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SAMHSA’s National Helpline | SAMHSA
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SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
Also visit the online treatment locator.
SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357) (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service), or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service, in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations.
Also visit the online treatment locator, or send your zip code via text message: 435748 (HELP4U) to find help near you. Read more about the HELP4U text messaging service.
The service is open 24/7, 365 days a year.
English and Spanish are available if you select the option to speak with a national representative. Currently, the 435748 (HELP4U) text messaging service is only available in English.
In 2020, the Helpline received 833,598 calls. This is a 27 percent increase from 2019, when the Helpline received a total of 656,953 calls for the year.
The referral service is free of charge. If you have no insurance or are underinsured, we will refer you to your state office, which is responsible for state-funded treatment programs. In addition, we can often refer you to facilities that charge on a sliding fee scale or accept Medicare or Medicaid. If you have health insurance, you are encouraged to contact your insurer for a list of participating health care providers and facilities.
The service is confidential. We will not ask you for any personal information. We may ask for your zip code or other pertinent geographic information in order to track calls being routed to other offices or to accurately identify the local resources appropriate to your needs.
No, we do not provide counseling. Trained information specialists answer calls, transfer callers to state services or other appropriate intake centers in their states, and connect them with local assistance and support.
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Suggested Resources
What Is Substance Abuse Treatment? A Booklet for Families
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It's Not Your Fault (NACoA) (PDF | 12 KB)
Assures teens with parents who abuse alcohol or drugs that, "It's not your fault!" and that they are not alone. Encourages teens to seek emotional support from other adults, school counselors, and youth support groups such as Alateen, and provides a resource list.After an Attempt: A Guide for Taking Care of Your Family Member After Treatment in the Emergency Department
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Last Updated: 08/30/2022
Recovery and Recovery Support | SAMHSA
Recovery and Resilience
Resilience refers to an individual’s ability to cope with change and adversity. Resilience develops over time and gives an individual the capacity not only to cope with life’s challenges but also to be better prepared for the next stressful situation. Psychological resilience, the ability to cope with adversity and to adapt to stressful life events, varies widely from person to person and depends on environmental as well as personal factors. It refers to positive adaptation, or the ability to maintain mental and physical health despite participating in stressful situations. Resilience is playing up those protective factors so they can outweigh the risk factors. Optimism and the ability to remain hopeful are essential to resilience and the process of recovery.
Because recovery is a highly individualized process, recovery services and supports must be age appropriate and offered over the life course and flexible enough to ensure cultural relevancy. What may work for adults in recovery may be very different for youth or older adults in recovery. For example, the promotion of resiliency in young people, and the nature of social supports, peer mentors, and recovery coaching for adolescents and transitional age youth are different than recovery support services for adults and older adults.
Recovery and Relationships
The process of recovery is supported through relationships and social networks. This often involves family members who become the champions of their loved one’s recovery. They provide essential support to their family member’s journey of recovery and similarly experience the moments of positive healing as well as the difficult challenges. Families of people in recovery may experience adversities in their social, occupational, and financial lives, as well as in their overall quality of family life.
These experiences can lead to increased family stress, guilt, shame, anger, fear, anxiety, loss, grief, and isolation. The concept of resilience in recovery is also vital for family members who need access to intentional supports that promote their health and well-being. The support of peers and friends is also crucial in engaging and supporting individuals in recovery.
Peer support assists individuals to engage or stay connected to the recovery process through a shared understanding, respect, and mutual empowerment. Peer support extends beyond the reach of clinical treatment into the everyday environment providing non-clinical, strengths-based support. This relationship can help lay the foundation for SAMHSA’s four dimensions of recovery.
Recovery Support
SAMHSA advanced recovery support systems to promote partnering with people in recovery from mental and substance use disorders and their family members to guide the behavioral health system and promote individual, program, and system-level approaches that foster health and resilience; increase housing to support recovery; reduce barriers to employment, education, and other life goals; and secure necessary social supports in their chosen community.
Recovery support is provided in various settings. Recovery support services help people enter into and navigate systems of care, remove barriers to recovery, stay engaged in the recovery process, and live full lives in communities of their choice.
Recovery support services include culturally and linguistically appropriate services that assist individuals and families working toward recovery from mental and/or substance use problems. They incorporate a full range of social, legal, and other services (PDF | 409 KB). that facilitate recovery, wellness, and linkage to and coordination among service providers, and other supports shown to improve quality of life for people (and their families) in and seeking recovery.
Recovery support services may be provided before, during, or after clinical treatment, or may be provided to individuals who are not in treatment but seek support services.
These services, provided by professionals and peers, are delivered through a variety of community and faith-based groups, treatment providers, schools, and other specialized services. The broad range of service delivery options ensures the life experiences of all people are valued and represented.
For example, in the United States there are 34 recovery high schools that help reduce the risk in high school environments for youth with substance use disorders. These schools typically have high retention rates and low rates of students returning to substance use.
Additionally, SAMHSA's Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) advances effective recovery supports and services for people with mental or substance use disorders and their families.
Find more Publications and Resources on Recovery and Recovery Support.
Psychological Help Hotline, Psychological Help Helpline, free hotline 8-800
Psychological Help Hotline is a critical social service. No one is immune from a negative Psychological situation or a stressful situation, during which there is no possibility to receive outpatient Psychological assistance, at such moments the hotline is the only way to get help and support in order to overcome difficulties.
Psychological help line (helpline)
Who may need emergency Psychological Help by telephone?
Working Principles of the Helpline Hotline
Other Ways to Get Emergency Psychological Help
Competence of Operators and Response Time
Psychological Helpline (helpline)
8 (800) 333-44-34
Calls are free throughout Russia.
Hotline for Psychological Assistance EMERCOM of Russia
8 (499) 216-50-50
Toll-free 24-hour emergency Psychological assistance for Moscow residents
051
Who may need emergency Psychological assistance by phone?
- People who experience a very strong emotional experience of an intolerable nature, which requires the help of a specialist;
- People who have suffered psychological trauma;
- People who experience severe stress and want to find ways out of this state;
- People who have suffered the loss of a loved one or faced grief and who, due to circumstances, do not understand how to live on;
- Persons who cannot understand themselves;
- People who are depressed and have suicidal thoughts;
- Those people who have come to the conclusion that they need professional Psychological help, but who, for various reasons, put off visiting a specialist.
- Teenagers, in whose personal life there are difficulties in relations with a partner, and they see their solution only in a fatal act.
How the hotline works
- Anonymity. The caller and the consultant may not give their real name and provide another personal information about themselves during the conversation. This also applies to the phone number from which the call came;
- Privacy. All information received during a conversation with a hotline consultant is not transferred and is not used in the future, and the data received during the conversation is anonymized as much as possible;
- Tolerance. Whatever opinion, views and beliefs the caller holds, he is not criticized or condemned. The consultant in any situation will try to understand the subscriber.
- Call management. A caller to a hotline number can end the conversation at any time or abruptly change its subject, without explaining the reasons.
Other ways to get emergency Psychological assistance
On the website of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, you can contact the Internet service of emergency Psychological assistance with a question or problem, which is located in the appropriate section.
In it, you can create an anonymous appeal without registration and get an answer to the question as soon as possible, which will be written in the general journal.
Competence of operators and response time
The hotline answers the subscriber's call as quickly as possible, the waiting time for communication with a consultant takes about a minute.
Professional Psychologists work in the Psychological Assistance Service, who will help to cope with the problem, give advice on how to overcome life's difficulties in the right way, or simply allow the subscriber to speak out.
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Psychological help hotline
If you can’t cope with difficult emotions on your own, you may need the help of a specialist.
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NGOs and charities
Center "S sisters"
The Center has begun providing psychological support to anyone who is having a hard time with the current news situation. You can share your experiences and get support anonymously by calling the helpline and crisis mail.
Like : by phone number 8 (499) 901 02 01 (Mon - Sat from 10:00 to 20:00) or by e-mail [email protected].
Clear Morning Service
The Clear Morning psychological service, which helps people with cancer and their loved ones, has begun accepting crisis appeals around the clock from everyone who needs psychological support. Calling the hotline will help you cope with the excitement of the unknown, with anxiety, anger, shame, confusion, as well as with the infodemic and all the other spectrum of feelings that the latest news causes.
“We are ready to provide psychological support via the hotline free of charge to anyone who needs it now, regardless of citizenship and place of residence. If you are experiencing strong feelings right now, please call our hotline. We are close, ”the service wrote on social networks.
How to: call the hotline 8 800 100 01 91 (or +7 (499) 553 04 70 if you are abroad). The line is open 24/7.
Helplines: helplines that work seven days a week and holidays
SILSILA Foundation
Singer Manizha Foundation helps migrants, refugees and representatives of Eastern cultures in Russia who have suffered from domestic violence. But now the NGO provides free psychological assistance to everyone without exception.
How to: at 8 800 250 65 08 Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 17:00. The foundation also launched free online support groups: the next one will be held on March 9 from 19:00 to 20:30. You can follow the announcements of future meetings on instagram.
Galchonok Fund
The Fund operates a hotline, where every day, free of charge and anonymously, qualified specialists provide psychological, legal, and informational support. Any person can receive help, not just families with children with disabilities.
How to: at 8 800 500 36 25 daily from 09:00 to 21:00.
People-to-People Foundation
Initially, psychological assistance was provided only to people over 18 years of age with serious illnesses and their loved ones. After the start of the pandemic, any resident of Russia who needs help can contact the service.
How to: at 8 800 201 76 10 from 10:00 to 14:00 on weekdays.
Huge Heart Foundation for Adult Cancer Patients
The NGO helps adults with oncology, but after recent events, it has expanded its capabilities and began to help everyone who needs psychological support.
How to: by phone number 8 800 350 57 85 from 08:00 to 22:00 daily or by mail [email protected].
Neterpi Center
Consultations are held both face-to-face and online. In total, psychologists are ready to provide three consultations free of charge. “If you feel unwell due to hostilities and the situation of uncertainty, you can seek psychological help at our center. We are ready to work with those who are anxious about what is happening in the world, who are worried about the change in the situation, who are afraid for their loved ones, ”the center’s website says.
How to: fill out the application at the link. During business hours, the administrator will review it and send a letter with clarifications to the post office.
Online service "Helping others help yourself"
The service was created by a charitable public organization providing psychological assistance. The organization employs psychologists with different types of disabilities, but anyone can get help in the project.
Like: on Skype, by dialing the nickname pomogaya-drugim, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 16:00 to 18:00. Help is also available online.
Activists and volunteers
« International Agora »
Human rights organization helps those who need help. Now psychologists are already helping more than 200 lawyers and journalists from 20 regions of Russia.
How: fill in the form.
Open Space
The organization provides psychological assistance to activists, human rights activists, their relatives and those who find it difficult to experience social and political events in Russia and the world.
How to: write to the telegram bot @ospace_help1bot.
School "Vremena"
Psychologists-volunteers of the Vremena School began to conduct free consultations for 30 minutes for those who need psychological help.
Like : write to one of the project participants. Volunteer contacts can be found under the post on Instagram.
Volunteer psychologists
The Volunteer Psychologists project brings together specialists from all over the country. The project participants are ready to answer the questions of people who need psychological support free of charge. The community of psychologists is constantly being transformed and developed with the help of the All-Russian Public Movement "Medical Volunteers".
How to: write to the Viber chat bot, VKontakte or Telegram bot.
Psychology of Protest
The psychological assistance service for victims of all types of political violence in Russia has resumed its work. The community organized a mutual support chat “I am (not) afraid to live in Russia” and announced the start of regular support groups.
How: fill in the form.
NRU HSE
Assistance in the volunteer project is provided by Masters of the Faculty of Psychology. They are ready to conduct up to three free online consultations for 50 minutes.
How to: leave a request, after which you will be contacted within 24 hours to confirm the time of the session.
Moscow Institute of Gestalt and Psychodrama
Psychologists began to conduct groups daily in the morning, afternoon and evening in an online format. Meetings last for 1.5 hours, in each group up to 15 people. “What is happening now cannot leave any of us indifferent. Many people have a lot of anxiety and fear. MIGiP psychologists are ready to conduct psychological support groups free of charge for those who are having a hard time and who are overwhelmed with difficult emotions,” the institute’s social networks say.
How to: sign up via the link. Limited number of seats.
Services
Alter
The service has launched free online sessions for residents of any country who need help. Consultations will last 45 minutes, they are conducted by professional psychologists and psychotherapists.
How to: sign up for a consultation via the link.
PSYSOVET
The service was founded by graduates of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University. Lomonosov. Faculty members are still taking part in the project. To request help from an expert, you must register on the site and publish your application. As soon as a free psychologist appears on the service, he will take the request to work. Psysovet now employs more than 500 graduates. All consultations are conducted anonymously.
As: via website.
Psychological consultation "Yaroslavna"
Assistance is provided to all adults in difficult life situations, regardless of gender, age and religion. In total, psychologists, including graduates of the Institute of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, can conduct three free consultations for one person in person or by phone.
How to: call 8 495 120-16-60 on weekdays from 10:00 to 21:00. After talking on the phone, a person can get three free face-to-face consultations.
Foresight Psychology Center
The organization is ready to provide five free consultations from graduates of the Center's programs. Consultations are carried out on a first-come, first-served basis, the wait can be from 1 to 3 months.
How to: fill out an application. Application processing time can be from 1 to 2 weeks.
City Services
Moscow service of psychological assistance to the population
The Moscow Government Project conducts face-to-face consultations and provides emergency psychological assistance by phone and online.
How to: call the 24-hour emergency psychological help number +7 (495) 051.