Forest Hill · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Addiction counselling and rehab advice for Forest Hill
If you searched rehab Forest Hill after another evening of worrying, about your own drinking or a flatmate's, partner's or child's, here is how help is arranged. New Direction, Lewisham's free recovery service, decides with you what treatment fits and sets up detox or residential care where needed. I offer addiction counselling beside it, and with Hove 80 minutes' drive away, video from your own flat is usually the practical way we would meet.
The practical facts for Forest Hill
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Forest Hill by car
- About 80 minutes with clear roads (49.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free local drug & alcohol service
- New Direction drug and alcohol recovery service (Lewisham), 020 8314 5566
- Fees
- £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90, £120 for 120. The first 15-minute call is free.
- Registration
- BACP registered member, no. 109340 (check the register); UKCP student member in advanced psychotherapy training.
Keeping it together on the Windrush line
Forest Hill ward is young and busy. Two-thirds of its residents are of working age, and most of those in work hold professional, technical or managerial jobs. Mornings start on the platform, with eight Windrush line trains an hour heading north and Southern running to London Bridge and Victoria. A drinking or drug habit can fit neatly around a life like that for a long time. The deadlines get met and the train gets caught, while the trouble surfaces at weekends, in the bank balance or behind the front door. With 63.1% of people in the ward living in flats, a good share of them rented, the first person to notice may be a flatmate rather than a relative. In 2023/24, Lewisham residents went into hospital for alcohol-specific conditions at a rate of 595.6 per 100,000, similar to England's 611.7. A borough rate cannot tell you what is happening in your own kitchen, so trust what you are seeing.
New Direction, rehab and the weekly hour beside it
Change Grow Live runs New Direction, Lewisham's drug and alcohol recovery service, and you can call it on 020 8314 5566. Nothing is charged to Lewisham residents: the service begins with an assessment, offers community support, and organises detox under medical care or a residential stay when one of those is the right next step. Counselling with me fits around those stages. For someone whose working life still looks intact, early sessions may be about the gap between how things appear and how they feel: the Friday that runs into Sunday, the promises made to yourself on the train home. We look closely at the part drinking, drugs or gambling plays for you, perhaps quieting a mind still racing from the commute or carrying you through a pub-centred social life, and then work out what else could do that work by Monday. Later, if you come back from residential treatment, counselling can sit beside the aftercare and recovery groups that Waythrough Lewisham PCRS runs. Partners, parents and flatmates are welcome to book for themselves. Living beside someone else's habit wears you down, and you deserve an hour about your own fear and limits. I have my own recovery behind me, so nothing about a hidden Friday-to-Sunday habit needs softening for my sake.
Four people who might be reading this in SE23
The flatmate who has noticed
You share a kitchen and have seen the empties or heard the late returns. Carers Lewisham backs the friends and housemates of anyone using drink or drugs, and our sessions give your side of it space.
A parent wanting other parents
The New Direction Family and Carers Group and the Insight Lewisham Family, Friends and Carers programme offer relatives company and information alongside one-to-one sessions.
Fine at work, not at weekends
Your job carries on and nobody in the office knows. Video sessions timed around your Southern or Windrush line trains let you deal with it on your own terms.
Back on the hill after rehab
Returning from a residential stay, aftercare from Waythrough Lewisham PCRS and weekly counselling together can give the first months home some structure and support.
Public health figures for the area
These are local authority figures from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The figures describe a whole population over a period, not any one person.
Free drug and alcohol support for Forest Hill
New Direction is where Lewisham residents ask about detox, rehab and community treatment. For the people around someone using, there are the New Direction Family and Carers Group, Insight Lewisham's Family, Friends and Carers programme, Carers Lewisham and Al-Anon Family Groups. Sydenham Garden, with its resource centre on Wynell Road, runs therapeutic gardening and creative groups for adults. Whichever of these you lean on, weekly sessions with me by video can run in parallel.
- Free drug and alcohol serviceNew Direction drug and alcohol recovery service (Lewisham)020 8314 5566Run by Change Grow Live (CGL). Free and confidential.
- Local organisationAl-Anon Family Groups UK & EireSupport for families and friends.
FRANK (on 0300 123 6600) and Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 are free and confidential, and Alcoholics Anonymous and SMART Recovery run peer-support meetings you can find online. For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
If raising someone's drinking or drug use with them feels unsafe, or someone at home is hurting, threatening or controlling you, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247. In immediate danger, call 999.
Detox and residential rehab are arranged through the free local drug and alcohol service named here. It assesses what you need, arranges medically assisted withdrawal where that is safe and needed, and can refer for community or residential treatment. My part is one-to-one counselling before, alongside or after that treatment, to help the changes last.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
The South London NHS Mental Health Crisis Text Service (SLaM) is another option: WhatsApp 0303 330 1511 or text 80991.
If you, or someone you live with, drink heavily every day, or take drugs such as benzodiazepines or GHB daily, do not stop suddenly without medical advice. Withdrawal can cause seizures and can be dangerous. Your GP or the local drug and alcohol service can arrange medically assisted withdrawal. Call 999 or go to A&E if someone in withdrawal is shaking visibly, unusually restless or agitated, confused, seeing or hearing things that are not there, or has a fit. For milder symptoms, such as a slight tremor or sweating, contact your GP or NHS 111 the same day (NHS guidance). Counselling works alongside medical support, not instead of it.
What people in Forest Hill ask before starting
How does someone from Forest Hill get into rehab through New Direction?
Ring New Direction on 020 8314 5566. Change Grow Live runs it for the whole of Lewisham, free of charge. Its staff meet you for an assessment and then line up whatever suits, whether that is support in the community around SE23, a detox under medical supervision, or a bed in residential treatment. You need not wait for that assessment to start counselling with me, and our sessions can continue through treatment and after you come home.
My flatmate in Forest Hill is using every weekend. Is it my place to get help?
It is, for your own sake. You can come to counselling about how their using affects you, from the noise and the borrowed money to the worry when they are out all night. Carers Lewisham supports friends as well as family of someone who uses drugs or alcohol. Should a night out leave you afraid for their safety, look at the urgent help box on this page for the numbers to ring or text.
Does addiction counselling from SE23 happen on video, or would I travel?
From the hill, sessions normally run on screen, because Hove is roughly 80 minutes away by road and a rail trip means switching trains at London Bridge or Victoria. You join from anywhere private, even a parked car. Should you later want to sit across from me, booking a longer 90 or 120-minute session at Intergen House makes the trip down from SE23 worthwhile.
Will anyone at work find out if I start addiction counselling?
You come to me directly, so there is no employer involvement and no referral letter. What you say stays between us, apart from the narrow exceptions every counsellor has, such as a serious danger to someone's life, which I go through with you when we first meet. Slots before your Southern train, over lunch or after the Windrush line gets you home are all possible, from any spot where nobody can listen in.
How much do sessions cost, and is the first call free?
Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for 120 minutes, the same in person in Hove or by video. The first 15-minute call is free, with no obligation to book. There is no NHS referral needed to see me privately.
Talk it over first, from SE23 and the hill
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.