NHS Drink Free Days

UPDATE: 4. The calendar markings mess up when you change time zones. Going back to change the last week doesn’t always work when trying to address time zone issues, resulting in a difference between the weekly and monthly view. ———— This is a good app that does what it should do. It gets you to think about what you actually drink each day, think about which days you want to cut, and track them day by day. The calendar is simple and effective. Some improvements could be made: 1. The predicted cost savings are excessive and based perhaps on pub instead of home drinking. The user should be able to enter their own costs. 2. The beer strength goes from 5% to 9%! There are many 6-6.5% beers. Users should be able to enter their own alcohol level. 3. The advice included in the app isn’t very good. There is much better material out there that could be linked. The material is basic and static. It does not adapt to the person of their stage of change. But on the whole this does the main thing right.

In the age of the App, this App scores 9 out of 10. What I love best with these kind of Apps is this: they give you access to having an invisible Life Coach to help & aid you with any specific need & requirement. I came across this particular App while reading “Drink? The New Science of Alcohol & Your Health” By Professor David Nutt. If, you are like me, you will find this App very helpful to monitor your Weekly Alcohol intake; I use a small amount of red wine, port, cider & Guiness stout for medicinal purposes: however, if you want to face your addiction & dependency on Alcohol then be ready to be shocked with what this App will reveal just exactly how much Alcohol you really are consuming! Like the chronic condition of Diabetes, you will need to work out your Management Strategy by consulting various health Professionals; however, only one person can, in the end, control & manage your Disease/Addiction: YOU.

We all need to have alcohol-free days between the days when we have a moderate number of alcoholic drinks. In that way, we keep down our overall alcohol intake: the more alcohol-free days, without any offsetting rise in alcohol consumption in drinking days, the lower will be your weekly consumption of alcohol. That is good for your health, and allows your body to recover. This app encourages you to keep a record of your alcohol-free days. For every alcohol-free day, you tap on the date and your calendar is stamped with a star for that day (just like it used to be at Sunday School!). It gives your sense of self esteem quite a boost to see the rows of stars grow over time and move towards filling the screen for a month. You can set your own goals e.g. 4 or 5 stars per week, say. Mine is 7 stars per week ( total abstention). I don’t necessarily succeed in meeting that goal, week by week! And then I am a bit disappointed in myself for failing to reach the target. More importantly, failure causes you to think “Ah, well. Next week, I will try to do better. “ And, hey, even if you fail reach your target again, by say 1 or 2 stars, the whole exercise is keeping you on your toes and spreading stars all over your month (which will please you). You are operating with a better life-style, good for your health! Better to be operating close to your targets, than sleep walking into a life of continuous ( or almost continuous) boozing. It helped me recently to have (even in the middle of lockdown in the pandemic when ever so many people were reported to be boozing excessively) a 12 week continuously alcohol- free period. Loved it. Felt great! Saved a load of money. Lost weight (which I wanted to do in order to improve my cycling performance ……previously couldn’t keep up with my wife😥!)