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5 Best Mobile Apps to Assist You in Addiction Recovery
Human beings often believe that all bad stuff existing in this world is not about them.
15:11 14 March 2019
We consider ourselves self-reliant personalities with a good head on our shoulders, and therefore resistant to potentially harmful tendencies. Sadly, our beliefs are way off base when we deal with addiction.
Addiction is Spreading, And So Are Recovery Applications
According to Addiction Center, nearly 20.6M of American people are addicted to substances, excluding tobacco. That’s already 6.3% of the U.S. population, let alone the huge and unregistered number of those who use drugs occasionally and are at heightened risk of becoming addicted. The escalating issue couldn’t be ignored by the society, what lead to the emergence of various recovery centers and programs aimed at helping affected people to quit their addictions.
Aside from conventional programs, you can find alternative forms of assistance like mobile apps for addiction recovery. Most of them help you stay sober for a longer time, encouraging engagement with other affected people and offering measures to detoxify your body.
Not all recovery apps, however, are entirely focused on alcohol and other substance-based addictions. Some of them have a great potential to help in the treatment of behavioral addictions like social media, online gambling, or food, and here is why.
Thinking through, you can see that most of the addiction-causing phenomena offer some reward as the result of the specific action. This reward is not expressed in achieving substance-caused delight but in getting more genuine excitement.
For better understanding, imagine how would you feel like playing an online slot machine. Highly likely you would get a sense of anticipation and aspiration for winning huge jackpots, as the mechanism of a slot machine allows you to win any sum due to the highest volatility among all casino games. And even if you lose, you still might gamble to get this emotional “reward” over again.
Apps motivate you to stop feeding your addiction using a similar reward system as slot machines do, just not in the form of money. In some of them, you earn badges as far as you develop healthy habits and unlock achievements. In others, you collect coins to receive some real gifts like Starbucks cards or free tokens for friends. Such a “gamification” approach drives your enthusiasm to go on.
If you admit your addiction and are ready to take your next step, some of these apps may come in handy. We’d recommend you to start with the five described below.
- Quit Smoking
Quit Smoking is a simple day counter for those who, as you may have guessed, have quit smoking or are going to do so. Besides calculating the time you didn’t smoke, it provides you with some insights about your money savings and health benefits of non-smoking. The app doesn’t offer any rewards, so you can use it as a daily reminder for what it's worth to quit this addiction and why you shouldn’t revert to it.
Regardless of the incredible simplicity and even platitude of the app, it was well-received on Apple Store, ranking 4.8 out of 5. The only drawback of the app is its limited availability: only iOS users may download it for now.
Main features:
- Day, cigarette, and money savings tracking;
- Health-related insights.
Download Links: iOS
- I Am Sober
I Am Sober shares the main purpose of Quit Smoking but is not entirely focused on tobacco addiction. Here you can choose one or multiple substances you’re addicted to, including popular drugs, specific alcohol beverages, and even sweets, meat, and gluten. Behaviors are available as well, but not as much. Common behavioral addictions like pornography, gambling, and social media are listed, though.
The app counts days you've stayed “sober” and money you've saved, reminding you about that every time you reach a milestone. You may also create “pledges” and post them on your social platform accounts via the app. It also asks you to complete short daily quizzes and report what places you visited each day, and how difficult it was to abstain from your bad habit.
There are also extra motivation packs available for an additional fee. Each pack consists of useful exercises and motivational quotes to strengthen your focus and build a positive spirit.
Main features:
- Day and money savings tracking;
- Milestones and notifications;
- Pledges creation and sharing;
- Daily reports;
- Motivation packs with exercises for an additional fee.
- WeConnect Classic
WeConnect Classic is a hybrid app between a social network and an organizer. Here you don’t specify your addiction, only mentioning a date since when you’re sober. The application offers you to build healthy routines instead, which are divided into 3 categories: support, clarity, and connection.
Support activities are mostly meetings with other affected, psychologists, life coaches, etc. Clarity routines represent good habits you develop instead of bad ones: sports, meditation, writing, and other creative activities. Connection is actually not a routine, but the list of your fellow supporters who you can contact to get another dose of motivation. Moreover, it’s possible to tie the app to popular recovery programs like Anonymous Recovery, 12-Step, Dharma Punx, and the rest of such.
For completing each routine, you earn points and rewards. Points are spent on free gifts meant for other participants and Starbucks bonus cards. The longer you stay sober, the more points you receive.
Main features:
- Possibility to tie your recovery program to the app and set milestones;
- Healthy routines building with rewards and notifications;
- Points earning with real value gifts;
- Networking with other affected;
- Geo tracking to prove your routine check-ins to be fair.
- rTribe
Similarly to WeConnect, rTribe is focused more on connections between people and real-life activities rather than on in-app features. Aside from dealing with addictions, the platform provides users with real-time psychological counseling on such issues as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The app serves as an intermediary between you and licensed therapists. After sign-up, you choose your consultation preferences like the time you are comfortable to talk and gender/spirituality of your provider. rTribe matches you with your best fit and you can proceed to consultation via messages or video call.
Even though rTribe is free to download, there is one “shortcoming”. As it is only a platform that connects patients and specialists, it charges you extra fees for counseling services. If you are not sure in its efficiency, you are eligible to use the app for free during a 7-day period.
Main features:
- Professional psychological counseling on addiction issues and more;
- Recovery progress tracking;
- Networking with other affected;
- 7-day free trial;
- Three monthly payment plans on choice.
- Sober Grid
Sober Grid was created to unite sober people on a social platform resembling popular media like Facebook or Instagram. Besides, if we have social media apps dedicated to drinking beer or other beverages, we need some resistance forces to arise.
The first positive thing you notice after opening the app is that you can integrate it with your Facebook account. Unfortunately, you can do the same with rTribe and WeConnect. After syncing contacts from Facebook, Sober Grid proposes you to complete quests and report about how you’re feeling today with check-in feature.
The biggest advantage of the app is its ability to find sober people nearby and make new contacts in hours. If you’ve ever used Tinder, you should quickly get how it works. This is very handy when you’re in a new city alone and looking for somebody to show you around or just seek new sober acquaintances in your own place.
Main features:
- Day and money savings tracking;
- Milestones and badges earning;
- Daily quests and reports;
- Basic features of social networking: photo and post sharing, chatting, friends list;
- 24/7 peer recovery support;
- Search for sober people based on geolocation.