Show HN: Pour Decision – Alcohol Tracker and Mindful Drinking Companion

[OzBuilds]

Hey there!

I want to share the alcohol tracker app that I've made for iOS.

The idea came to be when I decided I want to drink less, but not quit completely. I tried a bunch of solutions but I couldn't find the app quite right, so decided to build it myself. Existing apps that I've tried were either subscription-based, had a bad design/buggy, didn't come with a library of common drinks I can choose from etc. Pour Decision is my attempt to an app I wanted to exist. Hope y'all like it!

Website: https://pourdecision.app

App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pour-decision/id6499468185

[kneel]

Try Ketohol, it's gaining popularity.

You get a slight buzz and no crummy feeling afterwards. Active ingredient is called 1-3-butanediol, breaks down into a ketone which is easily processed by the body. Unlike alcohol which breaks down into acetylaldehyde, nasty stuff.

Downsides are cost, availability, taste (not great) and buzz is not as strong as alcohol.

[isoprophlex]

That... sounds too good to be true?

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Beyond the concerns that have already been raised this is also a substance that is pretty untested at these dosages for ingestion. Side effects are unknown. But who knows, maybe it’s like vaping: we know that it’s probably bad for you to some extent, but most people are on a consensus that it’s probably not worse than cigarette smoking

[willsmith72]

But way more accessible and cool for under 30s

[vermarish]

I feel like cost, availability, taste, and strength are kind of important actually.

[illiac786]

If the taste is shit, I struggle to understand how this can sound good to you? You don’t care about the taste of your current alcoholic beverages?

For beer I switched to alcohol free because the taste is good (although less various). Wine, I still have not, because alcohol free wine tastes really bad.

[kneel]

I got used to the taste after a couple of drinks. The few flavors available mask the taste.

For me it was similar to alcohol or coffee. Did not like it the first few times but gradually got used to it. Now I take a sip and it's refreshing.

[Azerty9999]

As an additional resource, there are free non-12-step/non-religious meetings at https://smartrecovery.org. This group has helped someone close to me.

[kerkeslager]

I don't drink any more. I quit because it was causing noticeable issues in my relationships, my career, and my mental and physical health. So before I say anything else, I want to say that I'm in no position to judge anyone else's drinking.

That said, having talked to a good amount of people about their relationships with alcohol, I think a lot of people trying to moderate would get a lot out of doing an honest risk/reward analysis of moderating. The rewards of moderating are just not that great:

- You get to drink something that tastes interesting (do you even like the taste?).

- You get a slight buzz (do you actually want a slight buzz? Or do you actually just want to get drunk?).

- You get to do the same thing as other people in a social situation (does being slightly buzzed actually make you feel more comfortable around people, or do you need to be actually drunk for that to happen?).

The risks can be horrific. I'm not going to enumerate them all, they're fairly well-known. What I will say is that even the "minor" effects, like depression, saying something awkward and hurting a relationship, or feeling hung over at work, are more than bad enough to outweigh the upsides. You don't have to kill someone drunk driving to stop drinking.

I'm not an absolutist, and I actually really disagree with the fear-of-drinking-based "abstinence only" approach of AA; I think that's helpful for some people, but I think a lot more people can just quit because they want better for themselves, without all the absolutism. I also don't believe in some sort of "alcoholic"/"not an alcoholic" dichotomy. I think it's quite possible for some people who drink too much to moderate. But if moderating is hard for you, why do something hard for questionable benefit when the risk is potentially catastrophic?

[aziaziazi]

TryDry offers a great UX for free. Made by UK gov IIRC.

iOS https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/try-dry-the-dry-january-app/id...

Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.alcohol...

[vermarish]

This seems really cool!

I noticed the landing page has a rotating PNG gallery in desktop but not on mobile. I'm sure you must've wanted to put it in the mobile page too, was it hard to UX or just too inconvenient to implement easily?

[OzBuilds]

Thanks! You're probably right, I should somehow put it in the mobile site too. Appreciate the suggestion:)

[loteck]

Congrats on the app! I don't think I've ever clicked into a privacy policy so quickly.

[OzBuilds]

Thank you so much!

[Khaine]

This looks cool. Does it add the alcohol consumption data into apple’s health app?

[OzBuilds]

Thanks! Not at the moment unfortunately, but it's on the roadmap, one of the things I'll work on in the next few releases.

[Khaine]

You know what else would be cool, if you had a database of cocktails or at least common ingredients so you could make up what the cocktail is made out of to get the correct ABV. You could make this something that people can share back with other users of the app.

[appsDev]

Love the concept and the UI looks amazing! Did you make this in SwiftUI?

[OzBuilds]

Thank you so much! I used React Native.

[appsDev]

oh wow, nice! I saw that it is only on iOS right now, and I use SwiftUI which is only for iOS which is why I thought I would ask :) Regardless great job!!

[dsfg333]

Set yourself drinking targets, don't lose the drinking streak.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

One thing I wish was a bigger thing in the States was more near beer like options. You basically have two choices for low alcohol beer when it comes to that in the States: you either buy the most watered down thing available which is usually around 3.5% or you buy N/A (<0.5%) or hop water (0%). I would love to just have a place where I can have 1%-2% beverages to easily pace myself without having to control my intake rate. The one-on one-off solution of alternating N/A and regular works but requires a fair amount of self control to manage that. I have also tried naltrexone which mostly just gives me side effects and makes me feel terrible for a couple of days, not really helping slow down intake.

Having lived in Sweden a bit who has better approach around this I can say it’s much nicer - Systembolaget has options for pretty much any percentage you like and breweries like mikkeller are making incredible low ABV options. 2% is available at the grocery store, and bars are legally required to offer N/A options.

[ZhongXina]

This

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass

is pretty popular in many former USSR states, and can be easily made at home. I have no idea if you will like the taste, I'm used to it from childhood. It has 1-2% alcohol and gives a slight buzz if you drink liters of it (which I tend to do in summer).

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Interesting. I don’t typically like the flavor profile of beverages like kombucha but do like sour beers so this is worth a shot. Thanks!

[vermarish]

I didn't expect Sweden's Prohibition history to be so interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget#History

[bdcravens]

> the most watered down thing available which is usually around 3.5%

There's many beers in the 6%+ range; they're just not at many grocery stores, and instead you have to go to a specialty store.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Perhaps you misunderstood the comment (and indeed rereading it I can see how it might be taken to mean that I am saying that only 3.5% beers are available in the states, which is definitely not the case. I’ve edited it to be more clear). There are certainly tons of options in the States above 3.5%. I’ve seen 18% beers before. But there are almost no options between N/A (legally less than 0.5%) and 3.5%, which is about the ABV of your typical domestic lager

[rubyfan]

I think kombucha used to have 1-ish percent or more but they were made to get rid of most of the alcohol.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

I recall that a lot of the problem around this was that the content was regulating kombucha as an alcoholic beverage which makes distribution a lot more difficult.