If you need help right now
- Find a Helpline
Free, confidential helplines in 175 countries. Choose your country and it gives you the service that covers you. Start here if you are not in the UK or the US.
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
United States. Call or text 988, any time. Chat is on their site.
- Samaritans
United Kingdom and Ireland. Call 116 123 free, day or night, every day of the year.
- Crisis Text Line
United States. Text HOME to 741741 if talking is harder than typing.
- NHS — Urgent mental health help
United Kingdom. Local NHS urgent mental health helplines, and what to do out of hours.
If someone's life is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. Helpline numbers change from time to time, so the directory is listed first — it stays current in a way a page like this cannot.
Stopping suddenly can be dangerous
This matters more than anything else on this page. If you have been drinking heavily every day, stopping all at once can cause severe withdrawal — including seizures and delirium tremens, which can be fatal. It is one of the few substances where quitting abruptly, on your own, carries real medical risk.
Talk to a GP, a doctor or a treatment service before you stop. Withdrawal can be managed safely with medical supervision, and services do this routinely without judgement.
- NHS — Alcohol use disorder and its treatment
What dependence means, why detox is supervised, and how to get treatment on the NHS.
- NIH StatPearls — Alcohol withdrawal
The clinical reference. Written for clinicians, but it is the clearest account of what withdrawal actually does and how quickly it escalates.
SoberTrack resources
Alcohol and recovery — where to get support
Links to the treatment services, mutual-aid groups and health bodies people usually want next. We have not summarised their guidance here; they explain it better and they keep it current.
SoberTrack is a record you keep. It counts days, saves what you noticed, and shows you your own history. It is not a diagnosis, not a treatment programme, and not a substitute for care.
Decisions about your health belong with a qualified professional. ClearStack Apps is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by any organisation listed on this page.
Finding treatment
Services that will talk to you before you commit to anything, and mostly at no cost.
- FindTreatment.gov
United States. The federal treatment locator run by SAMHSA — search by location for substance use and mental health services, with helpline details on the site.
- NIAAA Alcohol Treatment Navigator
United States. From the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Walks you through what the treatment options are and how to tell a good provider from a bad one.
- We Are With You
United Kingdom. Free, confidential drug and alcohol support, including a webchat and local services you can self-refer to.
- Alcohol Change UK
UK charity. Practical guides on cutting down, getting help, and what different services actually do.
Mutual aid and peer support
Different groups suit different people, and there is no requirement to pick one. All of these are free to attend.
- Alcoholics Anonymous
The international site, with meeting finders by country. UK meetings are at alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk.
- SMART Recovery
A secular, CBT-based alternative to the twelve-step model, with online meetings. UK groups are at smartrecovery.org.uk.
- Al-Anon Family Groups
For the people around someone who drinks. Worth passing on if a family member is carrying this with you.
Understanding the numbers
If you are trying to work out where your drinking sits rather than whether to stop entirely.
- NIAAA — Rethinking Drinking
Drink-size calculators, what a standard drink is, and self-assessment tools that do not push you towards a programme.
- Drinkaware
United Kingdom. Unit calculator and the UK Chief Medical Officers' low-risk drinking guidelines explained.
- WHO — Alcohol fact sheet
The global health picture, if you want the evidence rather than the encouragement.
Honest scope
Counting days reduces the sense of drifting — it does not remove the reasons someone drinks, and no counter has ever treated dependence. What SoberTrack holds is your own record: useful to you, useful in an appointment, and not a clinical assessment of anything. If you are dependent, if withdrawal has been bad before, or if you are thinking about harming yourself, go to the top of this page and speak to someone today.
We do not maintain the pages linked above and cannot vouch for changes made to them. If a link here is dead or wrong, tell us at support@clearstackapps.com and we will fix it.
Reviewed 1 August 2026