“Without NiceDay, I would never have dared to talk about my drinking problems with my environment. A small step with a major impact on my recovery”

A steady relation, two lovely children, a nice and challenging job. Johan* keeps everything running, but he feels the need for help. Lately, his addiction complaints are more prominent and his autism complaints also play a role. Johan decides take the step to help and there was NiceDay. In this blog he talks about his experience.

Stigma about addiction

Admitting that you experience complaints is always difficult. Admitting that you are addicted to alcohol may be even more difficult. The stigma surrounding addiction is great and without help you will have a “label” for the rest of your life. Your health insurer, general practitioner and sometimes also your employer are aware of this label. That’s not what I wanted, but I did want help. It took almost a year before I took the step to search online for reliable and online help.

Online help feels close regardless of the distance

I really liked this form of help. The NiceDay app is easy to use and it helped me to capture my thoughts, emotions and feelings when they are still on top of my mind.

The ability to make video calls with your therapist saves you travel time and there is no “walk of shame” to your treatment location. For me it was always a barrier to go to a treatment location, where you can meet people you know at the entrance or in the waiting room.

In addition, the chat function gave me a lot of support. This chat function gave me the opportunity to get help from my therapist when I needed it most (because those times usually do not coincide with the planned sessions).

By chatting, this contact can take place independently of each other, so that you do not have to take the planning of your therapist into account. After all, at exciting moments you hardly ever need a helping hand within an hour or even within a day, but waiting two or three weeks for that support (during the next session) is undesirable.

Connection with my therapist

I am human and I would like to be treated that way. Interaction is even more important to me than the channel where the interaction takes place. Of course, the above advantages are benefits, but I am mainly interested in the connection with my therapist. We are two people, with two roles. That does not mean that one is “better” than the other. Contact with my professional Sarah was always done with mutual respect. Sarah did not have an attitude of “I’ll tell you what and how to do it,”. The sessions focussed on looking for the right steps and solutions together. Without Sarah’s help, I would never have dared to talk about my drinking with my environment. A small step with a big impact on my recovery.

How to continue?

I am not complaint-free, which is not surprising since Sarah is not specialized in addiction care. However, thanks to the help of Sarah and NiceDay, I have decided to continue therapy elsewhere for my complaints. Nevertheless, I fully support the NiceDay concept and will advise others, including mental health care institutions, to get started!

Johan received online help through the NiceDay app. Would you like to know more about online help via NiceDay? Click here for more information.

*This is not Johan’s real name. This is known at the NiceDay editors