Skip to content
Smart Step
Sign inDonate

Crisis help

If you are in trouble right now, start here. These lines are free, confidential and open every hour of every day. You do not have to be sure it is bad enough to call.

Need help right now?

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. More crisis resources.

Who to call

If someone is in immediate danger — not breathing, badly hurt, threatening themselves or someone else — call 911 and stay with them until help arrives.

If you are thinking about ending your life

Call or text 988. It is answered by people trained for exactly this, and you do not need to have a plan, a diagnosis or the right words. You can call about a thought you have not said out loud to anyone.

While you wait: tell one person where you are. Put distance between yourself and anything you could use to hurt yourself — hand it to someone, lock it away, leave the room. Stay with another human being if you possibly can.

If someone may be overdosing

  • Call 911 first, and follow the dispatcher's instructions.
  • Stay with them. Do not leave them alone to sleep it off.
  • If naloxone is on hand, use it as directed on the package — it can reverse an opioid overdose and it will not hurt someone who is not overdosing.
  • Many states protect people who call for help during an overdose. Fear of trouble should not cost someone their life.

Naloxone is available without a prescription at many pharmacies and free from many health departments and outreach programs. Where to get it locally — {{LOCAL NALOXONE SOURCE}}.

If you have used, or you are close to it

You are not in trouble for saying so. Tell your house manager, a housemate, a sponsor, or call the SAMHSA National Helpline above. The moment it is spoken out loud, it stops being something you have to manage on your own.

If you are a Smart Step resident and it is the middle of the night, contact — {{AFTER-HOURS RESIDENT CONTACT}}.

Other kinds of emergency

Nowhere to sleep tonight

Call 211. They hold local lists of shelter, food, utility help and transportation, and they will search with you rather than hand you a website.

Violence at home

Call 911 if you are in danger now. 211 can also connect you with local domestic violence advocates and safe housing — {{LOCAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RESOURCE}}.

Mental health crisis, not life-threatening

988 handles mental health crises as well as suicide risk. Many areas also have a mobile crisis team that comes to you — {{LOCAL MOBILE CRISIS TEAM}}.

Worried about someone else

You can call any of these lines about another person. Families often call first. See the for families page.

One more thing

People survive nights they were certain they would not. Calling is not dramatic, and it is not an imposition — it is the ordinary thing to do when a night gets bigger than you are. Make the call.