Lockdown has helped us get to know the people we support better
How we developed our online advice to meet their changing needs.
Lockdown has been a difficult time for most of us. But for people who have issues with drugs and alcohol — and their friends and families — it’s presented an extra set of challenges.
When we created the help and advice section on our new We Are With You website back in pre-corona days, we read and analysed hundreds of conversations between our fantastic webchat team and their visitors.
Our webchat team provide free, confidential online support for thousands of people experiencing issues with alcohol, drugs or mental health each year. They’re also an invaluable resource for those of us who create online content at We Are With You.
From the transcripts we discovered that lots of the people visiting our website were actually looking for help and support for someone else who is drinking or using drugs. Very few realised that there’s plenty of support available for friends and family as well.
People wanted to know how to have better conversations with their loved ones without the blaming and arguments and how to set some boundaries so that life could be calmer and less chaotic.
We also saw that people who are in the early stages of cutting down or stopping drinking or using drugs need support with day-to-day issues like how to handle cravings and avoid the triggers that threaten to tip them back into drinking or using.
When lockdown hit people needed support with these issues more than ever. Without the regulating effects of routine and work, people were burning through their supplies of alcohol and drugs quicker, increasing their risk of dependency, debt and harm to their mental health.
But they were also looking for online support with other challenges that hadn’t been a priority before.
Here are some of the challenges faced by the people we support during lockdown, and how we developed our online advice to meet their needs.
It became difficult for people to hide their drinking or drug use
When drinking or drug use starts to get out of control our natural instinct is to hide it from our loved ones to protect them or to protect our substance misuse or both.
During lockdown, pubs and bars closed and drug supply chains got disrupted. We were told to “stay at home” and started to spend a lot more time at home with our families.
When there’s no pub to drink in or you’re having to break the lockdown to go out and find drugs, it becomes much harder to hide the reality of your alcohol or drug use from the people you live with.
Soon after we went into lockdown our webchat team began to see a rise in the numbers of visitors saying, “I’ve realised that my loved one has a problem and I don’t know what to do about it”. People felt scared and helpless, and didn’t know where to start or what to say.
Our webchat team are experts at supporting friends and family of people who have issues with drugs and alcohol. We worked closely with them to put together some lockdown advice on how to talk to someone about their drinking and drug use.
We encouraged people to get some support and to stay hopeful. People can and do change. We’re privileged to see it happening every day in our services.
We also wrote a template letter that people could use to raise the subject of their loved one’s drinking or drug use with them. When you don’t know where to start or what words to use, a letter can be a great way to make yourself heard in a calm, constructive way.
As one website visitor told us, “It’s a good way to get your feelings out without the anger spilling out when you don’t mean it to. It’s just that you’re frustrated and find it hard to stay calm when you feel like you’re losing the person you love.”
We also created some some advice for those who were ready to tell someone about their drinking or drug use. We suggested ways they could help loved ones understand things from their perspective and warned that their loved ones may need time and space to grieve for the person they thought they knew.
Lives were threatened as supplies of drugs and alcohol were interrupted
With people losing their incomes, travel restrictions and so on, there was a risk that some people would find it difficult to maintain their usual supplies of alcohol or drugs.
For people who are dependent on alcohol or benzodiazepines (sedative drugs used to treat anxiety) this can be dangerous. Cutting down or stopping either can bring on life-threatening withdrawal symptoms.
That’s why, as soon as lockdown started, we published urgent advice for people who drink regularly and for those who take benzodiazepines daily to highlight the risks.
We explained which withdrawal symptoms suggested a high risk and what people should do if they got them. We also advised people living on their own to ask friends or family members to check in with them regularly to make sure they were OK.
People needed support with detoxing from alcohol at home
Because of the risk of dangerous withdrawal symptoms, we wouldn’t usually suggest that people who are dependent on alcohol try stopping or cutting down on their own.
But because of lockdown we were aware that some people were likely to be detoxing (withdrawing) from alcohol at home without support, either through choice or necessity.
To support those people we worked closely with our clinical team to publish step-by-step advice on safely detoxing from alcohol at home. We showed people how to stabilise their drinking before gradually cutting down by just 10% every four days to reduce the risk of withdrawal symptoms.
We also offered useful tips, such as taking daily vitamin B1 supplements as alcohol lowers levels of this vitamin in the body.
People had too much time on their hands
We’ve all had more time on our hands during lockdown and some of us have found the lack of structure in our lives difficult.
For those of us who are struggling with substance misuse, having too many hours in the day is particularly unhelpful. As many of the people we work with tell us, boredom and having too much time on your hands are major triggers for alcohol and drug use.
So is being isolated from the people and activities, such as support groups, that normally help to keep you on track.
To help people fill the empty hours we suggested some ways to relax at home, particularly for those feeling anxious or isolated in the depths of lockdown. We also created some interactive online tools to help people with stress and cravings.
For people missing the face-to-face support that is often so vital for maintaining positive change, we also shared details of the various kinds of support and community available on line.
Looking to the future
Lockdown has been a challenging time for both We Are With You staff and the people we support.
For those of us who create online content it has also shone a light on aspects of their lives that we weren’t fully aware of before. It’s helped us to understand their priorities and their needs better.
As lockdown lifts, pubs reopen and we’re expected to pick up the reins of our lives again we may see fresh difficulties emerging for the people we support.
Understanding these will give us a stronger foundation to build on as we move beyond corona and continue to develop our online help and advice content.
These are tough times for everyone. Our services are open and we’re here to work alongside you during this difficult time. Visit our website for information and advice, to chat to a trained advisor or to find your local service.
