Borough Green · Sevenoaks · Kent
Addiction counselling that does not run on willpower
I am Carley Compaan, an addiction counsellor and ACT therapist working from a private room in Borough Green. Almost everyone who contacts me has already stopped before — more than once. That is usually where the useful work starts.
- ACCPH registered
- Free 15-minute call
- Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9am to 5pm
- In person or online
Start where you actually are
Which of these sounds closest?
See everything I work with — including gaming, shopping and spending, food and eating behaviour, relapse prevention, and the anxiety and low mood that so often sit underneath.
Why stopping does not stick
Willpower is the wrong tool
If willpower worked on its own, you would have stopped by now. Almost everyone I see has already proved they can stop for a week, a month, sometimes longer. The problem was never the stopping. It is what happens on the evening when it is hard.
Willpower is the effort to push an urge away. That effort is finite — and the moment your reserve is lowest is exactly the moment life is most demanding. That is not bad luck. It is structural, and it is why the pattern of "fine for three weeks, then a terrible Thursday" is so consistent across people who have never met.
What holds up on that Thursday is not more determination. It is having somewhere else to put the urge, and a reason to bother that is bigger than not-drinking.
The method
Not "think positive". Something more workable.
I work primarily with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — ACT — which was developed in large part on exactly the problem addiction presents: what do you do when the thing that helps in the next ten minutes is the thing wrecking the next ten years?
Rather than arguing with a craving, you learn to have one without obeying it — to let it rise, peak and pass while you carry on doing something else. Then we do serious work on what you actually want your life to be for, because nobody stays stopped for long on discipline alone.
Where a specific belief or habit loop needs breaking, I use CBT alongside it.
What happens
Getting started takes one phone call
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A free 15-minute call
You tell me roughly what is going on. I tell you honestly whether I think I can help and how I would approach it. If someone else would suit you better, I will say so and point you to them. No cost, no obligation.
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A first full session
Fifty minutes. We map what is happening, what you have already tried, what it is costing you, and what you would want instead. You leave with something practical to try, not just a plan to have a plan.
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Weekly work, for as long as it is useful
Most people come weekly at first. Some need six sessions, some considerably more. We review openly every few weeks, and I will tell you when I think you are done rather than letting it drift.
What a first session is actually like · Fees and availability
In their words
What people have said
Feeling supported in my journey of recovery.P.H.
I've managed to gain some tools to help with my anxiety and stress.A.H.
Easy to find, and such a warm and comforting space.
Used with consent and anonymised.
Practical
The room is in Borough Green
Unit 3, The Chaplin, 6 Wrotham Road, Borough Green, Sevenoaks, TN15 8DB. There is free parking on site, and Borough Green & Wrotham station is a few minutes' walk — which matters if you would rather not have your car recognised outside.
I see people from Borough Green, Wrotham, Ightham, Platt, Kemsing, Otford, Sevenoaks, West Malling, Kings Hill, Snodland, Larkfield, Aylesford, Tonbridge and Maidstone. If getting here is the obstacle, I also work online across Kent and the rest of the UK.
Straight answers
Fees, hours and confidentiality
Common questions
Do I have to want to stop completely?
No. Plenty of people arrive unsure, or wanting to cut down rather than stop. That is a legitimate starting point and we can work with it honestly. What does not work is pretending to a certainty you do not feel — so bring the ambivalence with you.
Is this confidential? I work locally.
Yes. Nothing you say is shared with your GP, your employer, your insurer or your family without your explicit agreement. The exceptions are narrow and legally defined — a serious risk to your life or someone else's, or a court order — and I will tell you if one ever applies. The room has its own entrance and there is no shared waiting area.
How is this different from AA or a rehab clinic?
Different tools, and they are not in competition. Twelve-step groups offer fellowship and structure that one-to-one therapy cannot. Residential rehab offers a break from the environment. What I offer is individual work on the specific mechanics of your own pattern — what triggers it, what it does for you, and what to put in its place. Many people do this alongside a group, and that combination often works well.
How many sessions will I need?
It depends on what you are working with. Some people get what they need in six to eight sessions. Longstanding patterns, or ones tangled up with trauma or grief, usually take longer. We review every few weeks and I will tell you plainly when I think you are ready to finish.
Can I bring my partner?
Sometimes, and it can be very useful — particularly around trust after a period of hidden drinking, betting or porn use. We would talk about it on the phone first, because it changes what the sessions are for.
What if I relapse?
Then we look at it, carefully and without theatre. A lapse is information: it tells us what the pattern still needs. The people who do worst are the ones who disappear out of shame after a slip. Come back and tell me — that is what the sessions are for.
Talk it through first
The first step is a short phone call. No commitment, no pressure — just a conversation about what is going on and whether I am the right person to help.
Free 15-minute call · Confidential · Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9am to 5pm