Cocaine Addiction: Counselling and Treatment in London

Cocaine use in London is disproportionately concentrated among professional populations — people in finance, law, media, and executive roles where the culture of use is normalised and the drug’s short-term effects align with professional demands: increased confidence, reduced fatigue, enhanced verbal fluency. This creates a particular clinical picture in which the addiction develops within a context of high functioning, making it easy to sustain for longer than it might otherwise be possible.

The dependence that develops is primarily psychological rather than physical: cocaine does not produce the physical withdrawal of opiates or alcohol, but the psychological dependence — the sense that normal performance or sociability is not possible without it, the craving that arrives reliably in specific contexts — is powerful and persistent. Stopping without understanding what the drug was managing is rarely sustainable.

What cocaine use is managing

In professional contexts, cocaine frequently manages performance anxiety, imposter syndrome, the gap between the person’s internal experience and the competence they need to project, and the difficulty of maintaining the sustained output that senior roles demand. It also manages social anxiety, providing the ease in professional and social settings that anxiety would otherwise prevent. Treatment that does not address these underlying functions tends to produce short-term abstinence followed by relapse.

Treatment at the practice

The practice offers individual psychotherapy for cocaine addiction with specific experience working with professional and executive clients. Sessions are conducted with complete confidentiality. The Harley Street location is used by many clients for whom discretion is a particular priority. Dr Jacquet has specialist addiction training from Hazelden alongside 25 years of integrative clinical practice.