Tonight, in one sitting: delete and block the number, leave the group chats, take the cash and the payment apps out of reach, and change the route that walks you past the pickup. Four routes in, four doors to close. It takes about twenty minutes and it does more for your first week than any amount of resolve.
Why this beats trying harder
You already know you can want to stop and use anyway. The gap between those two things opens up because using takes eleven seconds and two taps, while the decision not to use has to be made fresh every hour of every day. Nobody wins that on stamina.
Closing the supply changes the arithmetic. The craving still arrives, but now there's distance between the craving and the act, and distance is where the rest of your recovery gets room to work.
The four routes, and how to close each one
- **The number, and everywhere it hides.** Delete the contact. Then check the places a deleted contact survives: your call log, your WhatsApp and Signal and Telegram threads, the "recently deleted" folder in Photos where a screenshot of the number might be, your email, your notes app, and the backup on your laptop that will helpfully restore everything next time you set up a phone. Block the number properly at the operating system level, not just in the messaging app. If you know the number by heart, that's the one that matters most, and that's the one where device blocking earns its keep.
- **The group chats and the calendar.** This is the part people skip. Leave the chats where plans get made. Mute or leave the group where nobody uses but everyone drinks until two, if that's where your evening always turned. Then look at your actual calendar for the next fortnight and find the two or three slots that were really about using. Put something in them now, while you're clear-headed. An empty Friday is not a plan.
- **The money.** Take the cash out of your wallet and your coat pocket. Set your banking app's daily withdrawal limit down. If you buy with crypto or transfers, remove the app and change the password to something you have to reset by email. If a housemate or a partner is willing to hold your card for a fortnight, ask. It feels humiliating for a day, then it feels like one less thing.
- **The route and the door.** Change your walk home so it doesn't pass the corner where you'd stop. Take a different bus, or get off a stop early. Then think about the door itself: who has your address, who knocks unannounced, who you owe, and who owes you. If a housemate uses in the flat, you'll need an actual conversation with them, and it's fair to ask that it doesn't happen in shared space.
Do all four in one sitting if you can. If you can't, do the number tonight and the money tomorrow. Setting one block today is enough.
The bit nobody writes about: debt
If you owe your dealer money, none of the advice above touches that, and pretending otherwise would be useless to you.
A few honest things. Don't borrow from a payday lender or a friend to clear it, because that's how a drug debt becomes two debts. Don't agree to hold or move anything to work it off. And don't try to solve it alone in your own head at three in the morning, which is where it will feel largest and least solvable.
Talk to a drug service keyworker. They can't pay it off for you. What they can do is tell you what the local options actually are, because they've sat opposite dozens of people in exactly this position. [We Are With You](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/) runs free local services across England and Scotland plus a live webchat with trained recovery workers, and you can raise it there without giving your full name. FRANK is on 0300 123 6600, any hour.
If you're being threatened, that stops being a drug question and becomes a safety one. We Are With You's own guidance is clear that where there's an immediate risk to life, the answer is to call 999. You're allowed to use that number even if the reason you're in trouble is something you'd rather nobody knew about.
The friend you're going to lose
For a lot of people the supply isn't a stranger on a corner. It's the mate who always had some. The one who knows your family, who was there through the bad year, who has never once made you feel like a problem.
Blocking that person costs something real, and you should let yourself feel it as a loss rather than talking yourself out of it. You are not being disloyal. You are choosing not to be around the one person who makes using effortless, for now, while the habit is still louder than you are.
You don't owe anyone a full explanation. "I'm taking a break from everything for a while, I'll be rubbish company" is a complete message. Send it, then put the phone down. You don't have to stay in the thread to see how they reply.
Some of those friendships come back later, on different terms. Some don't. Both are survivable.
What blocking cannot fix
Be honest with yourself about the limits. A blocked number doesn't stop a knock at the door. A new SIM appears in a day. If someone wants to reach you, they can, and the point of all this was never a sealed perimeter.
The point is friction. Every second you add between the urge and the transaction is a second in which something else can happen: the wave passes, you text your keyworker, you make it to the meeting, you fall asleep. If a craving lands anyway, and it will, [getting through a craving without using](/guides/drugs/getting-through-a-craving-without-using) is the ten-minute version of what to do with your hands.
For the digital side of this, Renovyn's [Shield](/shield) puts blocking across your phone and laptop and makes it awkward to undo in a bad moment, which is the whole design goal. Pair it with a written plan for the situations you already know are risky, which is what [a relapse prevention plan](/spaces/how-to-prevent-relapse) is for.
And if you haven't yet made the first call to a GP or a service, that's still the highest-value thing you can do this week. [How to stop using](/guides/drugs/how-to-stop-using-drugs) covers what that call involves and which substances make stopping suddenly dangerous.
Common questions
**Should I tell my dealer I'm stopping?** You don't have to, and most people find a clean disappearance easier than a conversation that invites persuasion. If you'd rather say something, keep it short and don't explain. Deleting and blocking without a goodbye message is a legitimate choice.
**What if I relapse after cutting everything off?** Tell someone the same day, ideally your keyworker or GP. There's one safety point that matters more than the shame: if you've had a gap without opioids, your tolerance has dropped, and the World Health Organization advises everyone who has withdrawn from opioids that they're at increased risk of overdose because of it. Never use alone.
**How do I get through the first week without my usual social life?** Fill the specific slots that were about using, rather than leaving the week open and hoping. Fellowship meetings, a gym class you've prepaid, a standing dinner with family, and a long phone call all work for the same reason: they occupy the hour and put you near people.
**My housemate uses in the flat. What now?** Ask directly for it not to happen in shared space, and be specific about what you need rather than general about how you feel. If they won't agree, treat finding somewhere else to be at those times as a real part of your plan, and tell your keyworker your living situation is a risk factor.
Sources
- [We Are With You: help and advice](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/), for free local services, webchat with trained workers, and the 999 line for immediate risk to life.
- [NHS: getting help for drug addiction](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/), for how UK drug treatment starts and what a keyworker does.
- [WHO clinical guidelines for withdrawal management](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310652/), for raised overdose risk after opioid tolerance drops.
