Moving to a Thai island in October 2020 — mid-pandemic, borders closing, the world in a state — looked, from the outside, like either madness or a very slow midlife crisis. It was neither. It was one of the most considered decisions of my adult life, and five years on I can say plainly: it was the right one. Here’s the honest reasoning behind it.
The pull, not just the push
I want to be careful here, because geographic escapes have a bad name in recovery — and deservedly so. The “geographic cure” is a classic mistake: the addict who moves city, or country, believing the problem is the postcode, and unpacking the same disease at the other end. I’d watched it fail for decades. I’d have been the first to call it out if someone else had pitched me this move.
But this wasn’t a flight from anything. I came to Thailand with nineteen years of continuous sobriety, a clear professional purpose, and a role waiting: joining what has become Holina Global, where I now serve as Managing Director. The question wasn’t “where can I escape to?” It was “where can I do the most useful work of the next twenty years?” The answer was Koh Phangan.
What Thailand offers recovery
There’s a reason people travel here to get well, and it isn’t the brochure version. Yes, the island is beautiful, and yes, the climate is kind to a body recovering from years of punishment. But the deeper advantages are these:
- Distance from the using life. Recovery needs a break in pattern — physical, social, environmental. For someone whose addiction lives in their home city, genuine distance isn’t escapism; it’s a circuit breaker that gives new habits room to take root.
- A culture of calm. The pace of island life, the warmth of Thai culture, and a landscape that gently insists you slow down — these things sound soft until you’ve watched a nervous system fried by years of addiction begin, finally, to settle.
- Serious, professional treatment. This matters more than scenery. At Holina Rehab Koh Phangan — and across the wider group, including Holina Village in Cyprus, Holina Healing Centre in Khao Yai, Holina Clinic and Holina Resort, with Holina Executive opening near Larnaca in September 2026 — the work is clinical, structured and staffed by people who understand addiction from the inside. Paradise without professionalism is a holiday. Professionalism in paradise is treatment.
- Community. Koh Phangan has a recovery community of real depth — meetings, fellowship, and people from every corner of the world who’ve built sober lives here. Nobody recovers alone, and nobody here has to.
The timing
People ask about the date a lot — October 2020, deep in the pandemic, when most of the world was hunkering down rather than moving continents. In truth, the restrictions sharpened rather than delayed the decision. COVID stripped life back to essentials, and the essentials were clear: my health, my sobriety, and the work. Thailand offered all three at full strength. Moving while the world stood still also meant arriving with humility — no fanfare, just quiet purpose, which is exactly how I’d want to start any new chapter.
The work itself
People sometimes assume that moving my work to Thailand meant stepping back from it. The opposite is true. Everything I’d built since getting sober in March 2001 — working in treatment from 2003, founding Sober Services in 2008, founding Sober Academy in 2015, co-founding EARS in 2017 — was preparation for work at a scale I couldn’t have reached staying put. As Managing Director of Holina Global, I’m involved in the full arc of recovery, from first contact through treatment to long-term aftercare, across multiple countries.
And the Academy is coming with me. Sober Academy is relaunching with a complimentary two-day Sober Intervention training on 30–31 October 2026 at Holina Executive in Cyprus — proof, if any were needed, that the move to Thailand expanded the mission rather than retiring it.
What recovery taught me about home
Thirteen years of addiction taught me what it is to have nowhere — I was homeless in London, and I don’t use that word lightly. Twenty-five years of recovery taught me that home isn’t a postcode; it’s the place where you’re useful, at peace, and among people who know you. By that definition, Koh Phangan is home in a way nowhere has been before.
London made me. Recovery remade me. Thailand is where the remade version gets to do his life’s work, and I wake up here grateful most mornings — which, for a man who once woke up in doorways, is not a small thing.
If you’re considering treatment in Thailand or Cyprus — for yourself or someone you love — get in touch and I’ll point you in the right direction. And if you’d like to understand the man behind all this, my book It’s Not About Me! — Confessions of a Recovered Outlaw Addict is free to download from this site.
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