Drugs and substances
Confidential support for any kind of substance use.
Online Substance Use Counselling · Maidstone
Online Substance Use Counselling in Maidstone
Online substance use counselling for Maidstone, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Maidstone, from the town centre and the river to the streets around the Medway, with the same BACP-registered, confidential support as an in-person session, and no journey.
BACP registered member25+ years of experienceLived experience
ConfidentialA safe, private space
Person-centredThe therapy fits you
In and around Maidstone
Substance Use Counselling for Maidstone, at a glance
- Areas covered online
- All of Maidstone: from the town centre and the river to Penenden Heath, Shepway and Allington
- Known for
- The Medway, the Archbishop's Palace and the surrounding orchards
- Region
- London & South East (England)
- Local NHS / support route
- Kent County Council's drug and alcohol support
- Format
- Secure video, UK-wide. In-person also available on the Sussex coast.
Life in Maidstone
Why do people in Maidstone reach out?
Drug use around Maidstone rarely looks like the version that gets talked about. It sits in ordinary houses in Allington, Tovil and Ringlestone, in the gap between a shift at Maidstone Hospital ending and sleep arriving, in the long evenings of seasonal work out among the orchards. Some of it started as something practical: staying awake through a night on the wards, or getting down again afterwards. Some of it arrived years earlier and simply travelled along with the job and the mortgage. Only 2.6 adults per 1,000 across Kent were in treatment at specialist drug-misuse services in 2020/21, against an England average of 4.5 per 1,000, which tells you how much of this stays out of view.
Areas covered
Neighbourhoods in and around Maidstone
Penenden HeathShepwayAllingtonBarmingTovilBearstedPalace WoodRinglestoneLoose
Wherever you are in Maidstone, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.
The local picture
The local picture in Maidstone
Official figures for Maidstone, for context rather than as a description of you.
2.6 adults per 1,000 were in treatment at specialist drug-misuse services in 2020/21, below the England average of 4.5 per 1,000. Source: OHID Fingertips – Adults in treatment at specialist drug misuse services (2020/21).
the rate of deaths from drug misuse was 4.8 per 100,000 in 2022 - 24, below the England average of 5.8 per 100,000. Source: OHID Fingertips – Deaths from drug misuse (2022 - 24).
Reviewed June 2026.
What would we do together in substance use counselling?
Substance use counselling here is non-judgemental and one-to-one, working with the pain, fear or loneliness the substance has been managing, at a pace that protects your sense of safety.
The method travels; only the geography changes. the substance use counselling page explains it properly, the practical side answers the practical questions, and professional standards and registration shows how the practice is held to account.
What do I need for an online session?
Sessions run over a secure, encrypted video link, held to the same BACP confidentiality as meeting in person. After a free fifteen-minute call, you join from any private space on a phone, tablet or laptop.
All Maidstone work is online by secure video, because Bradley's room is in Hove. For drug use in particular that removes the two things people stall on: being seen going into somewhere, and having to account for the trip afterwards. Nothing is carried into a building and nobody local is involved. You take the hour from wherever a door shuts, at the same time each week, and starting with the camera off is fine.
Book a free 15-minute callWhat I help with
What sort of things do people bring?
The false self
Letting go of the protective self that no longer serves you.
Specialised attention
One-to-one sessions shaped entirely around you.
Self-discovery
Rediscovering the authentic self beneath the coping.
Anxiety and low mood
Treating what the substance has been masking.
Sustainable change
Growing into recovery rather than forcing it.
Substance Use Counselling in Maidstone
Why people in Maidstone come for substance use counselling
You are not asked to have stopped, or even to have decided. That needs saying plainly, because specialist services get imagined as places you only qualify for once things have collapsed, and people wait years for a threshold that never quite arrives. Across Kent, deaths from drug misuse ran at 4.8 per 100,000 between 2022 and 2024, under the England average of 5.8 per 100,000, and only 2.6 adults per 1,000 were in treatment in 2020/21 against 4.5 nationally. Neither figure describes the person quietly managing something nobody else knows about. The first questions here are simple: what you use, how often, and what it is for. That last one gets skipped almost everywhere, and it is the one that explains the rest. Then the cost, in your own words. Prescribing and anything to do with withdrawal belongs with your GP or with Kent County Council's drug and alcohol support.
A free, unhurried first step
Not sure if it is right for you? A free fifteen-minute call is a no-obligation way to talk it through.
Book a free 15-minute callDrug, alcohol & addiction support in Maidstone
My online counselling sits alongside the help available locally. In Maidstone, free local drug and alcohol support is available through Kent County Council's drug and alcohol support.
For confidential information and advice, FRANK (on 0300 123 6600) and Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 are free, and Alcoholics Anonymous and SMART Recovery run peer-support meetings you can find online.
Other local and national support verified for this area includes:
If you need urgent help now
This is not a crisis service. If anyone is in immediate danger call 999. For urgent mental health support, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. The Samaritans are free, day or night, on 116 123, or text SHOUT to 85258.
If you drink heavily or use drugs daily, do not stop suddenly on your own. Withdrawal can cause seizures and can be dangerous. Speak to your GP or a local drug and alcohol service first, and they can arrange a safe, medically supported withdrawal. Counselling works alongside that, not instead of it.
Maidstone questions
Online Substance Use Counselling in Maidstone: common questions
Do I need to want to quit before booking?
Not at all. Plenty of the useful work happens before any decision is made, and pushing for one early tends to end the conversation rather than help it. We look at what the drug is doing for you first, and in what circumstances. What you then choose is yours, with no timetable attached.
How much are sessions, and can I stop after one?
You can stop whenever you like, because nothing is booked in blocks. An hour costs £80, ninety minutes £100 and two hours £120, paid one appointment at a time. Before any of that there is a free 15-minute consultation, so the decision itself does not cost you anything to make.
Which drug service covers Maidstone?
Kent County Council's drug and alcohol support is the county route, and the West Kent wellbeing service run by Change Grow Live has a hub in the town. That is where structured treatment and prescribing sit. Mid Kent Mind covers wellbeing across Maidstone, Ashford and Swale if low mood is part of it.
Will anything be recorded or passed to my employer?
Everything said in a session stays there, and Bradley practises under the BACP Ethical Framework. The exceptions are few and are set out before you start: serious risk to your life or someone else's, or a legal requirement. What you use is not reported to your GP, and nothing at all goes to an employer.
I work shifts at Maidstone Hospital. Can I be seen outside normal hours?
Usually, yes. A weekly slot can be set around a rota rather than a standard working day, including mornings after a run of nights. Because no journey is attached, an appointment takes an hour of your day and nothing more, which is what makes it survivable on shifts.
I keep telling myself I've got it under control. How do I know if I really have?
That reassurance is worth testing gently. If the amount is creeping up, or it is hard to stop when you plan to, control may be looser than it feels. We can look at that honestly, without judgement, and you decide what, if anything, you want to change.
Can I get online substance use counselling quickly in Maidstone?
Generally yes. A free 15-minute consultation comes first, then a regular time, often within a week. There is no clinic to reach and no referral queue, so you can join securely from home by the Medway or out towards Allington, around your working week.
Is substance use counselling free on the NHS in Maidstone?
There are free routes: your GP can refer you, Kent's drug and alcohol service takes self-referrals, and FRANK offers confidential national advice online or by phone. This counselling is private, at £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 and £120 for 120, with a free consultation.
Online or in person around Maidstone's commute into London?
Online usually fits best, since trains into Victoria and Charing Cross already claim a good slice of the day, and sessions come to you at home with nothing to add. Evenings work well. If you would like to meet face to face, the room is in Hove, a run along the coast.
Online Substance Use Counselling in Maidstone, whenever you are ready
A free fifteen-minute call is the simplest place to start, no obligation, just a chance to see if we are the right fit.
Also available online across London & South East: Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, Canterbury. See all of London & South East.
Close to this in Maidstone, there is addiction counselling, counselling for drinking problems and anxiety counselling.
If you would like to read more first, I have written about three ways to handle a craving and calming a craving as it rises.
If you can reach the south coast, this work is also done face to face in Brighton — all in-person areas are listed here.