A drinking session in AlcoLog is one continuous run of drinks with a start time and an end time. You start the timer when you pour your first drink and end it when you stop drinking. Every drink in between is logged to that session. This walkthrough takes you from a freshly installed app to your first finished session.
# Step 1. Open the app
The Home screen opens to the Start a Session card. The big timer below the header reads 00:00:00 until you start one.
Below the timer card there’s space for your last session, your alerts, and any motivational notes you’ve added. None of this appears the first time you open the app: the screen is mostly empty, with the green button as the obvious next move.
# Step 2. Start the session
Tap Start Session. The timer starts running, the header changes to SESSION ACTIVE with the start time, and the stats line below the timer fills in with zeros: drinks, units, calories, cost. The button below the timer is now + Add Drink, and a red End Session button appears below it.
You don’t have to do anything else to record that you’re drinking. The timer is enough. Adding individual drinks is the next step.
# Step 3. Log your first drink
Tap + Add Drink. A sheet slides up. Pick a top-level type from the grid: Beer & Cider, Wine & Champagne, Cocktail & Liqueur, or Spirits & Seltzers.
Each type has a subtype row below it (Beer or Cider, red or white wine, and so on). Then a size row where you choose what you actually had: Pint (568 ml), Can (330 ml), Bottle (500 ml), and so on. ABV and calories pre-fill from the catalog. You can edit either, but for a generic pint of beer the defaults are fine.
When you’re done, tap the green Log Beer button at the bottom. The sheet closes and you land back on the Home screen.
# Step 4. Add another drink
The Home screen now shows a small toast confirming the drink was logged, and the stats line has updated. The big green button below the timer is still + Add Drink, but a smaller + Another Beer 🍺 button appears next to it. Tap that and the next drink is logged in two taps: confirm the size, then Log.
If you order something different the second time, use + Add Drink instead and pick a new type. Recents appear at the top of each picker so you don’t have to scroll if you switch between two regulars.
# Step 5. Watch the session timeline build
As you log more drinks, the timeline chart below the timer grows. Each drink shows up as a coloured bar at the time you logged it, with totals running along the bottom: drinks, units, calories, cost.
If you tap any bar, the full drink edit sheet opens. You can change the time, the size, or delete it entirely. This is the easy way to fix a drink you logged at the wrong time, or one you logged twice by accident.
# Step 6. End the session
When you’ve stopped drinking for the night, tap the red End Session button. The timer stops and the totals lock in. The Home screen reverts to the Start a Session state, with your just-finished session saved to History as a card with the timeline you just built.
If you tap End by accident, you have a 60-minute window to resume the same session: the next time you tap Start Session, the app asks whether you want to resume or start a new one. After 60 minutes the previous session is final.
That’s the whole loop. Most users settle into a rhythm of two taps to start, two taps per drink, one tap to end.
# What’s next
The next tutorial covers editing a drink after you’ve logged it: changing the size, fixing the time, swapping the brand, or deleting it entirely. After that, building your favourites so two-tap drinks become one-tap.