On any given day most of us will access a variety of apps on our phones. We click to check the weather, to send a Tweet, to check the stock market, or to mingle on Instagram. Now more than a dozen years into the smartphone era, there truly is an app for pretty much everything you can imagine.
In recent years, app developers have been busy creating recovery resources that are available at our fingertips. Recovery apps can play a powerful role in helping someone maintain sobriety, while sober dating apps provide a tool for healthy socializing within the recovery community. Having easy access to these types of sober support networks adds just one more layer to the important continuing care piece of recovery.
Recovery Digital Apps
When battling the disease of addiction it is helpful to have an arsenal of tools at the ready. After all, triggers can pop up and threaten recovery without warning. Why not add some sources of instant sobriety support to your smartphone via recovery apps? These can fill in the gap when a meeting or a sponsor isn’t readily available, providing immediate access to an online sober network.
Not all recovery apps feature a community, though. Some of the apps focus on offering daily tips and inspiration. These are motivational tools that can help bolster someone when they are having a lousy day or lack that fire in the belly. Some apps track and monitor emotions as triggers are encountered. These can serve a vital function by helping to sound the warning bell if a relapse might be creeping up.
Some of the top recovery apps include:
- AA Big Book Free. This app features the full text of Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book plus podcasts, prayers, and meeting finder.
- My Spiritual Toolkit — 12 Steps AA Alcoholics App. This app guides individuals through a daily routine of reflections, taking inventory, keeping a gratitude list and an online journal.
- SMART Recovery Cost Benefit Analysis. For people in the SMART Recovery program, this app helps them assess their day-to-day decision-making.
- Came to Believe in Sobriety. This app lets you log your emotional status during the day, to set reminders for going to meetings, calling your sponsor, taking medications, etc., and have access to the Big Book.
- SoberGrid. This is a social media platform where people in recovery can check in with each other and chat about emotions or mood state, and also to monitor triggers.
Sober Dating Apps
Since humans are basically social animals, it only makes sense that app developers in the recovery space would also want to include sober relationship apps in the milieu. Some may have learned the hard way how challenging it is to date someone who uses substances, even just socially. Depending on what stage of recovery you are in, dating a person who orders a drink at dinner can spell disaster.
When people in recovery are ready to step back into the dating world, it helps to have some sober dating tools at the ready. Now, right alongside Tinder and Bumble are several sober dating apps to help connect sober singles who share a commitment to recovery.
Some of the top sober dating apps include:
- Loosid. One of the more established sober dating apps, Loosid allows users to stipulate whether they are in recovery or don’t imbibe for other reasons like health or religion.
- Clean and Sober Love. This sober dating app is similar to Tinder, with left or right swiping and a simple profile format.
- Sober Grid. This app combines the social aspects of a dating app with general sobriety support elements, such as a sobriety calculator that counts your days sober.
- Sober Singles Date. Not every sober dating app is available as a mobile application. Sober Singles Date is an online dating platform that offers a range of dating objectives and allows video chat and texting modes.
- Single and Sober. A free sober dating site that is formatted similarly to Zoosk and OK Cupid, other than being exclusively for the recovery community.
Technology is definitely playing a significant role in providing innovative recovery tools. Accessing these sobriety apps can give you a sense of instant community when you need someone to talk to, while also providing added sobriety support. Why not download a few and give them a try?
Ashley Addiction Treatment, formerly Father Martin’s Ashley, is a nationally recognized nonprofit leader in integrated, evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders and is accredited by The Joint Commission. We offer both inpatient and outpatient programs, holistic addiction treatment, drug detox, relapse prevention plans, family wellness programs and a variety of other services tailored to each patient’s needs. Our driving principle — “everything for recovery” — reinforces our mission to heal each individual with respect and dignity, and reflects on our ongoing commitment to meet new challenges. For information about our comprehensive programs, please call (866) 313-6307.