Safety
If this is urgent rather than difficult.
This page is never counted against any allowance and is never behind anything. It names routes rather than numbers, because numbers differ by country and change.
If somebody may die tonight
Contact your local emergency services. Wherever you are, there is a number for that, and it is not this site.
- Somebody who cannot be woken, or can only be half woken
- Breathing that is slow, noisy, or stopping and starting
- A fit or a seizure
- A head injury, or a fall
- Vomiting blood, or passing black stools
- Yellow in the skin or eyes, or a badly swollen abdomen
- Alcohol taken with other drugs or with medication, in any amount
- Any deliberate overdose
Nobody should be left to sleep it off if they cannot be woken. If you are not there, the emergency services can be sent to an address that is not yours.
If he is physically dependent
If he drinks heavily every day and you are describing shaking in the morning, sweating, retching, a fever, bad confusion, or seeing or hearing things, then stopping suddenly on his own can kill him. That is a doctor or urgent medical care today.
It is also not the family's job to manage. Do not pour it away as a plan, do not ration it for him, and do not agree a reduction schedule between you. Those are clinical decisions taken with sight of the patient.
If somebody in that house is not safe
If his partner is frightened, being hurt, threatened or controlled, that is a domestic-abuse matter and the police if it is happening now. She does not have to call it abuse to use those routes, and neither do you. You can contact a domestic-abuse service for advice about somebody else.
If a child is being hurt, frightened, left with somebody drunk, or driven by somebody who has been drinking, that is emergency services in the moment and children's services or a child-protection route afterwards. A teacher, a health visitor or a doctor can also start it. You do not need proof and you do not need his permission.
If an older or unwell relative is being neglected, left alone when they cannot manage, or having money or property taken, that is an adult-safeguarding route where you live.
If he says he is going to end his life
Take it seriously and do not try to judge whether he means it. If there is immediate danger, that is emergency services. Otherwise a local crisis line, his own doctor, or an out-of-hours medical service is the route, and it is reasonable to make that call yourself if he will not.
If you are the one who cannot go on
If you have moved from exhaustion into hopelessness, or you are having thoughts of ending your life, deal with that first. A local crisis line or your own doctor can help faster than anything written here, and if you can, tell one person who is nearby.
This is more common among relatives than anybody admits, and it is not a sign that you are the one with the problem.
Why there are no telephone numbers on this site
Emergency, crisis and safeguarding numbers differ by country and they change. A wrong number costs minutes at the exact moment minutes matter, so this network names the route and leaves the number to be the one where you are.
Nothing on this site is monitored by a person. The guide is an AI and cannot contact anybody on your behalf. Safety routes are never counted against an allowance and are never behind anything.