Best Mindful Drinking Apps 2024: Our Firsthand Experiences

Reframe earned our Overall Best Mindful Drinking App because it includes a variety of support options, educational articles, meetings, and more. To customize the program,  Reframe begins with a thorough onboarding questionnaire. The Daily Task section offers app users daily check-ins, readings, and activities backed by a scientific understanding of alcohol.

In addition to these lessons, Reframe provides a “Toolkit” with strategies to help beat cravings and other essential coping tools, like meditations, games, and breathing exercises. There is even a cravings playlist that users can listen to as they navigate the app.

Reframe also includes virtual daily meetings via Zoom hosted by Reframe coaches, and community message boards for members to share thoughts and experiences on their mindful drinking journey. Collectively, the educational elements, coping strategies, and community support make Reframe one of the best mindful drinking apps currently available.

To learn more, check out our in-depth review of Reframe.

Sunnyside won Best for Ease of Use due to its integration of SMS text messages. For busy users, or those just starting on their mindful drinking journey, Sunnyside is the best option. They can simply text their drink amount to log it in the app. Coaches are on standby to offer support; they can help with cravings and coping skills, or celebrate wins and milestones with you. Sunnyside offers great support without being too overwhelming.

New users log daily drinks for one week so the app can collect data on typical drinking habits and create a baseline to build goals. After your first week, you’ll continue to log drinks with new targets (e.g., first Monday = 4 drinks, next Monday target = 3 drinks). With the help of reminders, notifications, and private coaching, Sunnyside makes it easy for users to commit to their mindful drinking practice.

To learn more, check out our in-depth review of Sunnyside.

Dry Days wins our award for Best Mindful Drinking App with Peer Support because it’s easy to invite friends and practice mindful drinking together. Cutting back on alcohol isn’t always easy, but facing a challenge like this with friends or family can encourage commitment to your sober curious journey.

New users can invite friends to download and join Dry Days by going to the main menu in the right-hand corner of the screen and tapping “Share the App.” Dry Days will send a text to your contact with instructions on signing up.

The main dashboard lists your progress through various metrics, like dry day streaks and money saved over the week, month, and year. To compare your month or week with a friend’s, click the “Leaderboard” section. “My Journey” shows the data logged for each day, including the number of drinks, quality of sleep, energy levels, and overall mood.

If you’d like to focus your mindful drinking practice on creating an alcohol-tracking habit, DrinkControl would be a great place to start. It’s incredibly easy to use and allows you to be specific about the drinks you’re consuming, which is why it earns the award for Best Alcohol Tracking app. Most of the tracking tools are free, but premium users can get extra features, like customizable tracking notifications.

With its color-coded system, DrinkControl makes it easy to log daily drinks and identify patterns. You can log a drink by going to “Today” or “Calendar” and tapping on the current day. When you click “Add a Drink,” it’ll show you a list of images of common drinks, like wine, beer, champagne, whiskey, or vodka. You’ll enter the type of drink, the number of drinks you consumed, the ABV per serving, and the cost of each drink.

Try Dry’s main screen is your “Dashboard,” where you see your featured stats, like how many dry days you’ve had this week, month, or year. You’ll also see how many calories and money you’ve saved since you began your mindful drinking journey.

To log a drink, click on a day in the “Calendar” section and answer the prompts — Did you stay 1) dry, 2) drink, or 3) drink as planned? The “drink as planned” option is helpful because it distinguishes the typical drinking day from a day that you consumed alcohol, but didn’t necessarily plan it. After you log your drinks or dry days, Try Dry will ask you a series of questions about your experience. For instance, if you had a drink, what was it? How much did you consume? And how did it affect your mood, energy, sleep, and cravings? Try Dry also has a “Notes” section to make journal-like entries.

WeConnect is a great option for individuals wanting extra support and overall wellness tracking. The app encourages its users to build healthy routines by incorporating self-care tasks and attending support meetings. There is a free version of the app that includes tracing features and unlimited support group meetings.

These meetings are offered at various times throughout the day to ensure accessibility and cover a wide array of topics, such as mental health and well-being in the workplace, women’s meetings, LGBTQIA+ meetings, family and loved ones, and grief support.

The Less app has one primary goal, and that’s keeping your mindful drinking ship sailing smoothly! Less’ entertaining strategy earned it the award for Best Mindful Drinking App with Gamification Techniques. While playing a simple game to track drinks may seem silly to some, gamification methods like this have shown scientific evidence for positively influencing behavior changes around unhealthy habits.⁴

By achieving dry days and keeping drinks under your weekly limit, the animated ship on your dashboard will continue to sail smoothly through calm waters.  If you miss daily logs or consistently go over your limits, the waters become rougher, and storms appear. In addition to the sailing game, the Less app also has a “Tips” section that includes articles and podcasts on mindful drinking and mocktail recipes.