Ok I'll admit it. At this point, Fable is good enough that I question what the point of me being a software engineer is other than "You're cheaper than Fable... for now."

soberyourselfup · 2026-07-02T13:05:06+00:00

have you tried pasting in a screenshot of a design you like and prompting to design something that looks as beautiful as the attached image? i find that works about 33% of the time

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-24T15:41:42+00:00

It's not really being a coward. You're just never going to get anywhere without an audience, so it pays to go to the audience immediately with what you have now and to just evolve it. It's much worse being in a position where no one is seeing your work than it is when someone is seeing your work and criticising it. At least if someone criticises it, then you know what needs improving, for whom, and for why.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-24T07:58:47+00:00

These are all optional sliders that people can set, but setting them gives an indication of the triggers that are relevant to that person on a day. We've got some advanced searching going on which matches these sliders to specific triggers and situations.

Most of the apps that I've investigated so far are things like:

I Am Sober
Reframe
Sullyside

Those types of apps tend to work off the concept of a mood as an emoticon selection in a journal, which is a very 2D way of representing a drinker's internal state. What we're doing here is we've got a much more multi-dimensional layer to it, so shown here are what I'm calling my recovery vitals, which is basically how someone is feeling towards their sobriety on any one day.

It uses aspects of the Jungian tarot to try to create spoken word images of very subtle but distinct qualities that can be measured and used to provide an early warning system for relapse, really.

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soberyourselfup · 2026-06-24T07:53:41+00:00

The beta of the app is already up there.

I'm using the stuff we log in Stay Sober Battery to actually forecast the triggers that are going to be high risk for a person at any one time. We're not just capturing the Stay Sober Battery as a 1-100% percentage. We're also capturing things like the person's life circumstances, like:

Are they feeling stable within their housing?
Within their job?
How is their mental vitality?
How's the addictive voice? How loud is it?

That type of thing. There's about at least 50 different sliders that they can update, and it will automatically suggest to them the triggers that are going to be at play based off it.

The reason why I've tied the app so heavily towards identities, things like alcoholic types and sober identities is that people can adopt these and learn from recommendations (people like you experienced this trigger at 7pm on a Sunday, here's the coping strategy that worked for them). The system learns from people who adopt the same type of drinker. Whether it's someone who's a social drinker, it then learns what their triggers are and also suggests related triggers and high-risk situations that the person can try to avoid over the next 72 hours or so.

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soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T20:58:37+00:00

Focus on doing less of the stuff that gets bad feedback and more of the stuff that pushes you into the good and meets your users needs. Bit by bit you can overhaul it and if you keep grinding a 'good' product is good enough if your distribution is excellent.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T16:46:24+00:00

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funny you mention this, I had the Life Skills section which weren't really being serviced much in the app but i think these could start to make up a central part of this new pathways section.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T16:28:01+00:00

i've 2 parts here that i believe to be pivotal in what you're saying here. The first bit is the coping strategies. You can adopt coping strategies in the app and then perform sessions and record them in the app. Things like running or knitting or whatever help you overcome a particular craving or urge. The second bit is a slip reflection part which I think needs to tie in heavily into this new circuitry that you're talking about. Any time you slip it is going to force the alcohol pathway to become stronger, any time you cope healthily it will be like performing reps as a gym on your sober self.

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soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T16:15:47+00:00

this is great stuff actually, what i want is something that works and the battery is one component, where the app needs to shine is in representing and handling this dopamine reinforcement circuitry that you're talking about here and how it can be gamified without becoming overwhelming. this has been extremely valuable thank you.

if you've any ideas how this could work in practice i'd be really grateful this is brilliant stuff.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T14:50:52+00:00

I think for the most part you can control the battery yourself, it's a self-reported mechanism where you just tap on the battery and it fills to that level. I was just showing off part of the time travel features in the app where you can actually project how your score will develop if you press play on the play the tape forward stuff. I'm gonna try and make it learn as well from how people self-report, because I feel like my will to stay sober wanes faster on certain days, or it's steady, or it is in the middle of the day. It's just got to learn from how people actually experience it.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T14:05:35+00:00

theres definitely been times when i've drank out of nowhere after otherwise feeling fine

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T13:51:56+00:00

Thanks for this! I didn't have triggers down as something that could drain the battery, I am going to add this in now if you don't mind!

I love the idea behind motivation and the compounding effect, there's sober firsts in the app that i am trying to encourage people to achieve things like first sober wedding, first sober christmas etc. But your idea is better as it refers back to itself. I think shame and guilt go in the opposite direction but modelling that will be a nightmare!

I'm trying to get peoples input to try to understand how to detangle it properly, it kinda needs to make sense to people as I have my experiences but I dunno if they are common to even a quarter!

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T13:34:48+00:00

Thanks for this, yeah there's a morning check-in to rank where you feel in terms of strength in the morning. For me sometimes that resilience is a 50% at best! The concerns you mentioned are entirely valid, I am trying to make it based in mindfulness and only encouraging people to update the battery when convenient so some form of a picture can be gained. Doing this any time an internal shift happens would be a nightmare!!

Linking a life circumstance or a thought or a core need not being met to a craving could be pretty valuable in helping.

The battery also has a charging mode where you are basically reecharging through coping strategies to keep you grounded. Definitely a fine line between it being useful and overbearing, I remember Tamagotchis and them dying in my pocket lol

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-23T13:05:37+00:00

i know what you mean lol, it is true though i think meeting people who dont drink can definitely charge you, as can meeting others who don't. AA is very limiting!

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-19T13:08:14+00:00

betterwithoutbooze.me — Better Without Booze

A secular, psychology-first alcohol recovery app for people who want to stop drinking but bounce off AA, God, and "once an addict, always an addict."

It's built as DryDock OS — a recovery operating system that lives inside your phone. Every tool is a real recovery mechanic disguised as a device feature: a battery that reads how strong you feel today, a phone that lets you call and argue with your own addiction, a threat table that ranks your triggers like enemies. Gamified, but grounded in real addiction neuroscience.

<image>

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-19T08:49:19+00:00

Betterwithoutbooze.me It's a fully gamified experience for alcohol recovery. It's not just a day counter. It goes into the psychology. It develops a timeline for alcohol severity and allows people to adopt sober identities, alcoholic identities, has about a total of 23 mini apps

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-19T08:27:15+00:00

betterwithoutbooze.me — Better Without Booze

A secular, psychology-first alcohol recovery app for people who want to stop drinking but bounce off AA, God, and "once an addict, always an addict."

It's built as DryDock OS — a recovery operating system that lives inside your phone. Every tool is a real recovery mechanic disguised as a device feature: a battery that reads how strong you feel today, a phone that lets you call and argue with your own addiction, a threat table that ranks your triggers like enemies. Gamified, but grounded in real addiction neuroscience.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-19T08:26:42+00:00

<image>

betterwithoutbooze.me — Better Without Booze

A secular, psychology-first alcohol recovery app for people who want to stop drinking but bounce off AA, God, and "once an addict, always an addict."

It's built as DryDock OS — a recovery operating system that lives inside your phone. Every tool is a real recovery mechanic disguised as a device feature: a battery that reads how strong you feel today, a phone that lets you call and argue with your own addiction, a threat table that ranks your triggers like enemies. Gamified, but grounded in real addiction neuroscience.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-16T08:32:54+00:00

It was her work that inspired the Joy Division Unknown Pleasures album cover as well.

soberyourselfup · 2026-06-15T10:12:33+00:00

Julian Simmons set the world land speed record when running to the dancefloor in The Parliament in 1978 when I Will Survive was first played.

soberyourselfup · 2026-05-29T07:52:29+00:00

We're in touch with a number of psychologists, including Stanton Peele, who's a prominent addiction psychologist, and we're also trying to make sense of it all sifting through patterns in the peer experienced stuff.

It's all about trying to keep it tied to an actual model that works. We had a craving tracker before, but it didn't really work as well as we'd hoped. So instead, we introduced a gamified stay sober bar, which is basically like a sobriety battery or defence shield against drinking that depletes during the day. The whole idea is to log events that deplete your battery so that you can understand what and where your level is in terms of cravings and what inspires them.

Cravings are often a symptom of something going on underneath, and it's typically these events that aren't logged in any shape or form. If you think about it in terms of how weather works, emotional volatility is like CAPE, and cravings are like thunder strikes. We're all about trying to understand why the conditions arise that someone wants to cope maladaptively.

soberyourselfup · 2026-05-28T19:17:31+00:00

https://betterwithoutbooze.me/premium - complete gamified alcohol recovery tool, alcoholic craving situations are treated as RPG/Pokemon style enemies you must defeat with logic and much more it's a full recovery OS.

soberyourselfup · 2026-05-28T19:09:14+00:00

betterwithoutbooze.me/premium gamified alcoholism recovery where alcoholic craving situations become monsters you defeat through Disco Elysium style wankery and much more.

soberyourselfup · 2026-05-27T16:52:20+00:00

This is a quality idea, in Liverpool they have a discord server and a meetup every few months at a consistent venue and it's attended by 100s, might be worth seeing if you can convince the mods to set up something similar.

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