Drink Less

Wish I’d found this app a long time ago. I knew I was a heavy drinker but to see how much I actually drink and the thousands of calories I consume a week in black and white has really been a major eye opener. Not to mention that you can also keep a record of how much you spend and compare it to previous weeks. This app is really easy to use and feels like a private dairy of your drinking habits. The only negative I have is that the start of the week begins on a Sunday and not Monday so this can be very confusing when working out your drinking or non drinking days. After using it for a month now and seeing all my red days (heavy drinking) I’m really encouraged to turn things around and stop drinking for a while and make more green days (no alcohol days) for the rest of this month. I recommend this app to anyone wanting to reduce alcohol intake.

There's a lot packed in this app and I learnt to pick and chose what worked for me, or take breaks, as it can otherwise be overwhelming. The fact that it generates reports on money spent as well units and calories intake is very useful, much easier than any of the paper alcohol diaries I've been given by substance misuse and mental health workers. Good options to customise and select drinks. Daily reminders work great, as well as weekly goals and the data it generates from week to week. I found it easy to be honest when updating my diary as the wording in the app is quite gentle. I felt terrified and under motivated after a few weeks of recording very high intakes of booze and being in the red, so I took a break from the app and sought other types of support. Now back on the app and feeling validated when I record alcohol free days and smash my goals. Calendar starting on Sunday can be confusing and I'm not into the mood or sleep trackers. Not fond of the random statistics either but that didn't put me off. Didn't play the game (too paranoid to talk into a phone app -a version where I could tap 'yes' or 'no thanks' would be good). Great app considering it's free and worked on my old iPhone 4s. Excellent as a diary / tracker, other options less so (which is fine, takes more than an app to destroy drinking habits).

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I know that drinkers often play down the amount they drink but even I was surprised to be told that my couple of bottles a week wine habit put me in the top 95% of drinkers and more at risk of harm than 18 other people for every 20 people in the uk. Just look at the national statistics on how many people drink and how much and you’ll know that can’t possibly be true. Not just that but my job brings me into contact with lots of problem drinkers, from moderate to very heavy. But just to test your ‘test’ I reloaded it and answered the questions that put me right within the alcohol consumption guidelines. One bottle of wine a week over three days. Although it told me my level of drinking was lower risk it still proceeded to tell me I drank more than 90% of the population! As if! This type of over exaggerated scare tactics are not necessary and just annoys people - it has me. I’m already trying to help myself cut down that’s why I downloaded the app, I don’t need to be ‘frightened’ into it. But now I don’t think I’ll use it as my overindulgence has now been labelled as one of the worst drinkers in the country. And although I know that’s not true, the fact it’s there accusingly makes me feel like I’m being treated like some kind of idiot. So I won’t be using the app. Next time take a proper cross section of people and don’t base your survey on teetotallers- which is the only way it could have come up with such skewed results. That is just not helpful to peoples mindsets.

I downloaded this app as part of a New Year’s Resolution as I’d noticed my drinking creeping up to unhealthy levels. I’ve now kept my diary the full 73 days in a row, it’s very easy to input drinks and the output in the graphs is really clear and easy to understand. Overall the UI for the core tracking stuff is a real asset to the app. While my drinking had been ‘higher than 95% of the population’ I haven’t felt the need to use the lifestyle elements of the app, such as cuecards and motivational notes.. these would definitely be good for somebody who had slipped into real dependency and seeing effects on personality etc. The app has definitely helped me think twice about having alcohol with dinner, or having too much at parties. As a result my birthday week last week was my lowest intake year to date! Every green ‘alcohol free’ day always feels like a moment of pride. There are a few bugs that don’t hugely affect the app (hence still 5 stars) but for the dev: - I still get a reminder at 11:05am every day to complete my diary, even if I already have - the ‘review your drinking’ questionnaire keeps only my first answers when I joined the app, and doesn’t give me opportunity to answer the questions again.. therefore it doesn’t reflect my current behaviours. All in all, a great and simple app that has helped me cut down considerably!

I am now drinking on average 18 units of alcohol a week! I know, it is still above the recommended health limit. But 5 years ago I was averaging 40 units a week! I used the drink aware website for the last five years to cut down and it worked. But this app is so much better than drink aware! I wish I could carry my drink aware stats over to this app to prove my journey in one place. For the last few years I have used 0.5% alcoholic drinks to ease my cravings, but drink aware did not allow me to record them efficiently! This app does. So now I can even include low alcohol in my stats and goal setting. By next year I hope to be under the health limit! It has been a long journey to improved health but worth it! This app could help you now to begin to manage your alcohol, it is free go for it!