CHICAGO – A smartphone app for recovering alcoholics that includes a panic button and sounds an alert when they get too close to taverns helps maintain their sobriety, researchers who developed the tool found.

The app, nicknamed A-CHESS, joins a host of others that serve as electronic shoulder angels, featuring a variety of options for trying to prevent alcohol and drug addicts from relapsing.

Adults released from in-patient alcoholism treatment centers who got free sober smartphones reported fewer drinking days and more overall abstinence than those who only received the usual follow-up support.

The results were based on patients’ self-reporting on whether they resumed drinking, a potential limitation. Still, addiction experts said, the immediacy of smartphone-based help could make them a useful tool in fighting relapse.

Mark Wiitala, 32, of Middlesex County, Mass., took part in the study and said the app helped save his life. He said the most helpful feature allowed him to connect to a network of peers who’d gone through the same recovery program. The app made them immediately accessible for an encouraging text or phone call when he needed a boost.

“It’s an absolutely amazing tool,” said Wiitala, who has continued to use A-CHESS even though the study ended.

The study was published online Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

It involved 271 adults followed for a year after in-patient treatment for alcoholism at one of several U.S. centers in the Midwest and Northeast. They were randomly assigned to get a sober smartphone app for eight months plus given typical group or individual follow-up treatment.

The app includes a feature asking periodic questions by text or voicemail about how patients are doing. If enough answers prove worrisome, the system automatically notifies a counselor who can then offer help.

The panic button can be program-med to notify peers who are nearest to the patient when the button is pushed. It also offers links to relaxation techniques to calm the patient while waiting for help.

“We’ve been told that makes a big difference,” said Dr. David Gustafson, lead author of the study and director of the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Gustafson is among developers of the app. He nicknamed A-CHESS after the center.

The app is being commercially developed, Gustafson said, and hasn’t been released.

To continue reading this article, click here (1min to read)
by Lindsey Tanner of rockymounttelegram.com