Questions & Answers

It depends where you write it, and the app tries to make that obvious as you go.

The Feed is the whole group. Group chats are the people in that chat. A one-to-one message is between you and the person you sent it to. Your Toolkit — spot checks, nightly inventories, gratitude lists — is private to you, and stays that way unless you deliberately share something. They are deliberately encrypted so even in the code for the app no one can see that data.

No. Your one-to-one conversations are yours.

Steering look after the things that belong to the group — what goes up on the Feed, posts waiting for approval, and public group chats but not private group chats. That is the extent of it.

I cannot see anyone's information. Steering can actually see more than I can. The only thing I have that a regular user doesn't have is a performance monitor, to make sure that the back end of the app is running smoothly and nothing is lagging it or causing issues (as seen below), and the ability to see who signed up and help you reset your password if needed.

There is nothing within the code itself that can show me any passwords or saved items for your Toolkit. I created the app so that it encrypts absolutely everything on the back end; even posts in the Feed look like a bunch of gibberish and scrambled code if I try to look at them in the files. They only make sense on the front end of the app, displayed in the Feed. That goes for all messages, group chats, and Toolkit items.

When you signed up for the app, there was an Acceptable Use Policy that outlined several things. One of the main things it outlined is how there is confidentiality, and in no way do I or the app track, log, or even record your data; and there is no way to display the information within the app on the server side. The app itself is made to encrypt all of that and store it, and when it is referenced it will decrypt it and then display it as you see it.

Your plan is shared with the group — that is the point of it. Putting your goals somewhere other people can see them, and ticking them off where other people can see that too, is the whole idea.

The notes on it work the same way. If something is not meant to be shared, it belongs in your Toolkit instead, which nobody else can open.

Your name, your group, your sobriety date and anything you write in your bio are visible to other members. That is what makes the app feel like the room rather than a list of strangers.

Your sobriety date is only ever used to count your days and light up your milestones. You can change it or clear it whenever you like, in Settings.

No. There are no adverts, no trackers, no analytics companies, and nothing about you goes anywhere else. Nobody is making money off this.

The app does not ask for your location, your contacts, or your photo library. It asks for the camera only when you tap the camera button, and only then. It is not using your camera to spy on you... it is just for scanning treatment plans.

Yes. You can edit or remove your own posts and messages.

Deleting a chat clears it for you and leaves the other person's copy alone — which is the only honest way for it to work, since it was a conversation between two people and you can only speak for your half of it.

Yes. Everything travels encrypted, your password is stored scrambled rather than as the word you typed, and you stay signed in through a token on your phone rather than by the app remembering your password.

The app runs on Cloudflare, which is the same infrastructure a great many banks and hospitals sit behind.

Tap Forgot password on the sign-in screen and it goes straight to the person who runs the app, who will set you a new one. Or just ask a Steering Member or Matt directly — that works exactly as well.

Nobody can see what your password was. It can only be replaced, never read.

Ask for a password reset. Setting a new password is enough to keep anyone from getting any further, and you can sign in again on your new phone straight away.

Only people who have signed up, and this is not a public app that people stumble across. It is for the group.

If somebody turns up who should not be there, tell Steering — an account can be paused or removed straight away.

No. It runs in your browser, and there is no app store involved.

You can still put it on your home screen so it opens like any other app — see the next question.

iPhone: open sober-as-fuck.com in Safari, tap the share button at the bottom, scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.

Android: open it in Chrome, tap the three dots at the top right, and tap Add to Home screen or Install app.

It has to be Safari on an iPhone — the option is not there in other browsers.

Partly. Pages you have already opened will still come up, but anything new — messages, posts, ticking something off — needs a connection.

If something does not send, the app tells you rather than pretending it went.

Almost always a patchy connection. A message that fails says so, and you can tap it to try again.

If you tap Send several times because it seems slow, don't worry — it only ever sends once. The app is built to ignore the extra taps.

The app can let you know when somebody messages you, when something new goes up on the Feed, and it can nudge you at a time you choose to fill in your plan. All of that is in Settings, and all of it is off until you turn it on.

On an iPhone, notifications only work once the app is on your home screen.

No. It is free, and it will stay free.

You don't have to do anything. Updates arrive on their own — close the app and open it again and you are on the newest version.

There is nothing to download and no version to keep an eye on.

Close the app completely and reopen it. That is nearly always enough, because it picks up the newest version as it starts.

If it is still wrong, say so — see the last question on this page.

No. Your plans, messages, notes and Toolkit entries live separately from the app itself, so updating the app does not touch any of it.

Removing a post does not destroy it either — it goes into an archive rather than being thrown away.

Yes — that is the next thing being worked on. At the moment the app checks for new messages every few seconds, which is why a reply can take a moment to appear. The aim is for messages to simply arrive, the instant they are sent.

No date on it. It gets done when it is done properly.

They are on the list of things being looked at, along with the faster delivery above.

Nothing is promised. Anything that gets added has to be worth the complication and has to work properly on a phone first.

Please do. There is a Suggestion option in the app that goes straight to Steering, and plenty of what is in the app now started as somebody saying "it would be good if…".

No, and it is not trying to be. It is somewhere to keep your plan, tick things off, and stay in touch with the people in the room between meetings.

The work happens in the room. This just helps you keep track of it.

Tell Matt, or any Steering member, or send a Suggestion from inside the app. If it is a question other people are likely to have too, it will end up on this page.