Much more than a drink tracker

We’re thrilled to bring you an all-new Drinker’s Helper.

By way of background, Drinker’s Helper is an iOS app that provides motivational exercises, drink tracking and insights, and an anonymous support group to help people cut back or quit drinking. It’s used by people in a wide range of situations, from those sticking to moderate drinking limits for their health and fitness, to those using the app as a complement to in-person therapy in between sessions.

The app has always included a basic drink tracker for free, and provided more complex stats to members. But we’ve spent the last few months designing, building and testing an entirely new, much-improved experience for people using Drinker’s Helper. The new version is heavily based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy. It is intended to help people convince themselves to change over time.

The new Drinker’s Helper includes:

1. A new way to reflect on why you drink and how you can change: Now, when you track drinks, urges to drink, or sober days in Drinker’s Helper, you also track the triggers that make you want to drink and the strategies that help you stick with your goals. As you use the app regularly, you’ll quickly get a clear sense of what drives you to to drink and what helps you to keep urges at bay. This process is so important because everyone’s triggers are unique, and you need a plan to deal with them that works for your situation. Maybe you’re in the restaurant industry and have to be around drinking all the time, so you need strategies to stay motivated in tempting circumstances. Maybe you do most of your drinking at home alone, so you need new ways to entertain yourself that make drinking unappealing. The goal is to find what works for you.

2. A new way to convince yourself to change: In addition to tracking your strategies and triggers, the new tracker encourages you to reflect on what you enjoy about sobriety or moderation, and what you dislike about excessive drinking. We know how helpful it was for us when we quit drinking to reflect regularly on how good we felt without drinking. Now, anytime you’re tempted to lose control, you can look back on your own words about the benefits of changing for motivation to stick with it.

3. A long-term view of your drinking and urges to drink: Now, you can see how much you’ve had to drink, and how many urges to drink you’ve had, over the past weeks and months. You’ll also see key stats like the percent of days you’ve spent sober or below your limits. All of this is designed to help you see signs of progress, even when they’re sometimes hard to see. Maybe your urges are getting weaker or less frequent. Maybe you’re having more sober days. We want you to see the encouraging signs of progress you’re making so you know it is possible for you to change.

4. Inspiration from others to cut back or quit drinking: We put a lot of work into making sure that members are matched with a support group of similar people who will really help them cut back or quit drinking in Drinker’s Helper. But we realized that with a growing community, we have an opportunity to allow every member to benefit from every other member’s success. That’s why we’re introducing Community Insights, a place to discover both new strategies to cut back or quit and new benefits to sobriety or moderation from the anonymous insights of other members. This way, as each member tracks their drinking or sobriety, others have the chance to learn from them.

If you’re thinking about cutting back or quitting drinking, we’d love to help. Give the app a try for free for a week and if you like it, join our growing community of members.

The new Drinker’s Helper Tracking view.

New to Drinker's Helper: Profiles, Matches, and Programs, oh my!

We wanted to share a bit more context on some recent updates we’ve made to Drinker’s Helper, the companion app for people who are cutting back or quitting drinking.

There are three new things you’ve probably noticed if you’ve gone into the latest version of the app:

1. Profiles: a simple, anonymous profile to introduce yourself to your Group

2. Matches: introductions to others in your Group who share similar specific challenges

3. Programs: organized courses of exercises

So why did we make these changes? Well, it’s all about what’s right for you (figuratively speaking).

We believe that being understood is critical in getting meaningful support. While in some broad sense everyone using Drinker’s Helper is trying to do the same thing (cut back or quit drinking), in another sense each person’s challenge is quite unique.

For example, some people work as bartenders, or in the wine industry. Wow. That’s a hard one. Imagine how hard it is cutting back or quitting drinking when you’re surrounded by the stuff and constantly offered free drinks!

Some people are better suited to supporting one another because they have specific challenges like that in common and can share tips. But there are more basic examples, too. Someone who primarily drinks when celebrating with their hard-partying social circle is going to have a harder time connecting with someone who primarily drinks at home alone when feeling depressed.

That’s why we created both Profiles and Matches - to help you meet people in your Group who can offer the right support to you based on what you’re dealing with. We hope you make deeper, faster connections as a result of talking with your Matches.

The same simple core insight led us to create Programs: that each of us has unique challenges in cutting back or quitting drinking. There are over 100 exercises in the Drinker’s Helper library, and it is important that we pick the right ones for you based on the support you need.

Some people need to shore up their motivation to change their drinking; others are plenty motivated and simply need some mental tricks to change how they think about alcohol. Programs allow us to tailor a set of courses to your situation.

We hope you give Profiles, Matches and Programs a try in the Drinker’s Helper app!

A mockup of a Match

Book review: How to Change Your Drinking

We spend a lot of time researching programs that help people cut back or quit drinking, and this week we read the main book behind the Harm Reduction approach: How to Change Your Drinking, by Kenneth Anderson (see here).

It was fascinating to learn more about a program that accommodates even more goals than Drinker’s Helper. (For clarity, we help people quit drinking or achieve moderate drinking goals, but Harm Reduction also supports people pursuing goals of Safer Drinking or even Reduced Drinking that may not be moderate drinking).

Here’s what we liked and didn’t like about what we read. Overall, there’s a lot to like in the philosophy, even though we do take a firmer stance on what a desirable outcome is.

Here’s what we liked about their approach and book:

1. Their approach emphasizes the need to give people the facts, and let them choose their own goals. We love this emphasis on the truth, as you risk rapidly lose credibility with people if you over-emphasize the severity or likelihood of health risks from drinking. We also believe people have to choose to change on their own; there is no changing someone else or insisting on a particular goal by force. It’s hard to either go sober or achieve moderation, and it requires strong internal motivation on the part of the person pursuing that goal.

2. We love the section on confronting partners from a place of empathy. Partly for the reason above, we love that the book encourages partners to elicit their SOs’ desire to change with questions, rather than pushing hard for a specific goal. We think this is dead on. It’s nearly impossible to convince someone else to change, and you may even accidentally spur them to further drinking if they feel attacked or ashamed. Questions, empathy and understanding are easier to respond to.

3. It emphasizes the pros as well as the cons of drinking and changing drinking. We love that the approach emphasizes the need to be honest about why drinking is appealing, and consider all the factors in choosing your course. We emphasize the same in the exercise “Roadblocks to Change.” This is important because it can severely hamper your motivation if you try to force yourself to forget or look away from the benefits of drinking for you. Instead, by acknowledging those benefits head on, and weighing them agains the costs, you can convince yourself, again and again, that sobriety or moderation is best for you, without any lingering doubt.

4. It’s fantastic that it normalizes slips. We agree that it’s perfectly OK to go for months without drinking and then decide to have a drink on a given day to see how you feel. The book makes it perfectly clear that a slip like that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to have 20 drinks later on. It doesn’t mean you’ve relapsed and must resume your old bad habits. You can get back on track right away, and continue to feel proud of your progress. If you have been taught, on the other hand, feel as though you’ve relapsed or almost committed a crime against yourself by drinking, you may end up drinking even more.

With a lot to love, what could we possibly dislike? Well, here are our key differences of opinion.

1. We think you need to assess why you want to get drunk. If it’s all just fun and games, that’s one thing. And for many of us, in college or graduate school, the heavy drinking is all just for fun, with no deeper meaning. But if this behavior continues after graduation, we think it’s worth examining the reason for this desire to get drunk.  It may suggest we’re trying to escape from something or cope with something. Why? Are there healthier ways to escape? Or, is there something we should change about the way we live our lives, so that we no longer want to escape by drinking? If you simply say “I like drinking,” and choose to continue, you may not learn from the reasons you drink.

2. We don’t think safer drinking is good enough. This isn’t a matter of judgment, of course. We mean it’s not good enough as a goal for the very people who choose it, because we think they deserve better. If you’re choosing to drink, we don’t think you’re doing something immoral (unless you injure others; don’t drink and drive - ever). However, we don’t wish to make the elements of safer drinking (don’t drive drunk, don’t have unprotected sex with strangers you just met, don’t leave the house if you intend to black out and might get lost) seem optional by celebrating them as a choice. Those should always be a part of everyone’s plan. What is optional, difficult, and should be celebrated is pursuing and achieving moderation or sobriety. And, of course, it’s what we recommend to our members: either sobriety, or drinking at a low-risk level (moderation).

3. We don’t think the book does enough to acknowledge how amazing sobriety or moderation can be. For anyone who has been addicted, achieving real freedom from craving is an amazing feeling. The balance of images we’re given by society weighs so heavily on the side of drinking, drinking heavily, and drinking for all occasions and all reasons, that we think it’s the job of programs like ours to make sure people ALSO have a good sense of the alternative. Sobriety sounds dull, but it means really feeling in control, becoming radically productive and creative, and developing a new internal strength you never knew was possible, to handle life’s battles head on. All we’re saying is give sobriety a chance!

And of course, if you have decided to give sobriety or moderation a chance, we hope we can help! We offer exercises, support groups, tracking and insights to help people cut back or quit drinking. Check out the app today!

How to slow down drinking

A lot of our tips focus on people who are trying to quit drinking. But a good number of those using Drinker’s Helper are simply trying to moderate their drinking, and have seen great success with doing so. We actually started with moderating drinking ourselves, because when we first set out, it was hard to imagine we’d ever quit drinking! (We did).

Here are some of the best tips for moderating drinking we’ve seen - don’t hesitate to add your own in the comments!

1. Choose drinks that are intense in flavor, so you don’t gulp, but sip them. Things with a sour citrus note, or bitters, could help. The goal is to actually get a better experience out of moderating than drinking quickly!

2. Nix the shots. This should go without saying, but shots are intended to get you drunk, quickly. Once you’re drunk, it’s much harder to control your impulses and stop at your limits. The goal is to get and remain tipsy, and not to get drunk.

3. Consume less alcohol per glass. You can achieve this in a few ways. With cocktails, it’s easy - simply put less hard alcohol in each glass with your mixers. But with beer or wine: you can pick one that has a lower percentage alcohol by volume, or achieve the same effect by diluting your drink with water. We used to put ice cubes in our wine as a way of doing this, and before you give us scandalized expressions, the Romans used to do it, and they knew their wine!

4. Alternate alcoholic drinks with non alcoholic ones. If you’re in for a long day (tailgating, watching March Madness, partying with friends, celebrating a big occasion), it’s hard to go a whole day on just alcoholic drinks and stick to a moderation limit. But if you alternate gin & tonic with just tonic water, chances are you can make it just fine.

5. Plan ahead for how long each drink has to last you. This helps you know if you’re on pace throughout the night. If the night is 3 hours and you only want to have 2 drinks, either start late or plan to nurse those puppies!

We firmly believe that moderation is possible for many of those who struggle with alcohol abuse.

If you’re thinking of cutting back on drinking, we encourage you to try out Drinker’s Helper, our moderation app that provides tracking, insights, exercises, and support groups to people looking to quit or cut back on drinking. Try it free for a week!

How you can track your progress in Drinker's Helper

When quitting or cutting back on drinking, it’s important to set goals and track your progress.

Many apps offer helpful trackers for the purpose of counting days of sobriety. Drinker’s Helper is a little different, primarily because we also support people who are trying to cut back on drinking, in addition to those who quit entirely.

Here’s how we help people quit or cut back with Tracking & Insights.

We help people set and track drinking against their limits:

1. We guide people to set daily and weekly drinking limits that are in line with what the NIAAA recommends as a healthy drinking limit. Only 2 in 100 people who observe these limits have an alcohol use disorder, according to their research. People can also set a limit of zero, of course, if their goal is total sobriety!

2. When people track their drinks, they can see whether they are on track or not for the week vs. their goals. If someone has a heavy drinking day, for example, they might be off track for the week, but can catch up if they stay sober the rest of the week.

We help people motivate themselves with signs of progress:

1. We help people see their streaks over time (how long they’ve stayed within their limits). This is one of the most important ways people can motivate themselves in the app. We let them know when their streak has gotten longer.

2. People can also set a pledge in the app to stay sober for a certain number of days. This is one way to motivate themselves to complete a short-term stint of sobriety. They can be anywhere from a single day to a full year. We believe this can be one of the best ways to start out using the app!

3. We also help people compare their progress to others using the app. That way they have a better sense of whether they’re checking in often enough, or doing enough exercises, compared to the community.

We help people understand why they’re drinking:

1. Our insights give people a better sense of why they’re drinking. When people track a drink, they also track where they were, who they were with, and more. Then they can see over time what their top drinking situations are. It helps people to discover their triggers, so they can plan to deal with them. This helped us out a ton when we were first using the app ourselves.

2. Finally, we also help people track urges to drink. It’s important to be able to track what gives you urges to drink, even if you don’t give in. This helps you get an even better sense of what triggers make you want a drink.

How exercises work in Drinker's Helper

Exercises are one of the most critical parts of helping people quit or cut back on drinking in the Drinker’s Helper app. Our library is extensive, with over 75 exercises, and our members do about 4 a week on average!

But what are they, and what makes them helpful to people who want to use the app to stop drinking?

First, they’re organized by themes. Some exercises are intended to help people deal with urges to drink. Others deal with building up motivation to stop drinking. You can find the right exercises by looking at the name and description of the shelf in the library.

Second, they aren’t only focused on stopping drinking directly. We know that many people who drink also suffer from depression or anxiety, or both. So we have exercises designed to help people deal with anxious or depressed thoughts.

Third, some are designed to be done again and again. You can re-do them as you discover new triggers, or new alternative activities, for example. We know that people learn new tips from their support groups, or discover new motivation for change as they experience the benefits of sobriety.

Try out a few exercises for free in your free trial of Drinker’s Helper!

Exercises in Drinker’s Helper

Apps to help people quit drinking

While we of course hope that you use and love Drinker’s Helper, we also want to be sure you have all the tools at your disposal to quit or cut back on drinking. Many of our members use multiple apps, and we want to let you know about some of ones we’ve heard work well.

The benefit of using an app (or more than one app!)

Here are some of the top rated apps that can help you quit or cut back on drinking:

1. Sober Grid (rated 4.9 stars): This app is great for finding people near you who are also trying to go sober, and getting encouragement from the community. It also helps you track your progress and feel a sense of accomplishment by hitting particular milestones.

2. I am Sober (rated 4.8 stars): The core of this app is a sobriety counter that helps you track how long you’ve been sober and celebrates successful attainment of sobriety milestones. People also seem to love the motivational quotes, and the ability to make daily personal pledges to strengthen their commitment to sobriety.

3. Nomo (rated 4.8 stars): Although it also has a simple sobriety clock, this is one of the most feature-complete apps in terms of offering many different tools to quit or cut back on drinking. They offer games to distract yourself instead of drinking, a journal, community encouragement, milestone celebrations, the ability to find accountability partners and talk to them, and more.

We encourage you to explore the apps that are out there and find what works for you. There are quite a few apps that are designed to help people quit or cut back on drinking. You can see more profiled here on Healthline).

Our app, Drinker’s Helper (rated 4.5 stars), combines three important pieces of the process: support groups, tracking and insights, and motivational exercises.

We have our own unique take on all three. For the support groups, we think it’s important that you talk to people similar to you, so we match you with others who have similar past drinking habits.

For the tracking and insights, we think it’s important not just to track drinking, but also to track urges to drink and the circumstances behind each. That helps you get an idea of what drives you to drink, so you can more effectively fight our urges.

Finally, for the exercises, we drew from two evidence-based therapies: cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy.

We believe that using the app, you can get valuable support to quit or cut back on drinking. Join today!

Introducing an all-new Drinker's Helper!

Hi all,

We are very proud and excited to bring you v3 of Drinker’s Helper. We believe we’ve made the app not only better, but also much easier to use. Let’s see how:

To begin with, we are making tracking easier. We know many people simply want to set a goal and track their drinking against that goal. Tracking drinks is now quick and easy, entirely free for anyone using Drinker’s Helper. Try it out today!

For our members, things get even better with new visual insights. Members can now more easily get a sense of the circumstances of their drinking as well as understand how it is changing with time. It’s now much easier to see how you’re doing!

We are also introducing a wealth of new content. Over 75 exercises are now available to members in our library, and you can save your favorites to your toolbox for easy access. These exercises cover tips to deal with urges to drink, among other things.

To try out Drinker’s Helper, find us on the App Store today!

Best,
The Drinker’s Helper Team

PS. If you have suggestions for our next version, please contact us.