One does the deeper work. The other keeps you steady, day to day.
People ask me this all the time. A therapist helps you understand why you do what you do. A recovery coach helps you change what you do, day to day, right now. Most people who come to me need some of both, and I work in both roles, so let me explain the difference in plain terms.
A therapist works with the roots. We look at your history, your relationships, the patterns you keep repeating and where they started. The work can be slow. It often reaches things you have carried for years without ever naming them. When someone has trauma, long-standing anxiety, or a habit of self-sabotage that will not shift, therapy is usually where the real change begins. It is a space to feel and to understand, not just to plan.
Coaching is more practical and more present. A recovery coach helps you build the scaffolding that keeps you steady. Your routine. Your triggers. The first hour of your day. The people you call when it gets hard. If therapy asks why this keeps happening, coaching asks what we do about it this week. Coaching tends to move faster and meet more often in early recovery, when the days themselves are the hard part.
I do not treat these as rivals. In the first weeks after someone stops drinking or using, they usually need coaching more than insight. The priority is getting through the day without a drink, not understanding their childhood. Later, when the ground is steadier, the deeper work matters more, because that is what stops the pattern coming back.
People sometimes confuse a coach with a sponsor. A sponsor is someone further along in their own recovery who guides you through a programme, usually for free, from lived experience. That relationship is valuable and I never talk anyone out of it. A coach is a trained professional you pay for structured, confidential support. You can have both. They do different jobs.
Ask yourself what is hardest right now. If you cannot get through the week without slipping, start with coaching. If you are stable but keep ending up in the same place, therapy is probably what you need. If you are not sure, that is fine. Working that out together, honestly, is part of my first conversation with anyone and it changes through time.
Yes. I work in both roles, so the practical support and the deeper work stay joined up rather than split across two practices.
No. Coaching helps with any pattern you are trying to change, including compulsive behaviour, burnout and relapse prevention, not only drugs and alcohol.
No. I see people in person in London and online across the UK, Europe and the Gulf. Online works particularly well for coaching.
Psychotherapist and certified recovery coach. London in person, online across Europe and the Gulf, in English or Arabic.