Eight weeks to come out of a compulsive behaviour. And for all that time, nobody will ask you to stop anything before you have decided it yourself.
Eight places per cohort · group workshops online, Tuesday evenings
Half the people who contact me have the same fear: that they will be asked to stop everything, right now, forever. That fear stops more people from starting than the price does.
So I will say it straight away. There are three options, they stay open, and you are the one who chooses:
Change nothing. It is an option, and it has a cost we will put a number on together.
Change the terms without stopping. For some people, that is the right choice.
Take the wheel back completely. It is what most people choose — afterward, never before.
The decision is made in week five, never on the first evening, and never during the call. Before that, we observe.
Alcohol. Drugs and medication. Gambling and money. Relationships and sexuality. Screens. Work, performance, food, shopping.
Six families that look like they have nothing to do with each other — and one and the same mechanism underneath. That mechanism is what we work on, not the category. It is also why “is my case serious enough” is not the right question.
You may already have stopped something. And a few weeks later, something else settled in. The alcohol stops and the sugar starts. One relationship ends, and the next one looks strangely like it.
That is neither bad luck nor a lack of seriousness. The behaviour changed, but what it was solving stayed intact. Because a compulsive behaviour was never the problem — it was the solution. An expensive solution, but a solution all the same. As long as what it solves is not solved another way, your brain will find another one. That is rather clever of it, in fact.
Now here is the good news. The transfer proves something nobody has told you: you are capable of stopping. You have already done it. What was missing was working on the cause instead of the effect.
There is a number you have probably never written down: what your behaviour costs you, per year, and then over a lifetime. This is not an exercise to make you feel bad — shame makes people use, it has never made anyone stop.
It is an exercise to make visible something you already pay, every week, without ever having seen it written down in black and white. Three profiles with figures, the cost over thirty years, and the part that cannot be counted at all.
And here is the good news: what it costs you to continue is exactly the measure of what you get back by changing.
A one-to-three-week individual start. We begin one to one, before the group: a seven-day plan, your own observation, the breathing. You arrive at the first workshop with your own data, not with theory.
Eight 90-minute group workshops, Tuesday evenings, online, eight people maximum.
Eight one-to-one sessions alongside them, at your own pace.
Three tools you keep afterward: the conditioning map to see, the NO principle to decide cold, and 4-2-8 breathing to bring your baseline tension down.
The group rules, stated on the first evening: complete confidentiality, camera on, nothing is imposed on you, don’t believe everything I say — check it — and your commitment equals your result.
Look closely at where the decision falls: week five. Three weeks of the program remain after it. That is no accident. The third week after a decision is almost always the hardest. In this format, you go through it with support — not alone at home, a month after the program ended.
Seeing plainly. Not judging, not explaining: observing, with data you gather yourself.
Putting a belief up against reality and seeing whether it holds. That is where the decision becomes possible, because it becomes informed.
Installing a new response. A behaviour becomes automatic in about two months — we celebrate at thirty days, we aim for ninety.
The twenty-one-day myth does not hold up. I would rather tell you before you start than on day twenty-two.
It is a fair question, and it deserves better than “trust me”. What I have been explaining from the start — the conditioning, the cycle in five stages, the rope, the NO principle — is not a theory I cobbled together on my own.
A neuroscientist who was himself a heroin addict describes exactly the same mechanism. I summarized his book and connected it point by point to what you will be doing in the program — including the places where I disagree with him.
I would rather disqualify you honestly today than disappoint you in six weeks.
Is this a program for alcohol addiction?
People very often arrive with that word, and I understand why. I do not use it — it carries disease, drama and incurability, and none of the three helps you change. I talk about compulsive behaviour and conditioning. The program takes in alcohol, drugs, screens, gambling, shopping, work and compulsive attachment: six categories, one mechanism.
Do I have to stop drinking to take part?
No. It is one of the rules of the program: nothing is imposed on you. The three options — status quo, moderation, freedom — stay open until week five, and you are the one who chooses. Many people sign up precisely because they are not ready to decide yet.
How is this different from Alcoholics Anonymous?
The respect I have for AA takes nothing away from the difference: the work is not done the same way. Here you are neither ill nor marked for life. You have a habit your brain learned, and we work with the mechanisms of learning to install another one. There is no round of introductions where people name themselves by their behaviour.
How long before something changes?
You see your own mechanism at work in the very first week of observation — often the most striking moment of the program. For a new behaviour to become automatic, count on about two months. We celebrate at thirty days and aim for ninety.
What if the behaviour comes back during the program?
It happens, and it is not a failure: it is data. A return of the behaviour tells us exactly which function is not yet covered another way. We analyze it with the three columns — the function, the emotion, the belief — and the program moves on. Shame makes people use; it has never made anyone stop.
Is it online or in person?
The eight group workshops are online, Tuesday evenings, which lets people from anywhere join the same group. The one-to-one sessions are online or in person in Montreal, whichever suits you.
How much does it cost?
The amount is discussed on the assessment call, because it depends on how long an individual start you need. What I can tell you: it is a four-figure investment and there is a payment-plan option. The call itself is free and with no commitment.
Is it confidential?
Entirely. Confidentiality is the first rule stated at the first workshop and it applies to everyone, me first. The group has eight people maximum, precisely so that it stays workable.
Thirty minutes on the phone, free and with no commitment. You tell me where you are. I tell you frankly whether this program can help you — and if it cannot, I say that too, and I point you elsewhere.
Once this program is done, another question almost always arrives: now that you can choose, what do you choose? That is what my second program is for — Is There a Pilot in the Plane? It is offered in French for now.
Is there a pilot in the plane? Yes. It is you.
© 2026 Coaching Patrice Beaudoin — coach en potentiel humain à Montréal
Anciennement Maison La Bouée · Politique de confidentialité