Alcohol support groups online: every major community compared

You can join a major online alcohol support group today, at no cost, from anywhere with a phone. The largest options, online Alcoholics Anonymous, SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, Moderation Management, Recovery Dharma, and the r/stopdrinking community, are all run by nonprofits or volunteers and ask for nothing or a small donation. They differ in format, philosophy, cost, and schedule, and this guide compares all of them so you can pick one in a few minutes.

Which online alcohol support groups should you compare?

Seven communities do most of the work online, and each is run by a nonprofit or by volunteers rather than sold as a product. The table compares them as of June 2026 on the four things that usually decide the choice: format, philosophy, cost, and schedule. Every claim is sourced in the section for that group below. If you want the wider landscape beyond meetings, our alcohol help guide maps treatment, apps, and medication alongside peer support.

How do online AA meetings work?

The Online Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous, at aa-intergroup.org, describes itself as a central source of information about online A.A. around the world and keeps a directory of online meetings, including ones happening right now, with the site offered in 10 languages. Meetings run by video, phone, and chat, so you can join from anywhere and just listen at first. Like all of AA, online meetings cost nothing and carry no age or education requirements; the only thing asked is a desire to stop drinking. The program is built on the twelve steps and frames them as spiritual principles rather than a religion. If the steps are new to you, our guide to Alcoholics Anonymous explains how they work, and if the spiritual framing is not for you, we cover secular alternatives to AA separately.

What does SMART Recovery offer online?

SMART Recovery runs daily online meetings that it describes as mutual support sessions organized and facilitated by trained volunteers, and attending costs nothing. SMART is secular and science-informed, built around practical tools for managing urges and building motivation rather than steps or a higher power. It also publishes a mobile app for iOS and Android with meetings, tools, and urge management in one place, which helps if you want structure between sessions. Many people weigh it directly against the twelve-step model; if that is you, we lay out the differences in SMART Recovery vs AA, and our full SMART Recovery guide goes deeper on the toolkit.

Who is Women for Sobriety for?

Women for Sobriety is, in its own words, the first peer-support program tailored specifically for women overcoming substance use disorders, and it has run for more than 50 years. The nonprofit hosts over 95 peer-led recovery meetings each week online, plus forums, and its secular New Life Program is organized around 13 Acceptance Statements that focus on emotional growth and self-worth. There is no cost to take part. If you want a women-only space, or you have found mixed groups distracting, this is the established option, and we include it among the approaches in how to quit drinking without AA.

What makes LifeRing different?

LifeRing Secular Recovery is a nonprofit built on what it calls the 3-S philosophy: sobriety, secularity, and self-empowerment. It states plainly that sobriety means abstinence from alcohol and other addictive drugs, while staying, in its words, uncompromising about the need for abstinence but very flexible about how you get there. Meetings are secular, with respect for people of all faiths and none, and they run on crosstalk, which LifeRing calls the heart of all its meetings: members talk back and forth and respond to each other rather than only sharing in turn. Online meetings, local meetings, and email eGroups are all available at no cost. If the back-and-forth format appeals more than monologue-style sharing, LifeRing is worth a look.

Is there a group for cutting back instead of quitting?

Yes. Moderation Management is the established nonprofit for people who want to change their relationship with alcohol without committing to abstinence first. It describes itself as a non-judgmental, compassionate peer-support community and offers online meetings, an active email listserv, moderate-drinking guidelines, and a set of tools you can use at no cost for your first 30 days. One honest caveat belongs here: a 2018 study comparing mutual-help groups found the best odds of success among people who committed to total abstinence. Moderation can be a sensible starting point or a goal in itself, and if cutting back is your aim, our guide to how to cut back on drinking has practical steps.

What is Recovery Dharma?

Recovery Dharma is a nonprofit that approaches recovery through Buddhist practice rather than a deity. Its practice commitments include the intention of abstinence from addictive substances, a daily meditation practice, and regular meetings, and its local groups, called sanghas, are autonomous and run their own online sessions. If meditation and a community that treats craving as something to observe and work with appeal to you, Recovery Dharma offers that at no cost. It is one of the gentler on-ramps for people who want structure without the twelve-step or clinical framing.

How does r/stopdrinking work?

r/stopdrinking is a large, always-on community on Reddit where people post about quitting and cutting back at any hour. Its anchor is the Daily Check-In thread, where members commit to not drinking for the day, and the subreddit awards sobriety badges that track time without alcohol. It is asynchronous, so there is no meeting time: you read and post whenever you need it, day or night. One thing sets its culture apart, and it is worth quoting, because the rule reads, this subreddit is a support group, we don't allow promotion of any kind, including links or mentions of outside websites. That no-promotion norm is a big part of why members trust it, so out of respect we do not break it, and you should not either.

What other online sobriety communities are worth knowing?

A few more deserve a mention. Soberistas is a community aimed mainly at women who want to stop or moderate. In The Rooms hosts live online meetings across several recovery approaches in one place. Secular AA, sometimes called agnostic AA, runs twelve-step meetings without the religious language and is searchable inside the online AA directory. Celebrate Recovery is a Christian, faith-based program for those who want an explicitly religious community. Finally, several paid apps and membership communities cover similar ground, and the difference there is simply cost: the groups above ask for nothing or a donation, while paid options charge a subscription. We compare the subscription apps in our guide to the best quit drinking apps.

Do online support groups actually work?

The evidence for mutual-support groups is encouraging, with one honest limit. A 2020 Cochrane review of 27 studies and 10,565 participants found that AA and twelve-step facilitation improved continuous abstinence at 12 months compared with other treatments (relative risk 1.21, 95% confidence interval 1.03 to 1.42), which Cochrane rated as high-certainty evidence. Secular groups hold up well too: the 2018 comparison mentioned earlier found Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, and SMART Recovery about as effective as twelve-step groups. The limit is that most of this research studied in-person meetings, so the online versions are reasonably assumed to help but less directly proven. The other steady finding is that groups work best alongside professional care rather than instead of it. The NIAAA lists mutual-support groups as one of three main types of help, beside behavioral treatment and medication. If you are in immediate danger or thinking about harming yourself, skip the queue and use our crisis resources now.

How do you find an alcohol support group near you?

People often search for alcohol support groups near me, and the good news is that most of these organizations run both online and local meetings. AA, SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, and Recovery Dharma each publish a meeting finder on their site that filters by location and by online or in-person. For treatment programs as well as groups, the NIAAA Alcohol Treatment Navigator and FindTreatment.gov let you search by area, and SAMHSA runs a confidential national helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) that can point you to nearby groups and treatment. Starting online and then adding a local meeting, or the other way around, is a common and reasonable path.

How do you choose the right group in five minutes?

You can narrow this down quickly by answering a few questions in order. Do you want a women-only space? Start with Women for Sobriety. Do you need it to be secular? SMART Recovery, LifeRing, Moderation Management, and r/stopdrinking all qualify, and so do secular AA meetings. Is your goal to cut back rather than quit? Moderation Management is built for that. Does meditation appeal to you? Recovery Dharma. Do you want anonymity and no fixed meeting time? r/stopdrinking. Do you want the structure of the twelve steps? Online AA. The schedule matters too: if you need support at 3 a.m., the around-the-clock options are online AA and r/stopdrinking. The best advice is to pick two that fit, try one meeting in each this week, and keep the one that felt right. There is no wrong first choice, and switching later costs nothing.

How do you cover the gap between weekly meetings?

Most of these groups meet weekly, but cravings do not keep a schedule. That daily gap, the Tuesday night after a hard day, the 3 p.m. slump, is where a lot of plans wobble. A daily layer between meetings helps: a simple way to log the day, a plan for the moment a craving hits, and somewhere to look when motivation dips. This is the gap Orlyn, our iOS app, is built to fill, with a streak and one-tap check-ins, a craving SOS for the hard minutes, and a 24/7 coach that is clearly labeled AI, not medical care or a counselor. It is a complement to the groups above and to professional treatment, never a replacement, and we deliberately keep it out of community spaces like r/stopdrinking that prohibit promotion. For tools you can use right now, with or without an app, see how to stop alcohol cravings. Whichever community you pick, the move that matters is the first one: open a meeting list today and show up once.

All guides · Start Day One