The app encourages people to think differently about their journey to sobriety
A man from Co Antrim has used his own sobriety journey to help others by building a new app that takes a holistic approach to recovery.
Matt Waterworth from Carrickfergus spent much of his young life drinking heavily, and became a running influencer under the name of Angry Jogger. In 2014, he wrote a book documenting his running journey, which mixed this experience with drinking.
The 42-year-old was sober for seven years until 2022, when the grief from his mum’s death and the outbreak of the Ukraine War led to him panic buying a bottle of rum and items to protect him from the potential outbreak of a nuclear war.
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Now, Matt is on a mission to help many people who may be struggling with addiction through his app, Better Without Booze. The app takes a holistic approach, to help people understand why they may be turning to alcohol, and find better ways of coping.
Speaking to Belfast Live, he said: “Throughout most of my young adult life, I was someone who would be considered to be an alcoholic.
“I’m a former running influencer, and after I quit drinking I did a lot of charity runs including Land’s End to John O’Groats for Mind the mental health charity which was equivalent of 38 marathons in 38 days.
“I did a book a long time ago called Angry Jogger which mixed running and drinking. It was a big mistake, and I quit soon after this.
“I was sober for seven years, from 2015 to 2022. My mum died at the end of 2021 and then at the beginning of 2022 the Ukraine War started. I was living on my own and grieving, then Vladimir Putin put his nukes on high alert and I just freaked out.
“I bought a bottle of rum and all this nuke protection gear stuff. Once I drank, I felt like I’d lost those seven years, whereas now I realise that was just one day out of say 3,000 where I lapsed.
“The idea for the app really came from that, the idea of trying to encourage people to be open and positive about the experiences they’re creating by not drinking.”
Matt said many people in Northern Ireland drink as a result of intergenerational trauma, and associated repression of emotions rather than being open with each other.
He added: “My parents were both very heavy drinkers, but they avoided the whole alcoholic term. They weren’t addressing what was going on, there was no sort of language to address what was going on at the time.
“Being born in those times, and trying to understand what was going on with them and that they were trying to cope in the best way they can.”
In a bid to help people on their recovery journeys, Matt founded the Better Without Booze app with Stu Nugent, a YouTuber who talks about his own experience with sobriety.
A main aspect of the app is to change how people think of the journey to sobriety, with the experience turning into a game. It features different sections including craving tracking, recovery wins, and sober firsts.
Matt said: “The idea behind the app is to make it like a computer game. A lot of apps are like counters, for people who are trying to quit alcohol, you need around four or five attempts to properly get off it.
“For example, if you are two months sober and you then go out drinking with a friend, a conventional app will dictate that you’ve failed, because you’ve drank one day out of say 75 days. What we’re trying to do is say okay, you drank – but this is what you can do, and what is possible in the future. That sort of attitude is completely unique to the whole industry.”
Using his own experience, Matt is hoping the app will look deeper into why people drink, and the emotions they go through as they do so.
“From 2022 to 2024, after seven years of sobriety, I was drinking too much. I was trying to get help on the NHS because I knew it was increasing and that I was drinking for the wrong reasons. When I was drinking, it was in moments where I was feeling really depressed,” he explained.
“A key part of it is why you drink. So many of these apps don’t actually ask why, and that’s the biggest part for most people who are struggling. We all have reasons why we drink or why we need to block things out. This app is more about trying to get people to think about those reasons, and find better ways through the difficulties they face in everyday life.
“It’s the issue of trying to meet people where they are with addiction, trying to get them to have some hope for the future and have no shame for the past. It’s about trying to forge a way through by not drinking, and trying to show them life is better without booze.”
So far, 150 people have signed up to the Better Without Booze app, with around five people already signed up for lifetime subscriptions.
For anyone who is hoping to start their own sobriety journey, Matt said: “If you’re trying to find a way out of addiction, that’s the best thing ever. If our app helps, that’s amazing. If another app helps, then that’s amazing too.
“What we’re trying to do is bring everything together because me and Stu, who I’m running this with, we were both hopeless alcoholics at some point in our lives. We understand how lonely that feels, so we’re trying to get people to try again until they find something that works.
“Whether it’s this or something else, if it’s going to AA, getting out and meeting people, having a talk – there’s so many people out there who could benefit from a holistic, straightforward approach, and that’s what we’re trying to do at the moment.”
To find out more about the Better Without Booze app, click here.
Drinkline is the national alcohol helpline. If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s drinking, you can call this free helpline in complete confidence. Call 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am to 8pm, weekends 11am to 4pm).
To find alcohol addiction support services in your area, click here.
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