If you carry your smartphone everywhere already, why not use it as a tool in your recovery? There are many apps you can download right now that can help you in various ways. Best of all, most of them are free. You might as well try several, see which help you, and delete the rest. Here are a few suggestions.
AA Big Book Free. This app includes a searchable Big Book that you can bookmark and highlight. It has prayers and personal stories. It also includes a meeting finder and a sobriety calculator that lets you enter the first date of your sobriety and automatically counts your days sober.
12-step apps. Most 12-step programmes have their own apps. They have different features and levels of functionality but most of them will locate meetings and some include texts as well.
Sober Grid. Sober Grid is sometimes described as Facebook for recovery. It has many features potentially useful to people in recovery. It includes a news feed for sharing sober stories with the rest of the community. It offers the ability to locate other sober people in your area, while giving the user the option of remaining anonymous. Sober Grid also features a panic button. If you are struck with an intense craving, you can hit the ‘Burning Desire’ button to let others in your area know you need help.
Nomo. Nomo is an app that tracks sobriety, awarding you chips for your milestones. It also lets you know the number of years, months, weeks, days, and hours you have been sober. Since many people are struggling with multiple addictions, Nomo offers separate counters for each one. Nomo also keeps track of how much money you save by staying sober and updates your savings every week as added incentive. Nomo puts you in touch with accountability partners with whom you can share your success.
Pear reSET. The Pear reSET is an app with clinical backing. In fact, you need a prescription to use it. The reSET app is designed to be used in combination with outpatient treatment and it has been shown to increase engagement and improve sobriety amongst its users. It consists of a 12-week programme that guides users through a series of lessons on different addiction and recovery topics. It also includes weekly check-ins for users to evaluate their emotional state. If you are currently in an outpatient programme or therapy, you may want to ask your therapist about it.
Smarmore Castle Private Clinic in County Louth, near Dublin was founded in 1988 as a residential rehabilitation hospital treating people suffering from drug and alcohol purposes. Smarmore Castle believes in helping patients lead a life of abstinence through 12 Step programmes, detox and medical treatment, psychotherapy, and complementary therapies. For more information, please call 041-214-5111. For those who live out of the country, the international number is 00353-41-214-5111.
