Carers Support for Alcohol and Drug Use
We provide dedicated support for those caring for an alcoholic or drug user. Our free and confidential services offer tailored information and assistance to help carers navigate the challenges of supporting an addict.
Our Guide and Toolkit Library
Click on any of the links below to download information on a range of subjects to support you when caring for an alcoholic or drug user.
Treatment
A brief guide for supporting a friend, relative or partner who is having treatment to help with a drug or alcohol problem
Parent Carers
A guide for parents looking at living with a drug user, understanding treatments, how to help your child and useful organisations
Setting & Keeping Boundaries
Effective boundaries can assert the needs or rights of families so they feel more secure and respected.
Stages of Change
The different changes someone with a drug or alcohol dependency can go through
Why Register with Us?
Registering as a Carer gives you free access to tailored guidance, workshops, local resources, and a supportive network of others caring for an addict.
Important Reading
For those with a family member struggling with harmful drinking life can be extremely difficult. This fact sheet provides a list of the main organisations in the UK providing support for families.
Supporting your partner or loved one
Harmful drinking can cause significant issues not only for the drinker, but also for members of their family in the form of health problems, financial worries, relationship breakdown and parenting difficulties.
Change Grow Live (CGL)
There for you if you need help with challenges including drugs or alcohol, trouble with housing, domestic abuse, or your mental and physical wellbeing. Our services are free and confidential.
Drink Coach
This is a website and downloadable app which can help track and change your drinking. You can also take a short test to measure your drinking and get coaching to support you through any changes.
Bereaved through a substance related death
The circumstances around a drug related death are often very distressing. These deaths happen in many ways: anticipated after a long illness due to substance misuse, long term complications of alcohol or intravenous drug use, overdoses, or suicides. It can also be unexpected or sudden.
Lots of carers feel stigmatised, which can negatively affect the grief process and loss of social support when needed.
People often feel stigma, shame and guilt therefore will be less willing to reach out due to feeling there is a lack of understanding, and they will be judged.
Sometimes more specific support is needed to meet needs, have an understanding on addiction, support to make sense of the death and to cope better with a difficult bereavement.
We cannot fix the grief, but we can listen, support and signpost to specific services who will support you.
Bereavement services:
- Addiction Family Support – offer bereavement counselling, helpline number, and yearly conferences for families affected. we can refer or carer can self-refer by e-mailing, calling. Carer will receive a personalised letter and a bereavement pack from the founder of the charity
- Adfam – Offer losing a loved one support, including video`s on substance-related bereavement that carers can watch, Journey booklets of losing a loved one, fact sheets and toolkits as well as other helpful organisations.
- The Compassionate Friends has a resource for parents bereaved through drug and alcohol use. This resource discusses the days immediately after a loss, the effect on the wider family and talking to non-adult children about loss.
- The Good Grief Trust have supportive information on their website including a map of support.
- Suicide & Co provide support to those that have been bereaved by suicide, including a counselling service.
Carers Support and Advice for Addicts
Explore a range of groups and events designed for caregivers supporting someone with drug or alcohol use. Connect with a supportive community and access valuable resources to guide you on your caregiving journey.
Addiction Carers Groups & Events
An opportunity for drug and alcohol carers to connect in different ways: face-to-face meetings with peer support and refreshments, walking groups for a chat and a stroll, and online groups for those unable to meet in person. We look forward to welcoming you and providing a space where you can feel heard, understood, and supported on your caregiving journey.
Online Evening Group for Drug & Alcohol Carers
12 March 2025 17:30 - 19:00
An online group for carers of people who are experiencing issues with drugs and/or alcohol, where you can meet and talk
Chichester Drug & Alcohol Face-to-Face Carer Group
31 March 2025 10:30 - 12:00
A group for carers of people who are experiencing issues with drugs and/or alcohol
Online Evening Group for Drug & Alcohol Carers
11 June 2025 17:30 - 19:00
An online group for carers of people who are experiencing issues with drugs and/or alcohol, where you can meet and talk
Specific links to websites providing useful information and advice
Action on Addiction: Click here to visit website
This is the UK’s only charity working across the addiction field in treatment, professional education to honours degree level, support for families and children, research, and campaigns.
Al-Anon Family Groups: Click here to visit website
They provide support to anyone whose life is, or has been, affected by someone else’s drinking, regardless of whether that person is still drinking or not.
Change, Grow, Live: Click here to visit website
Provide help and support to adults, children, young people and families. Their services cover a wide variety of areas including health and wellbeing, substance use, mental health, criminal justice, domestic abuse and homelessness.
D&A directory of Services & Wellbeing from CLG
Change, Grow, Live Children and Young Persons Therapeutic Service – West Sussex: Click here to visit website
FRANK: Click here to visit website
Frank is a national drug education service jointly established by the Department of Health and Home Office of the British government in 2003. It is intended to reduce the use of both legal and illegal drugs by educating teenagers and adolescents about the potential effects of drugs and alcohol.
West Sussex Young Carers: Click here to visit website
Supports young Carers aged 5-18 with information, support, advice and signposting.
The National Association for Children of Alcoholics: Click here to visit website
Provides information, advice and support for everyone affected by a parent’s drinking.
Adfam: Click here to visit website
Is the national charity working to improve life for families affected by drugs and alcohol.
Addiction Family Support: Click here to visit website
Support families, friends and partners who are struggling to cope with a loved one’s addiction to drugs or alcohol and those who have been bereaved by addiction or related causes.
Families Anonymous: Click here to visit website
Is a world-wide fellowship of family members and friends affected by another’s abuse of mind-altering substances, or related behavioural problems.
West Sussex Wellbeing: Click here to visit website
Can help you find local wellbeing information and services. You can also get support for things like getting your family fitter, doing some regular exercise, dealing with stress, kicking a habit, or simply improving your general wellbeing.
Don’t Bottle it up: Click here to visit website
Take the Alcohol Test to work out how risky your drinking is, access personalised advice online and find out where you can get support locally.
Alcohol Wellbeing: Click here to visit website
Offers support for people who are worried and recognise that their drinking has increased, but who are not dependent. This is a free and confidential service. You can have up to six sessions with our Wellbeing Alcohol Advisor, trained in extended brief interventions, via telephone, video link or walk n talk sessions – in line with government guidelines around Covid
Sussex Prisoner Families: Click here to visit website
Supports local families to cope emotionally and practically with the imprisonment of a loved-one.
Gscene: Click here to visit website
Local LGBT+ organisations
DDA A: Click here to visit website
Peer support fellowship that supports people with a combination of mental health issues and addiction/substance/alcohol misuse (otherwise known as a Dual Diagnosis).
Autism, Mental Health & Substance Misuse: Click here to visit website
Reach Out: Click here to visit website
A free online chat service managed by The Forward Trust providing support for worries relating to drug and alcohol use, including that of a friend or family member. Also for concerns around gambling, low mood and other addiction related queries.
How can we best help you?
