The decision

Here's the rule, in one sentence you could say out loud. I take it the way the prescription says, and any change starts with a conversation, not a quiet stop.

That has three parts, and each one answers a belief from the book. The prescription, not the feeling, sets the dose and the days, because for the silent ones the feeling measures nothing and for the holding ones it measures the medicine working. Any change means all of them, stopping, halving, skipping, restarting, and the fact of having drifted, because a change the prescriber doesn't know about is a wrong map. And the conversation is the method, because it's the only thing that fixes the map and because the people on the other end of it are the ones with the options.

Then three when-then plans, which research on carrying out intentions finds work better than intentions alone.

When I feel better and think about stopping, then I ring the pharmacy or the surgery before I skip a dose, and say what I'm thinking and why.

When I notice a side effect, then I write down what it is and when it started, and I say it out loud to a pharmacist or the prescriber that week, and I keep taking the medicine until they say otherwise, unless the leaflet says to stop and seek help.

When I find I've missed a dose, then I check the leaflet, take it or skip it as the leaflet says, never double, and if the organiser shows more than a couple of empty days I ring a pharmacist before I restart.

What to expect. The first conversation is the hardest and takes about four minutes. The hook takes a few weeks to feel like nothing. The silent ones will go on feeling like nothing, and the number, from the cuff or the blood test, is where you'll see them working. You'll still miss days. The organiser will show you, the leaflet will tell you what to do, and none of it will be a secret from anyone, which is the whole change. This is my expectation and not a finding. The rule hasn't been tested as a package. Its parts have.