For supporters
For partners, parents and friends: what helps, what does not, and how to look after yourself.
When it is not addiction, it is abuse
The line is control, not substances. If you manage your own behaviour to avoid someone's reaction, patience is the wrong advice. The numbers to ring, with their real hours.
Getting support of your own
Al-Anon, SMART Family and Friends, the 5-Step Method and a free council assessment nobody tells supporters about. What each asks of you, with accurate numbers and hours.
When they relapse again
The first hour is safety, not conversation, because tolerance drops during a clean period. Then how to respond without either rescuing or walking away.
Protecting your money without cutting them off
Four practical steps to protect your own finances, which of your debts to pay first, and where UK debt advice is free. Minding about money is not cruelty.
The enabling question, honestly
Judge each act of help by what it actually did, not by a label from a 1970s model. Including one behaviour routinely called enabling that prevents a fatal withdrawal.
Boundaries that are not punishments
A boundary is a sentence about what you will do, not a rule for someone else. Two you can write tonight, and the test that separates them from threats.
Listening when you have heard it all before
You do not have to fake patience you no longer have. Time-box it, say where your limit is, and stop there. Honest listening beats a performance of listening.
What to say, and what never helps
Four sentences that end the conversation, and what to say instead. Plus why the confrontation everyone recommends has no trial evidence behind it.
How to raise it without a row
CRAFT has the best trial evidence for getting someone into treatment. What it is, where it stops working, and a script for the conversation.
Is this an emergency? What to look for
Four different emergencies, the signs of each, and what to do in the minutes while you wait. You do not have to be sure before you call 999.
What is actually yours to carry
You have influence and you do not have control, and those are different things. A two-column exercise for separating what answers to you from what never will.
What to do tonight when someone you love is using
The signs that mean call 999 now, and why pouring the alcohol away can be dangerous. Then how to get through the rest of the night.