Sober Motivation

What You Got Back calculator

Hours and Calories You Get Back When You Quit Drinking

Drinking takes time at both ends: the hours in the glass, the hours off your game and the hours of recovering the next day. Enter your own week and see how much of that returns to you, along with the calories and drinks you skip.

Pin showing an example of what quitting drinking gives back in a year: 470 hours, about 59 work days, 62,571 calories and 417 drinks not poured. Save to Pinterest (opens in a new tab)

Your week

The starting numbers are an example week. Change them to match yours and the totals update. Nothing you type leaves this page.

In one year

Hours back470 h
Work days back59
Calories skipped62,571
Drinks not poured417

So far, 30 days in

Hours back40 h
Work days back5
Calories skipped5,143
Drinks not poured34

About 21 donuts worth of calories so far, counting a donut as 250 calories.

Three kinds of time

Drinking time is the hours at the table, the bar or the couch with a glass in reach. Impaired time is the stretch where you are buzzed and not quite yourself, when driving, deciding and doing anything careful are off the list. Recovery time is the slow morning after.

Add the three for a typical drinking day, multiply by how many days a week that happens, and you have the hours that come back to you each week.

Why hours round to the nearest five

The hours stack up several estimates, so a result like 468 would pretend to be more exact than it is. The What You Got Back tracker in the app rounds the same way. Calories and drinks are direct math on the numbers you entered, so those stay exact.

Spending the hours

An evening back is easy to lose to the couch. Pick one thing for your first reclaimed Friday night, put it on the calendar and tell someone. Hours you have named tend to get used.

Questions people ask

How are the hours worked out?

Hours drinking, hours impaired and hours recovering are added for one typical drinking day. That total is averaged across the week by how many days you drink, then multiplied by your days sober and rounded to the nearest five.

What counts as impaired time?

The hours when you are buzzed and not fully yourself. Count the stretch when you would not drive, make a big decision or start a project.

How is a work day defined?

A work day is eight hours. Divide the hours back by eight and you have the number of full work days.

Where does the donut comparison come from?

The tracker counts a donut as 250 calories, so your calories skipped divided by 250 gives the donut figure. It is a picture of the number and is only as precise as the calories you enter.

Count the hours as they come back

The What You Got Back tracker keeps a running total of hours, calories and drinks not poured, built from your own numbers.

Get the app

Opens the App Store or Google Play on your phone, and sobermotivation.net on a computer.