The line is control, not substances. If you find yourself managing your tone, your face and your movements to avoid someone's reaction, that is the thing to act on first, and no amount of patience will resolve it. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is **0808 2000 247**, free and 24 hours a day. You do not have to have decided anything to ring.
Why this page exists
Almost every article written for people supporting someone with an addiction gives the same advice to everyone who lands on it. Be patient. Do not confront. Detach with love.
That advice is offered identically to a mother whose son is being threatened over a debt, to a partner whose husband becomes frightening when he drinks, and to someone being coerced by a person who is perfectly capable of controlling themselves in front of other people. It is the wrong advice for the third, and telling that reader to be more understanding is not neutral. It costs them time.
So this piece does the thing the sector mostly does not, which is fork.
What counts, in UK law
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sets the definition, and it is wider than most people assume. Behaviour is abusive if it consists of any of "physical or sexual abuse", "violent or threatening behaviour", "controlling or coercive behaviour", "economic abuse", or "psychological, emotional or other abuse".
And a line worth reading twice, because it undoes the argument people use on themselves: "it does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct".
Nothing in that definition requires bruises, and nothing in it makes an exception for someone who was drinking.
The questions that tell you which situation you are in
Compulsion produces chaos, broken promises, missing money and a great deal of grief. Control produces something different, and these are the questions that separate them. Answer them about your own life rather than about their intentions.
- **Do you change your behaviour to manage their reaction?** Watching your tone, timing news carefully, keeping the house a certain way, not mentioning certain people.
- **Are they like this only with you?** Chaos is usually indiscriminate. Control tends to be selective, and to switch off in front of an audience.
- **Do you have access to your own money and your own documents?** Being made to account for spending, having your income controlled, or being pushed into debt in your name is economic abuse and it is named in the Act.
- **Have you got smaller?** Fewer friends, less contact with family, fewer places you go on your own.
- **Are you frightened of them, rather than frightened for them?** This is the question underneath all the others, and most people know the answer immediately and then argue themselves out of it.
- **Is your phone, your location or your messages checked?**
- **Does an apology arrive with a rider?** That you provoked it, that it was the drink, that you know how you get.
One yes is not a diagnosis. A pattern is worth a phone call, and a phone call is not a decision.
"He is only like that when he is drinking"
You may be right that it is worse when they drink. It is still not the argument you think it is.
Two things follow. The first is that the risk to you tonight is the same whatever is causing it, and the causes are for other people to sort out later. The second is that if the theory were the whole story, the pattern would be random, and abuse usually is not. It has a direction, and the direction is you.
You are also not required to work this out before you ring anyone. Helpline workers deal with exactly this ambiguity every day, and "I do not know if this counts" is one of the most common opening sentences they hear.
Who to ring, and when they are open
Get these right, because the wrong hours at the wrong hour is a cruelty of its own.
| Service | Number | Hours | |---|---|---| | Emergency | 999 | Any time, if it is happening now | | National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge | 0808 2000 247 | 24 hours a day | | Men's Advice Line, for male victims and those supporting them | 0808 8010 327 | Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm | | Galop, for LGBT+ people | 0800 999 5428 | Monday and Tuesday 9.15am to 8pm, Wednesday to Friday 9.15am to 4.30pm, closed 1pm to 2pm daily and at weekends | | Samaritans | 116 123 | Any hour |
Galop is not a 24 hour line, so for a night call the domestic abuse helpline is the one that will be answered.
If children are in the house, Nacoa is **0800 358 3456**, Monday to Saturday 10am to 7pm, for anyone affected by a parent's drinking at any age, including adults still carrying a childhood.
What ringing does and does not commit you to
The fear that stops most people is that a phone call starts a machine they cannot stop.
You can ring to ask a question. You can ring without giving your surname. You can ring about something that happened two years ago, or about something you are not sure counts, or to ask what your options would be if you ever did decide something. None of that obliges you to leave, to report anything, or to make a plan tonight.
What we are not going to do is give you a safety plan on a public page. Plans belong to specific situations, and the person on the end of one of those numbers can build one with the facts you have. Some general things are true anyway: keep your phone charged, tell one person you trust in real life, and if there is a moment when it is happening, 999 is the number.
If you are also supporting them
You can hold both things. Someone can genuinely have a problem with alcohol or drugs and also be dangerous to you, and those are two separate situations that need two separate responses.
The order matters. Safety first, then everything else. The rest of this stream, [boundaries that are not punishments](/guides/supporters/boundaries-that-are-not-punishments) and [what is actually yours to carry](/guides/supporters/what-is-actually-yours-to-carry), assumes a situation where setting a limit is not itself risky. If it is, none of that applies to you yet, and reading it as though it does will make you feel like you are failing at something you are not failing at.
Common questions
**Do I have to be sure before I call?** No. Uncertainty is the normal state of the people who ring, and describing what has been happening is how you find out what you are dealing with.
**Nothing physical has happened. Does it still count?** Yes. Controlling or coercive behaviour, economic abuse and psychological abuse are all named in the definition in UK law, with no requirement for physical violence.
**Will they take my children away if I tell someone?** This is the fear that keeps people silent, and the honest answer is that we cannot give you a legal answer on a page. What we can say is that the specialist services above exist to advise on exactly this, in confidence, before anything is set in motion.
**What if I am the man?** Then the Men's Advice Line, **0808 8010 327**, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, is for you and for people supporting you, including trans and non-binary people. The 24 hour helpline above and 999 are open to you as well.
**What if they say the drinking made them do it?** That may be part of the story. It does not change what you need tonight, and it is not something you have to adjudicate before you can ask for help.
**Everyone tells me to be patient with him because he is ill. What do I say?** Nothing, if you would rather not. You are not obliged to win an argument with people who are not in the house before you are allowed to ring a helpline in private.
Sources
- [Domestic Abuse Act 2021, section 1](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/17/section/1). The statutory definition, including coercive control and economic abuse, and that a single incident counts.
- [National Domestic Abuse Helpline](https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk). Free, 24 hours, run by Refuge.
- [Men's Advice Line](https://mensadviceline.org.uk) and [Galop](https://galop.org.uk). Their numbers and their actual opening hours.
- [Nacoa](https://nacoa.org.uk). Support for anyone affected by a parent's drinking, at any age.
