Rehab in the Real World in Central London: Help Me Stop, Fitzrovia

Help Me Stop, Fitzrovia, London launch event

Author Chris Love

We’re here in central London and our door is open to adults who need help with addiction to alcohol or drugs. To celebrate our new Dayhab in Fitzrovia, we held a launch event. We’re grateful to all our guests who came to celebrate with us. To discover more about our low-cost Dayhab and Online Rehab programme, call us on 0208 191 9191. If you’re a professional and you’d like to find out about referring to Help Me Stop, please call or contact us here.

Intensive addiction treatment, at a fraction of the cost of residential rehab

Speaking at the launch event, Tim Smith, CEO of Help Me Stop, said: ‘Our objective was to create something that was different in addiction treatment. We are providing almost identical intensive treatment that anyone would receive in a residential treatment centre but we’re doing it at a fraction of the cost. We’re opening up to many thousands of people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get clean and sober. We’re enabling them to get through the gate and restart their lives.’

‘Addiction is something anyone can struggle with’

Councillor Patricia Callaghan, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for a Healthy and Caring Camden, said: ‘I looked at the ethos of Help Me Stop, which is rehab in the real world – high quality, low cost treatment with no compromise on quality or care. Many staff members are in long term addiction recovery and who better to treat addiction and support someone through rehab than a person who has been there themselves – a person who knows what it’s like and wants to help others overcome the craving and despair. Addiction is something anyone can struggle with. Anyone can be addicted from kings and queens to working people: if you’re addicted, you’re addicted. It’s great to see Help Me Stop trying to destigmatise addiction treatment, providing help to parents, carers, working and non-working people.

‘This environment, it just blows you away. It’s a welcoming space, a really comfortable place. Clients want to be here, where they help each other without being judged or stigmatised. The work of this organisation speaks to our population health approach in Camden, improving physical and mental health, promoting wellbeing and reducing health inequalities across our entire population. Being non-residential means more people can get help and support without the barrier of feeling that they can’t seek help because of their life responsibilities. You don’t have the financial burden with Help Me Stop. You’re living your everyday life whilst getting access to care. We want to make Camden a place to start well, live well and age well, and a key part of our strategy is about reducing health inequalities in Camden, which is exactly what Help Me Stop seeks to do. I wish you every success in supporting our people to overcome the despair of addiction. I wholeheartedly welcome you into Camden.’

‘Warm, welcoming and therapeutic’

John Graham said: ‘Hello, I’m John, I’m an addict. I’m in recovery. I also work in addiction treatment. I’ve come to the Help Me Stop programme this evening and as I came in, I felt the ambience of the building and the people in it to be very warm, welcoming and therapeutic. It’s a genuine, structured, day treatment programme that is of great value, both to the clientele and to the practitioners who are delivering the programme. It’s a wonderful project.’

‘We give what you’d expect in a residential setting in our community setting’

Sammy Manzaroli, Director of Treatment Services at Help Me Stop, said: ‘We’ve got something quite special on offer here that can help a lot of people. We’ve got two Dayhab centres now, one in Acton and one in Fitzrovia. My personal experience is that addiction treatment is very expensive – if you’re going to go residential, you either need a lot of money to go private or a lot of patience to access statutory services. Our prices are so much more achievable for so many more people. We give what you’d expect to receive in a residential setting in our community setting, where people can go home at night and be around their families. Our clients don’t have to put their lives completely on hold.

‘I love the ethos of Help Me Stop: rehab has to be respectful, accessible and somewhere I would be comfortable for one of my family getting help. I can confidently say that I would be very happy for that to happen here. All of our clients give us feedback that they were taken by surprise when they arrived in Dayhab with us. They say, ‘this isn’t what I imagined that I would come into.’ They expected something clinical, punishing, a bit rundown – they certainly didn’t think it would be as warm and welcoming as it is.’