Pick one and go to it this week. Al-Anon if the drinking is someone else's and you want a room of people who have been there. SMART Family and Friends if you want a skills course rather than a fellowship. Families Anonymous if it is drugs. And ask your council for a carer's assessment, which is free and which almost nobody offers you.
Why this is the piece that actually helps you
Everything else in this stream is about someone else. This one is not.
The evidence on family coping is quiet but it points one way. In a study of coping strategies used by partners, "put yourself first, took care of yourself" was rated at least a little helpful by 90%, and "pursued your own interests" by 89%. At the bottom sat arguing about the addiction and getting moody or emotional. That study measures perceived helpfulness rather than randomised outcome, so hold it loosely, and notice that it is close to the exact inverse of how most supporters spend their week.
Orford's work adds the part that people report as the turning point, and it is not a technique: "an important element of this is experiencing a reduction in self-blame". That happens in rooms with other people in the same position, and it very rarely happens alone at 2am with a search box.
The four routes, and what each asks
**Al-Anon.** A twelve-step fellowship for anyone affected by someone else's drinking. It teaches detachment and focuses on your own recovery rather than on managing theirs. Meetings are free, in person and online. **0800 0086 811**, 10am to 10pm, 365 days a year. Two honest notes: the people answering "are members of Al-Anon, and not professionals" and "are unable to provide medical advice", and it covers alcohol rather than drugs.
**SMART Recovery UK's Family and Friends Programme.** A structured, secular, skills-based programme that "helps people affected by a loved one's drug or alcohol addiction focus on their own wellbeing", covering communication, boundaries, safety and enabling. Meetings are free with "no booking or sign-up required". Its topic list is recognisably shaped like the CRAFT approach described below, which is our observation rather than something SMART claims about itself.
**Families Anonymous UK.** The drugs counterpart, twelve-step in shape. **020 7498 4680**, daily 1pm to 4pm and 6pm to 9pm.
**The 5-Step Method.** A short structured approach that some UK drug and alcohol services deliver to the family member in their own right, rather than as an add-on to someone else's treatment. We could not verify a national directory of who offers it, so the only reliable way to find it is to ask your local drug and alcohol service whether they run it. Do not assume from a website that they do.
The one route with the strongest trial evidence
Community Reinforcement and Family Training is not a support group. It is a programme delivered to you, aimed at getting a reluctant person into treatment, and it has better trial evidence than anything else in this area. In the trial, everyone concerned was refusing help at the start and around 64% entered treatment.
Its limits get published here because they usually do not get published anywhere. The 2020 review in *Addiction* found it "no more effective than controls when the IP had a gambling addiction". It rated 12 of its 14 studies "weak". Self-directed workbook versions reached 13.3 to 40% where a trained practitioner reached far higher, so a book or an app is a different product from the thing that was tested.
**[We Are With You](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/what-we-do/drug-and-alcohol-services-for-adults/support-for-family-and-friends)** runs "specialist support to the family members and friends of those who use substances", including CRAFT, across free services in England and Scotland. That is the most direct route to it. [How to raise it without a row](/guides/supporters/how-to-raise-it-without-a-row) covers the method itself.
Note the two goals do not compete. Engagement wins the trials for getting someone into treatment, and self-focused coping rates highest for your own wellbeing. You can do a course and go to a meeting in the same week.
The free thing nobody tells you about
If you are looking after someone, you can ask your council for a carer's assessment. It is written into the Care Act 2014, section 10: "Where it appears to a local authority that a carer may have needs for support (whether currently or in the future), the authority must assess". The NHS puts it plainly: "anyone over 18 can ask for one", "a carer's assessment is free", and the way to get one is to "contact adult social services at your local council and ask for a carer's assessment".
The test is about what you actually do, not about a diagnosis, and nothing excludes addiction. Here is the honest part: neither the NHS carers pages nor the main carers charities name addiction as a qualifying situation anywhere, and the addiction-family pages and the carers pages never point at each other. So you may be the first person to ask your council this. Ask anyway.
The numbers, checked
| Service | Contact | Notes | |---|---|---| | Al-Anon UK | 0800 0086 811 | 10am to 10pm, 365 days. Alcohol | | Families Anonymous UK | 020 7498 4680 | Daily 1pm to 4pm and 6pm to 9pm. Drugs | | Nacoa | 0800 358 3456 | Monday to Saturday 10am to 7pm. For anyone affected by a parent's drinking, at any age | | DAN 24/7 | 0808 808 2234 | Wales, genuinely day or night | | SMART Recovery UK | 0330 053 6022 | Free, secular, skills-based. Runs the Family and Friends programme | | Samaritans | 116 123 | Any hour, for you | | [Adfam](https://adfam.org.uk/) | Peer forum | **Not a helpline.** Widely miscited as one |
And the gap, said out loud: between 10pm and 9am the only national family phone route we can verify in the UK is DAN 24/7 in Wales. England has no national family helpline at all. That hole sits exactly where the worst hour is.
Going to the first one
The barrier is almost never information. It is walking in.
- **Pick by what you want,** not by which is best. A room of people who understand, or a course that teaches you something. Both are legitimate.
- **Go online first if that is easier.** Every route above has online meetings, and nobody can see your face if you keep the camera off.
- **Expect the first one to be strange.** It is a room with its own language. That is not a verdict on whether it is for you.
- **Go three times before you decide.** One meeting tells you almost nothing.
- **Do not bring an agenda for them.** You are not there to collect tactics. That is the point.
If you cannot face a room this week, ring one number instead. That counts.
Common questions
**Is Al-Anon religious?** It is a twelve-step fellowship with a spiritual framing, which some people find helpful and some find off-putting. SMART's Family and Friends programme is explicitly secular and skills-based, so if that is the obstacle, that is the alternative.
**Do I have to talk?** No. You can sit through an entire meeting saying nothing but your first name, and in most rooms plenty of people do exactly that the first few times.
**Will they tell me to leave my partner, or to cut them off?** A good group will not tell you what to do about your relationship at all. If one does, that is a reason to try a different meeting rather than to give up on the idea.
**I do not have time for this.** Almost every supporter says this, and it is usually true in the way that "I do not have time to sleep" is true. One hour a week is a smaller commitment than the hours currently going into worry with nothing to show for it. [What is actually yours to carry](/guides/supporters/what-is-actually-yours-to-carry) is the exercise for seeing where those hours go.
**What if the situation is unsafe rather than difficult?** Then support groups are the wrong first call. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is **0808 2000 247**, free and 24 hours. [When it is not addiction, it is abuse](/guides/supporters/when-it-is-not-addiction-it-is-abuse) is the piece.
Sources
- [Coping strategies used by partners, PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7531869/). Self-focused coping rated most helpful at 90% and 89%.
- [Archer et al., Addiction, 2020](https://kcmhr.org/pdf/2019_archer_a.pdf). The limits of family training, including the gambling result and workbook versus practitioner delivery.
- [Care Act 2014, section 10](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/section/10) and [NHS, carer's assessments](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/support-and-benefits-for-carers/carer-assessments/). The duty to assess, that it is free, and how to ask.
- [SMART Recovery UK, Family and Friends](https://smartrecovery.org.uk/family-and-friends-programme). The programme's focus and that meetings need no booking.
