Is It a Problem?

Problem use rarely arrives all at once. It creeps up gradually, which is exactly why it's worth checking in honestly from time to time rather than waiting for a crisis to make the point for you. Being able to ask the question at all is a good sign in itself.

Questions worth sitting with

None of these is a verdict. They're just prompts to be honest with yourself:

• Are you using more, or more often, than you meant to?
• Have you tried to cut down or take a break and struggled?
• Is it eating into money, work, study, sleep or relationships?
• Do you need it to feel normal, relax, or get to sleep?
• Do you keep using despite something it's clearly costing you?
• Has it stopped being something you enjoy and become something you just do?

A "yes" or two doesn't mean disaster, and it doesn't mean you're addicted. It means it's worth noticing, because the earlier you catch a pattern drifting, the smaller the course-correction needed. The tolerance break is often the best first test. If stopping even briefly is harder than you expected, that itself is one of the clearest and most useful pieces of information you can have.

A more structured check

If you'd like something a bit more concrete than a list of questions, the site's self-check is a short, completely private version of a validated screening tool: eight questions, no judgement, and nothing saved or sent anywhere. It won't diagnose anything, but it'll place your use on a clearer map than gut feeling alone.

Take the self-check →

Knowing when to get help

If use has tipped from something you choose into something that's steering you, if you can't stop when you want to, or it's doing real damage and you keep going anyway, that's the point to get a hand, and reaching for it is ordinary, not dramatic. Help in the UK is free and confidential:

• FRANK, free, non-judgemental information and a 24-hour helpline (0300 123 6600).
• NHS: getting help, how to reach free local drug services, via your GP or, in most areas, a direct self-referral.
• Your GP, who can talk it through and check whether something underneath needs treating.

And if what you actually want is to change how you use, there's a whole toolkit for it: Moderation if you want to keep using but keep it deliberate, Cutting Down if you're winding down, and the full Quitting spoke if a clean stop is where you're heading.