first session. No names attached, no thanks expected — just the same thing that was done for you, done again, for someone you'll never meet. Whose life you could change forever…
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This begins the same way everything here does: With a free 30-minute conversation. No script, no sales pitch, no obligation on either side. It's a chance to find out if this is the right fit for you — and honestly, for me too, because this isn't for everyone, and I'd rather tell you that upfront than after you've committed to something that isn't right.
Lets start with a conversation, the first one’s on me.
Thirty minutes. Free. No script, no sales pitch — just a conversation to find out if this is the right fit, both ways. If it is, we keep going. If it isn't, you'll leave with more clarity than you came with. That's not a compromise — That's the whole point.
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