Days one to seven.

The medical reality. If you are alcohol-dependent, week one is also a detox. The medication is usually a benzodiazepine on a tapering schedule (chlordiazepoxide, also known as Librium, in most UK clinics; sometimes diazepam). The dose is calibrated to your assessment. The taper is usually five to seven days. You will feel sedated. You will feel anxious in waves. You will sweat. You may not sleep well. You will be observed every few hours. You will hate the observations and you will need them. The nurse is not your enemy. The nurse is the one keeping you alive.

If you are dependent on benzodiazepines as well as alcohol, week one looks different and is medically more complex. That is for your clinical team, not this page.

The schedule. Even in detox, most clinics start the structure on day two. Light groups. A short walk. A nutrition session. The day is built so you cannot disappear into the bed, because disappearing into the bed in week one is what alcohol-dependence already taught you to do.

The food. Three meals a day, sat down, with everyone else. Communal. Most clinics put effort into the food because it is one of the few sensory pleasures available. Your appetite will return at unexpected speeds. You may also find sweet foods irresistible. That is the body asking for sugar in the absence of alcohol. It will pass. The kitchen knows. There is usually a fruit bowl and a biscuit tin available all day.

The phone rule, again. Week one is when you most want your phone and least need it. Trust the rule. The reason for it is not punitive; it is that the apparatus of your old life is what you came to interrupt, and your phone is the remote control for the apparatus.

The group. The first group is excruciating. By day four it is just a group. By day seven it is the place you find yourself, fairly often, before you know what is happening. The work is in the group, even when the work is not what is being said.

The night. The first night you cry, properly, is most often somewhere between day three and day six. It will feel like the end of you. It is the start of you. There is a duty nurse on every night. Knock on the office. They are not surprised.

End of week one. You will have detoxed, met the people you will spend the next three weeks with, fallen asleep in a group at least once, said something true at a meal table, received a printed schedule for week two, and started to suspect that something is shifting. The schedule will say the same kind of thing every day. The shift is not in the schedule.

The four weeks, in order

• Day zero — arrival
• Week one — detox and disorientation (this page)
• Week two — the work begins
• Week three — the middle
• Week four — the medical handover and the door

Nothing on this page is a detox plan. No dose, taper or timetable is set out here, and none should be followed from a website: medically managed withdrawal is a clinical decision made by someone who can see you. If today is dangerous, the safety page is the right page.