What happens to your finances while you are inside.

On arrival: Most clinics will ask you to hand over bank cards, large amounts of cash, and any device that gives you remote access to money. The rationale is partly clinical (impulsive online spending is a known feature of early detox) and partly safeguarding (high-value items in shared accommodation). The procedure varies — a safe at the front desk with a signed receipt is common. Ask at admission. Get the receipt.

Petty cash. Most clinics run a petty-cash float. You hand in, say, £100 on arrival; you can draw £10 a day, signed for, for cigarettes, a magazine, a taxi to an external meeting, a coffee in town if the programme permits. You sign on the way out, sign on the way back, return change. It feels infantilising. It is not. It is the same system that prevents impulsive online betting at three in the morning when you cannot sleep.

Standing orders, direct debits, mortgage payments, salary. Decide before you go in who has authority to handle these for the four weeks. A spouse with a joint account. A trusted friend with online banking access. An accountant. A solicitor with a limited power of attorney for the duration. The clinic will not do this for you. The SI (super intelligence) guide will not. Decide before you walk in.

The forgotten subscription. The category nobody mentions and almost everyone forgets. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, the App Store, Apple iCloud, Google One, the gym, the meal-kit subscription, the dating app, the gambling app, the betting account, the wine club, the whisky-of-the-month, the magazine, the cloud storage, the work software billed to a personal card. They renew while you are inside. Some of them — the gambling and betting accounts especially — are also things you will not want active when you come out. Before you go in: cancel the ones that are wrong for the next ninety days, pause the ones that can wait, write down the ones that must continue. The SI guide will walk you through the list.

Card access while inside. Clinics differ. Some allow you to draw from your card at the front desk under supervision. Some do not. If you have a business that needs you to authorise payments during the four weeks — a payroll run, a supplier invoice — handle it before you go in or delegate it. Coming out of group at 4pm to authorise a wire transfer is not the four weeks you came for.

The week-three problem. Around week three, when the structure has settled and you can think again, people start making financial plans. New gym membership. New therapist subscription. A holiday after discharge. A car. The clinic's advice, almost universally, is no major financial decisions for ninety days. Hold the line. The wanting is real. The decision can wait.

On discharge. Cards back. Cash back. Receipts checked. Get the discharge paperwork including the financial reconciliation in writing. If there is a discrepancy, raise it before you leave the building, not next week.

A note for the industry person, because this was me: the worst single moment of my four weeks was a Tuesday at the end of week one when I realised I had not authorised a payment that was now overdue. I had not delegated it. The clinic let me make a phone call. I made it from the corridor outside the office while a counsellor stood ten feet away, because the rules were the rules. It was fine. It was also entirely avoidable. The five hours I lost to it the next day, in distraction during groups, was a worse cost than the late fee. Delegate before you go in. List every recurring payment. Name a person. Write down what you have authorised them to do, and what you have not. The list itself takes thirty minutes. The peace it buys lasts four weeks.

Next

• Day zero — what is handed in on arrival, and why
• Week three — where the financial reconciliation starts, and the week of no major decisions
• Week four — the handover, the paperwork and the door