Over 100 people submitted their ideas. There were a lot of great entries, and we thank everyone for taking the time to let us know what you think will make the iPromises Recovery Companion an even better app for people in recovery.

The first prize winner, who will receive an iPad, is Jonathan C. from Pennsylvania. Jonathan told us in his entry that he is in his first year of recovery. He suggested that we create a way to do 10th step work in the app, which we’ve heard from some other people as well, but he went a step further. He’d like the app to allow you to create an amends list then check them off as you make those amends, and also create a daily gratitude list.

We think the gratitude list will be a great way to look back over and time and see what you have to be grateful for in recovery. That gratitude list could be a powerful tool, especially for anyone who tends to focus on the negative. The list will be a reminder of all the things recovery has given us that we would not have if we were still out there.

The runner up and winner of the iPod touch is Meg M. from California. Meg told us she has been sober for more than 16 years, and her idea was also about keeping a gratitude list.

We think it is very telling that both a newcomer (Jonathan) and an old-timer (Meg) talked about gratitude. It just shows us how important gratitude is to recovery, whether you are new to recovery or have been around the rooms for decades.

We look forward to implementing the new feature ideas in the Spring edition of the iPromises Recovery Companion so that iPromises can become the most powerful recovery tool for the iPhone. We are thrilled that over 5,000 people are now using the iPromises Recovery Companion on their iPhones, and we hope to see that community grow even larger as we add more features to the app.

This issue has been fixed and we are just waiting for iTunes to approve the new version – it’s in review now.  Also fixed sobriety calender issue.

–Original Post–

iPromises is celebrating the success of the initial launch of the iPhone app with a challenge!  Submit your idea for a new feature in the next version (Spring 2011), and if you have the best idea, you win an iPad.  Runner up wins and iPod Touch. We’ve partnered with the largest online recovery social network, In the Rooms.

Elements Behavioral Health and InTheRooms.com launch iPromises “Best New Feature” Challenge

Twenty-eight day campaign will give the recovery community an opportunity to submit reviews, ideas and concepts for iPromises mobile app version 1.3 for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android

Los Angeles, CA (October 27, 2010) – Recognizing the popularity of crowd sourcing and community participation for product development, Elements Behavioral Health, a leading U.S.-based behavioral health care organization, will partner with InTheRooms.com, the most comprehensive online social networking platform for the recovery community, for its iPromises Recovery Companion “Best New Feature” Challenge.

The campaign, which launches on Monday, November 1, 2010 and culminates on Sunday, November 28, 2010, will offer the addiction recovery community an opportunity to provide valuable input and new feature ideas for the iPromises Recovery Companion version 1.3.

“The recovery community is one of the closest knit groups on the planet, bound by their commitment to each other and their sobriety,” remarked David Sack, MD, CEO of Elements Behavioral Health. “By creating an opportunity for them to participate in the development of our mobile app series we will be providing a product that is needed and wanted by our target audience.”

The winning feature idea (first prize: iPad, second prize: iPod Touch) will be determined by members of Elements Behavioral Health and InTheRooms.com management teams and will be announced by December 10, 2010. The goal is to implement the feature by spring 2011.

Added Ron Tannebaum, co-founder of InTheRooms.com: “We are extremely excited for this opportunity to partner with one of the leaders in addiction recovery and to give our members a chance to apply their ‘recovery know-how’ in a fun, unique way.”

The iPromises Recovery Companion, which launched in June 2010, has received over 4,000 downloads, over fifty positive customer reviews and featured media reviews including: Top Ten iPhone Apps, iPhone App Review, AppScout, and Yahoo Health’s ‘Appolicious’. The application is currently available for free on iTunes.

About Elements Behavioral Health

Elements Behavioral Health (www.ElementsBehavioralHealth.com) is a leading U.S.-based behavioral healthcare organization that currently owns and operates Promises Treatment Centers (Los Angeles, California; Malibu, California) and The Ranch (Nunnelly, Tennessee). The company serves to fill the gaps in mental health treatment between inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services; in co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders; and between traditional and alternative settings to help clients that are underweight or overweight due to eating related and other issues.

About In The Rooms

As a social networking innovator, InTheRooms.com is the most comprehensive resource available for the global recovery community. Members can meet and get support from other like-minded people, upload photos, videos and speaker tapes, create blogs and discussions, and most importantly, share their experience, strength and hope with others in recovery. ITR has over 107,000 members in over 50 countries and is now the largest and fastest growing recovery community in the world.

AppScout: http://www.appscout.com/2010/08/your_iphone_becomes_a_recovery.php

Top 10 iPhone Apps: http://topteniphoneapps.info/health-home/promises-treatment-centers-releases-free-ipromises-recovery-companion-for-the-iphone/

iPhone Apps Review:
http://www.iphoneappreview.com/promises-treatment-centers-releases-free-ipromises-recovery-companion-for-the-iphone.html

We did this for a reason. There really isn’t a central database of meetings that would allow this to be really accurate. We thought individuals sharing current meeting information would be the best ambassadors for others seeking meetings in their area.

As more and more users add their favorite meetings to the app and choose to share them with others, when you go to the Meetings > + > Import feature you will see a list in your area.  The geo-positioning feature of the phone allows you to see shared meetings within a 5-mile radius.  If we get feedback about the distance, we can expand to 10 miles – or whatever users prefer.

We look forward to your feedback.

The well-known Pavlov’s dog experiment is the perfect example of triggers or cues and nearly all humans have experienced a situation in which a trigger or cue is identified. For some it may be overwhelming memories and emotions that seem to come out of nowhere when a certain song is played on the radio.

When something is seen, smelled, heard, etc., the individual associates the experience with a reward or a consequence. For the drug addict, that reward is the drug. Identifying those triggers and eliminating them from an individual’s surroundings helps the individual become well equipped for recovery.

Understanding triggers and how to avoid them is critical in recovery as relapses are generally the result of triggers. Even after successfully completing drug or alcohol treatment through a quality treatment center, individuals can easily relapse if triggers enter into their environment. In fact, a 2005 study found that between 50 to 80 percent of all people experience a relapse after going through treatment for addiction.

While these numbers can be discouraging, they also point to how easily individuals can fall back into addiction if triggers are too powerful. In effective treatment methods, triggers for individuals dealing with addiction must be identified in order to ensure recovery can be successful. For those individuals who go back to the same way of life they left before addiction, the triggers still exist and unresolved problems lead to a relapse into alcohol and drugs.

Therefore, the identification of triggers while still in the detoxification program is essential. When the individual identifies what things that make them want to use drugs or alcohol, they can become more prepared to avoid those triggers and high-risk situations that can lead to relapse. If an addict leaves treatment and discovers new things that can cause a temptation to use drugs and alcohol, the individual must be able to learn how to eliminate those things from their life.

It isn’t likely that a recovering addict will be able to completely remove all triggers from their environment forever. There will be instances where triggers will be present for whatever reason. Effective treatment methods will provide the individual with the tools to identify those triggers and deal with those triggers, which will help to empower the individual to achieve a successful recovery.