I’m a streakin!
I had a Big breakthrough yesterday in the wee hours of the morning when I found a habit-tracking app called STREAKS. It tracks up to 12 habits you want to form (or stop like drinking) in a simple icon format that takes seconds.
For several weeks now, I have been intending to nail down a Morning Ritual and Evening Ritual along with a skeleton daily structure. Which sounds simple enough, but no traction. I’ve had glorious morning/evening rituals in my early life and I know I thrive that way, but I’ve been an unstructured chaotic wreck for a very long time now.
The doors blew off in my 30’s with mothering small children, the floorboards broke down in my 40’s as an overworked stressed-out single mom, and in the 50’s and 60’s the roof caved in with retirement from an actual job, random freelance work, and marriage.
My daughter gave me a Habit Calendar last year that required rewriting goals each and every month and checking off daily progress. As inconvenient as that was, even sporadically keeping track of progress (or lack of it) had some value. Before that I had tried another Habit tracking app but it was more complicated and far less motivating.
I EFFING LOVE THE STREAKS IDEA!
Most of us out here have had some experience with how motivating a great streak can be. We are so much less likely to fall down when we have some real momentum. And even if that happens, we haven’t lost the “brain training” that streak formed. We dust off and go right back at building a new and way l-o-n-g-e-r streak.
On my first day with the app, the only streaks I started were Alcohol Free and Walk/Workout. Two out of 12 might seem like a sad showing, but keep in mind that our brains will only support a 10% change at a time. Trying to make 12 changes/form 12 solid habits at once is as self-defeating as Fits and Spurts. I could have started a No Sugar streak but I had lunch with an old friend who wanted to split a rich dessert. YUK! My body hated the sugar overload, it didn’t even taste good, I regretted it with every bite, and REALLY regretted saying Yes to something I didn’t even want when I wasn’t able to press the No Sugar icon. BOUNDARIES!
Whether you use a tracking app or not, STREAKING is going to be an incredibly helpful mindset for some of us out here. Particularly when it comes to breaking an alcohol habit or establishing an alcohol-free life, slips can feel so heavy and carry such a devastating emotional price in regret and shame. Focusing on positives, on progress, is just plain good for the soul.
Anyone for starting or continuing a streak today?
Take off your clothes and lace up those running shoes and let’s GO!
If you’re “sober curious” …If you are drinking too much too often and want to stop or take a break…come check out our community BOOM Rethink the Drink on the Mighty Networks app We are an independent, anonymous, and private community who share resources, support and talk it through every day. There is no more vibrant and diverse group anywhere. Open your mind to the possibilities Here .
More apps we love to help you track your sober progress whether you have already stopped drinking or are just getting started:
I just downloaded Sobriety Counter Stop Drinking. Not only does it track days but it also has a quit slowly feature if you haven’t quit yet. It will show where your withdrawal symptoms might be, total health, motivation and tips, and a cool feature called “beat an urge” which will pull up an activity to do to distract you! How fun. There are also buttons for heart health, liver health, cognitive functions etc which will pull up some stats like ” at 2 months alcohol quitters cognitive function starts going back to normal. “
It’s a very colorful app i found cheerful and fun, and t’s free. When I downloaded it the name changed to Easyquit Drinking but on google play it’s called Sobriety Counter Quit Drinking by Mario Hanna
If you’ve tried, or try it I’d love to hear what you think!
I checked out “best sobriety counter apps” and once again the winner was NOMO!
I used to have it and when I downloaded it again, all my stuff was intact. NOMO lets you set up more than one CLOCK if you have multiple goals, like if you have been solidly sober for two or three years now, you can set an alcohol-free clock for future anniversaries but you can start a Brand NEW CLOCK if you are getting off sugar or coffee and want to keep track of that progress.
This app also allows you to estimate how much you were spending on booze each week and you’ll see a running total of all the money you are saving.
The Boozemusings Community is not affiliated with the makers of STREAKS, NOMO or Sobriety Counter Stop Drinking. We just simply love using their products so we’re sharing the love with you! Members of our community also recommend the I am sober and Sober Time app. Both free and both very good.
This post is by MaggyM , the author of the blog Trying to be Fine and an active member of BOOM the private, anonymous community inside the Boozemusings website.
More from Maggy on the Boozemusings Blog :
Come Join us and Talk it through :
Ask Yourself these questions :
( you’ll find our answers and can add yours inside BOOM at the linked titles)
If you can think of one thing that scares you, or scared you most about sobriety what would it be ?
What does Courage mean to you? Does it take courage to stop drinking? Why?
and we’re there to help with answers to these as well
What made you *realize* that you had “crossed the line” and had a very serious alcohol problem?
Do you really PROMISE it’s better on the other side? Swear?
