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

The types of support an app can provide

We’ve written in the past about some other sobriety apps that we think can be helpful to people trying to quit or cut back on drinking, so check that post out too!

This time, we wanted to share some more detail about how we see this world of sobriety and moderation apps. This can help you decide what might make the most sense for you, given the goal you have and the kind of support you want. These apps all have different costs (some are free; some are not).

The types of apps we see as being potentially helpful to some looking to quit or cut back on drinking were:

1. Not strictly sobriety: These apps help to address the anxiety and depression that can come with drinking to excess.

2. Sobriety tracking and drink tracking: These are two sides of the same coin, where one helps people to track the amount of time they’ve been sober, and one helps people track their drinking to stick with a moderation goal. Often, these apps help build motivation by tracking money saved or other health benefits of sobriety or moderation, or offering motivational quotes.

3. Sober community: These are apps that help people get live support from peers who are also trying to stick with sobriety.

4. Additional sobriety or moderation support: There are another suite of apps that go beyond tracking (and motivational stats) to offer community support as well as exercises or games to help people stick with their goals. Some focus solely on sobriety goals, while others, like Drinker’s Helper, are intended to help people with either sobriety or moderation goals.

How do you see the world of apps? Let us know if there’s another type of app you see as being particularly helpful to you!

The world of sobriety and moderation apps

How support groups can help you quit or cut back on drinking

Alcoholics Anonymous, the most prominent organization dedicated to helping people quit drinking, is known for its support groups where people share their stories of recovery and collect sobriety coins to indicate the passage of time in recovery. Many secular organizations do the same, with the core of their program as a support group. But why do they do this? What is the value of a support group?

There is ample proof that social support can help people with recovery from alcohol addiction. Here is what support groups do for people who are quitting or cutting back on drinking.

1. Let them know they’re not alone. One of the reasons peer support groups in particular can help people quit or cut back is that people suddenly see themselves as part of a community. If you’re not alone, your challenges are normal, you can be understood, and you can be supported in the way you need.

2. Encourage them with success stories. If you’re in a group with people who’ve completely gotten sober (like an AA sponsor), you can see that sobriety is possible. But even short of that, you can get meaningful encouragement from hearing from others who got through an urge to drink without giving in.

3. Helps them stay happy. Social support has been shown in multiple studies to significantly help people counteract depression when they were dealing with alcohol abuse disorder.

4. Giving them a sense of purpose. One study of Gamblers Anonymous showed a positive impact on chances of recovery from people providing support to others, rather than receiving support. When people in the group helped others, it presumably reinforced their belief in the importance of recovery.

Knowing how important support groups can be, we knew we had to do more than just offer helpful exercises, tracking, and insights in our app, if we wanted to really help people quit or cut back on drinking. That’s why every member in Drinker’s Helper has a group to talk to.

Here’s how support groups work in Drinker’s Helper:

1. You are grouped with similar people: You’re matched with others based on having similar drinking habits. Our quiz splits people into four groups based on their past drinking levels as well as the level of dependence or abuse of alcohol that is evident from answering the questions. People who show higher or lower levels of abuse or dependence are grouped together, so that people can offer each other advice and support from a place of empathy and understanding.

2. You are prompted to share: There are weekly prompts to inspire discussion, introducing such topics as highs and lows of the week, or things you’re proud of along the way. There are also individual prompts available if you tap the Drinker’s Helper icon if you’re not sure what to say.

If you’re interested, you can try out Drinker’s Helper free for a week, and meet your support group!

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!