When burnout from work comes with a drink in the evening, a sleeping tablet at night or a stimulant in the morning, burnout treatment at Renewed Life Center works on both. You live in a house in Lakeside, Cape Town, and most clients stay into a second month.

Your phone and laptop stay with you, and you can keep working remotely, by arrangement with your counsellor. If burnout has brought anxiety or low mood without a drink or pills, see our anxiety and depression support. The first conversation is free and confidential, and we reply the same day.

Executive Burnout & Wellness in Cape Town

Talk to us in confidence

Who our burnout treatment is for

You may run a business or a team, practise law or medicine, or manage other people’s money. In a job like that, executive burnout can hide behind competence for a long time: the work still gets done, and only the people at home see the person who comes back at night. Two groups of signs matter here: the burnout itself, and what you now use to keep going.

Signs of burnout:

  • Tiredness that sleep, a weekend or a holiday no longer fixes.
  • Insomnia, early waking or a mind that will not switch off.
  • Irritability, feeling on edge or feeling flat.
  • Difficulty concentrating or making decisions.
  • Work that has become hard to face.
  • Conflict at home or withdrawing from people close to you.

Signs that what keeps you going has become a problem:

  • The evening drink comes earlier or has grown into a bottle.
  • Sleeping tablets or tranquillisers are used longer than prescribed.
  • Stimulants or cocaine help you get through a deadline.
  • Attempts to change your drinking have not held.
  • A partner or colleague has raised concerns, and you hide how much you use.

If you recognise yourself in several of these points, talk to us: we work on the burnout and the drink or pills together.

If you are reading this about a partner, burnout often shows at home first: distance, a short temper or feeling overwhelmed by small things. What looks like indifference may be overload. You do not have to wait until they are ready before you write to us.

What burnout is, and where a drink or a tablet comes in

Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic stress at work that has not been successfully managed, according to the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 classification of 2019. It shows as exhaustion, growing distance or cynicism about the job, and a drop in how well you work. For the people this page is written for, more has come with it: broken sleep, anxiety or low mood, and a drink or pills that keep the days going.

A drink switches off the evening, a tablet brings sleep, a stimulant gets you to the deadline. Alcohol is often used to cope with symptoms of mental health conditions, and ultimately makes the problems worse, the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism notes.

Kerry Dominie-Williams, a TRE practitioner at Renewed Life Center, calls drinking or using a coping strategy, one that carries on “until such time as we realise we can’t do this anymore because it takes more than it gives.” Here, the work looks at both: the exhaustion, and the drink or pills that have been covering it.

If you take sleeping tablets or drink every day

If you drink every day, or take sleeping tablets or tranquillisers most nights, do not stop suddenly on your own. The NHS warns that you may become dependent on the sleeping tablet zolpidem (Stilnox) if you take it for longer than 4 weeks; our guide to Stilnox in South Africa covers the tablet itself. For benzodiazepine tranquillisers, a 2025 joint guideline on tapering, led by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, warns that stopping abruptly can bring serious and potentially life-threatening withdrawal. Daily drinking carries its own withdrawal risk, and the same caution applies to codeine and other opioids, mandrax and GHB.

Before you cut anything down, tell us what you take and how often; we go through the next steps with you on the first call. After the assessment, our medical team decides whether you need a medical detox.

How burnout treatment works at Renewed Life Center

Burnout treatment here is residential, in a house in Lakeside with the mountain ridge behind it and the beach a few minutes’ drive away. Over your stay, the team works with you on the burnout, the substance and any anxiety or low mood under them.

Before you arrive
After the first conversation, our counsellors hold a 45- to 90-minute assessment covering your work, sleep, mood and what you drink or take. What they learn shapes the plan you start with.
The first days
Dr John Wulz, our GP, whose background is in mental health and emergency medicine, examines you after you arrive and goes through the medication you already take. If you need help coming off alcohol or tablets, our medical team runs the detox, which lasts from three days to two weeks, depending on what your body needs. The first three days are for settling into the routine: after years of running your own diary, the day is planned for you.
Your own counsellor every week
Your own counsellor works with you one-to-one every week, 45 minutes at a time, alongside group work every weekday. In those sessions you look at what the drink or the pill was doing for you, and at what keeps the pattern going.
Groups that work on the pattern
Schema therapy looks at long-standing patterns, such as unrelenting standards or feeling responsible for everyone, that keep people working through exhaustion. DBT teaches ways to handle pressure and strong feelings without reaching for a glass or a pill. Process group, psychoeducation and relapse prevention are part of the weekdays too. Trauma release exercises (TRE), art therapy and yoga give a body that has only switched off with a substance another way to settle.
Anxiety and low mood in the same plan
Anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD, bipolar disorder and burnout are treated in the same plan, by the same team. Ruby Weber, a psychologist with more than 20 years in the addictions field, heads psychology at the centre. Our page on dual diagnosis treatment explains how the two sides are treated together.
The second month
Most clients stay for the second month, and it goes deeper: emotional work and trauma, behaviour change, relationships, who you are without the drink or the pills, and a plan for the long term.
Back to work, step by step
Before you go home, the relapse-prevention work becomes a written plan built for your home environment. If you stay on after the second month and your counsellor recommends a slower return, a further stage gives you afternoons out on your own and evenings back in the house. If you choose it, our sober living on the same property is another option: you go out to work during the day, come back in the evening, and still see your counsellor once a week. An outpatient programme is there after you leave if your counsellor recommends it.

What we work towards is ordinary: evenings without a glass, sleep without a tablet, a job done within limits you can hold, and a home where the evening is no longer spent recovering from the day.

Ask us how a stay would work for you

Can you keep working during burnout treatment?

Yes. You keep your phone and laptop, and you agree with your counsellor how much remote work fits around the programme. Private rooms are available; otherwise you share with one other person at most, and men and women stay in separate rooms.

If you are employed in South Africa, the Code of Good Practice: Dismissal names counselling and rehabilitation as steps an employer may consider when alcoholism or drug abuse causes incapacity. What to say at work, and when, is covered in our article on whether you will lose your job if you go to rehab. For addiction treatment for people in senior roles more generally, see our guide to executive rehab.

How to start

You do not need to have decided anything before you write. Tell us about the last few months in your own words: the hours, the sleep, what you drink or take to keep going. You get a reply the same day. The first conversation takes 20 to 40 minutes by WhatsApp, video or phone; it is free and confidential, and it commits you to nothing. After the assessment, admission can be immediate and typically happens within three days of first contact.

The fee depends on the programme and how long you stay: we give it on the first call and send it in writing the same day. If you are flying in from the UK or the US, we meet you at Cape Town airport and take you back when you leave.

Tell us how the last months have been

Questions about burnout treatment

Is this a burnout retreat?

No, it is closer to burnout rehab. The beach is a short drive away, but the days are built around therapy: your own counsellor every week, group work every weekday, and a doctor who examines you after you arrive. A retreat gives you a rest; treatment here goes after the drink or the pills and the pattern behind them.

How long does burnout recovery take?

The first month is for getting steady, and most clients stay for a second, deeper month. If you stay on after that, your counsellor may recommend a further stage or sober living before you go home.

Can my partner contact you first?

Yes. A relative can talk to our team before the person has agreed to come. During the stay, the counsellor keeps in touch with the family with the client’s consent, and families can join a support group by video every week.