Main Site Features
- SoberFuse - an on-line recovery tool to help you track your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly progress in sobriety,
- Discussion Boards - the bulletin board system where you can share your experiences and learn from others.
- SoberChat - our real-time interactive chat server. Stop in to see who's around, or join one of our scheduled on-line meetings.
Sober 24 uses pop up windows for may of the site's features. In some cases you must disable or exit your pop up blocker in order to be able to use the site.
Sober24.com is not affiliated with, approved by, or endorsed by AA/NA/Al-Anon or any other 12 step based program, intergroup or central services. Sober24.com is not a treatment provider or counseling service of any kind and is not responsible for advice offered by Members; or discussions taking place through Sober24.com communication venues. While Sober24.com does monitor Member driven content for offensive remarks; it is not responsible for any Member content used in our various communication venues.
Virtually everything you need to explore the site is located on the homepage. All of the principal site areas are listed in the tool bar running down the left hand side of the page. You can always get back to the home page by clicking the ‘Home Page’ button on the right or, in the case of the SoberPost area, by clicking on the Sober24 logo at the top-left of the page.
Return to top of page
In order to access all of the features available at Sober24, we ask users to register. Registration requires only your first name, last initial, a username, a password, and email address. Users who do not register can access most, but not all, of the Sober24 features (for instance, un-registered visitors cannot get into the Chat rooms, nor can they post messages on the SoberPost bulletin board system). When you first register, you will become a Junior Member. Membership types are explained below.
If you have forgotten your log in password, click the Forgot Password? link under the log in area.
Update Your User Profile:
To update your user profile information, such as your password or username:
- Log in on the Sober24 home page.
- You will be taken to your Sober Fuse page. Click the Home Page button to return to the Home Page.
- The log in area is replaced with a LogOff and My Profile button. Click MY Profile button.
- Edit your profile as desired and then click Update Profile at the bottom of the page.
Sober24 uses cookies to remember who you are and to automatically log you back in to the server when you return.
Your browser must be set to allow cookies to successfully log in.
If you ever think that the cookies have gotten confused, or simply want to get rid of them, use the follow procedure to remove them (this assume a Windows machine with Internet Explorer):
Click 'Start' (lower left hand corner of your Windows system)
Click 'Search'
Click 'for Files or Folders'
Enter 'sober24' as the name of files to search for
Delete any file that shows up in a 'cookie' directory
You can always return to modify your registration information. After you have logged in, go to the home page and click on 'My Profile'. You can modify any piece of information there - even your s24nickname (login name).
See also Common Problems and Solutions
Return to top of page
As of July 1, 2007 all areas of Sober24.com became accessible to anyone seeking online recovery, totally free of charge, for as long and as often they wish to use the site.
Return to top of page
Sober 24 uses pop up windows, JavaScript, and cookies to bring you the most interactive and dynamic experience on our site. Various new third party utilities block the use of these technologies and may interfere with the use of our site. Below is a list of the most common known causes problems you may experience on our site and their solutions.
1. Pop Up blocking utilites.
These include pop up blockers and utilites which include them such as the Google/Yahoo Toolbars, Norton Internet Security, and Windows SP2 which installs a pop up blcoker into Internet Explorer. You must add Sober24 to your white list or disable the pop up blocker to log on.
2. Firewalls
Hardware Firewalls included in your router or modem and software firewalls such as Norton Firewall or Zone Alarm may interfere with the chat function of our site. You will need to adjust your firewall's settings to a less restrictive setting for the chat software to function.
3. Browser settings set too strict.
If your browser is set to block cookies, you will not be able to log on. You must set your browser to allow cookies at a medium level. In Internet Explorer 6 , this can be done by selecting Tools, Internet Options, Privacy. Set the slider to Medium High or Medium.
4. Incorrect Password
Passwords are case sensitive. If you have forgotten your password, please request it by clicking the "Forgot Password" link on the home page of Sober24.com
5. Not Logging into SoberPost (Discussion boards)
The discussion boards (aka SoberPost) must be logged onto separately from the home page as the two are not integrated. make sure you click the log on link on the top right of SoberPost
6. If you are using a Windows operating system, you may need to upgrade your browser. You can download Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 here
7. Java Not Installed
To test to see if you have Java installed correctly on your computer, go to this test page:
http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.jsp
If the test page says your Java is loaded corrrectly, then your problem lies elsewhere and not with Java.
If the test page says Java is not loaded then you can download it from this page in the upper right corner.
After downloading return to the test page to see that it was downloaded and installed correctly.
Return to top of page
SoberFuse™ is a proprietary on line recovery tool to help you track your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly progress in sobriety and provides a cyber call for help if your recovery program weakens towards relapse. The key element in making your Sober Fuse work for you is rigorous HONESTY. If you fudge the answers to the daily questions the old adage garbage in garbage out will result. If however, you take the approximately 2 minutes a day it takes to honestly complete your fuse information you will be amazed at your recovery progress. It’s your recovery; it’s your fuse now it’s up to you. In order to start your SoberFuse you will need to fill in the registration form. This is a one-time task that is used to calibrate your fuses starting points. Once filled in you are registered and the next time you log on your personal SoberFuse will be there.
The SoberFuse program is geared toward daily averages not daily input. There a three ways it produces a warning message to protect the user from relapse issues:
1-a person inputs the fact that they actualy did not stay clean and sober the previous day
2- a person clicks on the panic button asking for help
3- a persons 7 day average is less than 50% of their overall positive recovery behavior score.
If a person forgets to input one day there should be no material inpact to the 7 day average as it would add up six days worth of fuse and divide by 7. One day missed combined with recent behavior that is less that usualy reported may cause a warning message to go out. Each day missed the system automaticaly inputs a zero for that day.
Example .84 feet of SF earned on average each day 7 day average is .82
one mised day would then give the person a new 7 day average of .70, not enough to set it off (.41 would set it off)
Another day missed would then= .50, still not enough
If the previous recorded days were low in terms of meetings and sponsor calls etc. then the averages be different as to cause a dramatic drop. I know this seems complicated. As you add a new day you drop an old one out of the 7 day average that may have been a big day.
The first page of the SoberFuse Daily Interview includes a link to Reset your SoberFuse. Clicking on this link will essentially un-register your current SoberFuse, allowing you to re-register and correct any errors you may have made the first time around.
To go to SoberFuse, click here.
Return to top of page
The SoberPost system really has quite a wide range of features and options, but we’ll only outline the major ones here (but feel free to explore to learn more).
There are several different forums within our SoberPost system, each dedicated to different aspects of recovery. For instance, there are areas where the focus is on Newcomers & Beginners, Families in Recovery, and Co-dependency as well as special forums for women, men, young adults, and so on. Enter any forum by clicking on the Forum name.
Within the forum, you will see a list of topics. By default, the topics are listed with the “most recently active” at the top, but you can also select to order them by “most active” or “most viewed” by changing the value in the drop-down box located next to the forum name near the top of this screen. Click on the topic name to see the messages in that topic. You can also jump immediately to the most recent message by clicking the arrow/notepad icon at the far right of each row. If you are a registered Sober24 member and have logged in to Sober24, you may start a new topic by clicking on the ‘New Post’ button just above the list of messages. If there are more than 20 topics in a forum, the topics additional topics will be listed on different pages. Slide down to the bottom of the topics list and look for the "Page: 1/3 next" link right below the last topic.
Posting a Reply: Within each topic, you will be able to see the original message and all subsequent replies. If you are a registered member of Sober24 and have logged in to the SoberPost system, you will be able to post your reply by clicking on any of the ‘Reply’ buttons or links. If the topic has more than 20 messages, the SoberPost system will present those to you on different pages – slide down to the bottom of the message list and you will see “Page 1/3 1 2 3” … click on the page number to get to that page worth of messages.
When you click on the Post New or Reply button, a pop-up window will appear on your screen. This process is very much like sending email… enter the subject and fill in the body of your message. A couple of extra goodies here are that you can select an icon that will appear next to the subject of your message, and you can insert various little smiley faces by clicking the faces on the left. You can format your text by highlighting the text to be formatted and clicking on the controls immediately above the text box – B for bold, I for Italic, U for underline, and so forth.
Note: Sober 24 uses pop up windows for may of the site's features. In some cases you must disable or exit your pop up blocker in order to be able to use the site.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When you are composing your message, do NOT go back and prowl around in the SoberPost area – this will cause the pop-up window to close, and your efforts will be lost. Several of our members have also reported occasions when the post simply fails to work. While we continue to try to fix that bug, we do recommend that you highlight all of the text and copy it (right mouse click, copy) before you hit the ‘OK’ button… that way, if your post fails, you can at least try again and simply paste all of the text back in without having to type it all again.
Those are the basics of using SoberPost. There are, however, a number of other nifty features that are worth exploring. There are two presentation styles – “flat” and “tree”. See the difference by clicking your choice up there below your name. Visit your “my profile” area to make that your default choice. Any topic can be re-formatted to present a more “printer friendly” version – look for the ‘Printable Version’ link up top in the middle.
Using the SoberPost "My profile" area:
Visit the ‘My Profile’ area at the top-right to let other Sober24 members learn a bit about you. It’s also in the “My Profile” area where you can: •Upload a small picture (JPG format, max size 145x145 pixels) that you would like associated with your posts. •Check out the ‘My Inbox’ and you will discover that you can send and receive private messages with other Sober24 members. •Edit your Forum and Thread subscriptions.
The ‘Search’ capabilities are quite impressive – search for messages containing a particular word/phrase or find all messages by a particular member. On the SoberPost main page (the one that lists all of the forums), you will find a link that displays all of the most recent posts as well as a link that will show you all of the most active posts. Dig in and explore!
See also Common Problems and Solutions
Return to top of page