Who it is for
Lazy Sober is made for people who have stopped something, or who are trying to, whatever the addiction, and who want a simple marker without being sold anything. What is missing in this category is not a feature: counting days is easy. What is missing is ethics. A good part of the apps here live on advertising, or on a monthly subscription sold to people going through a hard time.
This one does neither. It does not judge, does not congratulate, does not chase you. It counts, and it keeps quiet.
What it does
- A counter anchored to your decision. It starts on the day you decided to stop, not on your last clean day.
- A home screen widget. The time gone by, visible without opening the app, if you want it in front of you. It comes off.
- Something to celebrate, if that helps. Marking a milestone is an option you turn on. The app never does it by itself.
- Relapses you can record without losing everything. An evening you pulled back from and a longer slip are not written the same way, and neither of them erases the decision.
- A calendar. The days, the relapses, and the shape they make over months.
- The balance of reasons. On one side what carrying on gives you, on the other what would make you give in tonight.
- The money saved. The price of what you no longer use, multiplied by the time gone by.
- Who to call when things go wrong. A contact you save yourself, and a link to a directory of helplines by country.
- Fully offline. Nothing goes anywhere. On this subject, that is not a detail.
What it does not do
- No personal support. I am not a carer or a counsellor, and I do not answer personal messages about addiction. If you need help, please speak to a health professional.
- No community, no sharing. Nothing to publish, nobody to compare yourself with.
- No nagging notifications. The app does not write to you to remind you that you exist.
- No congratulations you did not ask for. Marking a milestone is a setting, it never happens on its own, and it can be turned off.
- No punishment for relapsing. A relapse gets recorded, it does not reset the counter to zero, and there is no lecture screen.
- No list of helpline numbers kept by the studio. A wrong number at the wrong moment is worse than no number, so the app points to a directory kept up to date by others.
- No advertising, ever. And no selling of data. There is no data to sell.
- No iPhone version. Android only.
What it looks like
Screenshots will come with the first published version.
What it costs
Lazy Sober is paid for, through a yearly, not monthly subscription. The price and the length of the free trial are on its Play Store listing, which is the only place kept up to date. The subscription is handled by Google Play: it renews from one year to the next, it can be cancelled at any time, and the app warns you before it renews so that nobody is charged by surprise.
When the trial ends, the app stops writing but it still reads and exports for life: your date and your count stay on screen, whether you subscribe or not. The subscription unlocks writing.
What it knows about you
Nothing. There is no account, no server, no tracker, no ad network. Your date and your notes are stored on the phone and never leave it: the studio cannot know what you write there, nor even whether you use it. Only Google Play knows the app was installed, as for any app from the store. The details are in the privacy policy, which is in French for now.
Frequently asked questions
Can anyone see that I use this app?
Not the studio: there is no account, no server, no usage statistics, and nothing leaves your phone. The install does appear in your Google account history, as it does for any Play Store app.
What if I relapse?
You record it, and the count does not start again from zero. The app tells apart a relapse you held from a longer slip, because they are not the same thing, and it comments on neither.
Does it work for anything other than alcohol?
Yes. It is built for any addiction: you name what you have stopped, and the rest works the same way.
Does the app congratulate me?
Only if you ask it to. Marking milestones is an option you turn on, and it can be turned off. By default the app says nothing.
Does the widget work on every Android phone?
On recent versions of Android, yes. The details will be on the Play Store listing at release.
Is there an iPhone version?
No, Lazy Sober only exists on Android.
The studio's other apps
Lazy Sober is part of a small suite of apps that share the same way of doing things: one thing done well, no account, no tracking. See also Lazy Rhythm and Lazy Habit, or all the Lazy Mind apps.