What actually happens when you walk in

Before the date, you’ll see the name of the door host — the person who has said they’ll get there first. It’s a real name and you see it in advance, not on the night.

If you ticked “first time” when you said you were coming, the door host knows that one thing about you. They are the only person told. They’ll be watching the door, and there’s a chair kept open next to them.

The rota exists so that nobody arrives alone twice. The second time you come, you already know one person in the room, which is the entire mechanism.

You can leave at any point, including four minutes after you get there. You don’t owe anyone a reason, and nobody will ask you for one.

Leaving early isn’t recorded. There’s no check-out, no timer, and nothing anywhere on the site shows how long you stayed.

Nothing about your drinking is ever required. No sobriety date, no day count, no reason for being there, no programme, no story.

If you want to track your days privately, you can, and only you see it. If you don’t, nothing is missing from your account and nothing prompts you about it.

Asking somebody how long they’ve been sober is against the community guidelines. It’s the first rule on that page rather than the last one.

Some venues serve alcohol. A café with a licence, a bowling alley, the back room of a pub — these are ordinary places to host, and it would be dishonest to imply every setting is dry.

The event is alcohol-free. The building might not be. Every event page states which, before you decide, and it’s worth checking rather than assuming.

SoberOut does not background-check hosts. It does not visit, inspect, or approve venues. Nobody from SoberOut attends events, and nobody is supervising what happens in the room.

A host is a member who picked a time and a place. That is the whole of their qualification. Attending is voluntary and at your own risk, the same as any other time you meet people you don’t already know.

Email support@soberout.social. It goes to one person, and there is no form to fill in — tell it in whatever order it comes out.

First reply within two days. Anything involving a threat, physical safety, or a minor is looked at first, and a person can be removed from an event or from the site before the back-and-forth is finished.

Reports aren’t rare and you aren’t overreacting by making one. The standard is written down in advance, so you can read it before you decide rather than guessing what counts.

You can block a member from their profile. They can’t message you, can’t see your profile, and can’t see your posts. They aren’t told.

Blocking limits contact, not attendance. If you both say you’re coming to the same event, you’ll each see the other on the list, because everyone going can see who’s going — that’s the same promise the event page makes, “visible to people going, and nobody else,” and it applies to blocked members too.

That is deliberate rather than an oversight: if somebody you’ve blocked is coming, hiding it would mean you find out in the room instead of beforehand.

SoberOut is not a treatment programme, not a clinical service, and not a substitute for either. Nothing here is medical advice, and nobody involved in running it is your clinician.

If you’re in trouble right now, crisis resources has phone numbers. That page doesn’t ask you to sign in.