The craving, logged — ten seconds, then back to your night.
Recovery is easier to sustain when you can see the pattern. Where Day One holds the number, North Star holds the record: each craving, tagged and time-stamped in a few seconds, with an optional note in your own words.
Log it when it happens, read the trend when you are well enough to think clearly. Over weeks the record shows what a single bad hour never can: when the cravings come, what they sit next to, and whether they are loosening.
§ I — The program
What North Star holds, what it refuses to do with it, and the terms attached to the price.
Open the app, tap a tag, add a word or two if you want one, done. The entry is time-stamped for you. There is no form long enough to talk you out of logging at the exact moment logging matters.
You can also log by asking Siri, without opening the app at all.
The entryEach entry carries a tag and, if you want it, a short note in your own words — a place, a person, an hour, a mood. The note is optional and never required.
Three words is a complete entry if three words are true.
The tagsOne craving is weather. Forty entries are a climate: the Insights and History screens show when they cluster, how the last seven days compare, and whether the pattern is loosening.
A calendar view holds the longer arc, and a seven-day chart holds this week.
The trendNothing is ever sent for you. North Star does not message, alert, or escalate to anyone on your behalf; if you want a sponsor, a partner, or a clinician to see the record, you export it as a CSV and send it yourself.
There is one reminder — a single daily nudge to log — and it stays off until you switch it on, at an hour you pick.
The exportA subscription, stated plainly: $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year through the App Store, after 7 free days. It auto-renews until you cancel, and cancelling is one tap in your App Store settings — no email to write, no retention screen.
Because the purchase runs through the App Store, refunds do too: Apple handles them, and you request one at reportaproblem.apple.com.
The record itself stays on your device and in your own private iCloud, encrypted under your Apple ID. No ads, no engagement mechanics. We will not sell what you wrote, and we will not use it to train anything.
The house's wordThe record does not promise the night will be easy. It removes one job from the worst hour of it: the craving becomes a line in a ledger you will read in daylight, instead of a verdict you have to answer right now.
Standing prohibitions
Four things North Star will not do, held as terms of the program rather than as a roadmap that can quietly change.
§ II — The price
A subscription through the App Store, with 7 free days before anything is charged.
$2.99
Free to download: the craving log, the dose ledger, Lifeline, visit prep, the app lock and the last 12 weeks of your heat-map. North Star Plus is $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year and unlocks the full 52-week year, counters for more than one substance, and your own custom tags — 7 days free first, auto-renewing until you cancel, and cancelling is one tap in your App Store settings, not an email or a retention screen. Refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
The terms
§ III — Questions
The questions people in recovery — and the people beside them — actually send before they will put this on a phone.
Not necessarily. If you are counting, Day One — No. 01 in the same register — is the counter, and it holds the number on its own. North Star holds the other half — the cravings themselves, tagged and time-stamped, and the pattern they make over weeks. Some people want both, most people start with the one that matches the harder problem. We would rather you took one than felt sold two.
You. Entries are written on your device and sync only to your own private iCloud, encrypted under your Apple ID — so there is no copy at our end to read, sell, subpoena, or leak. Sign in with Apple is optional — you can continue without signing in, and if you do sign in you can hide your email so we never see a real address. If you want a sponsor, a partner, or a clinician to see the record, you export it as a CSV and send it yourself; nothing leaves the phone on its own.
North Star is free to download and use: the craving log, the dose ledger, Lifeline, visit prep, the app lock and the last 12 weeks of your heat-map cost nothing. North Star Plus is $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year through the App Store, with 7 free days before the first charge, and it unlocks the full 52-week heat-map year, counters for more than one substance, and your own custom tags. It auto-renews until you cancel — we say that plainly, because a trial that quietly becomes a charge is exactly the kind of surprise this app exists to spare you. Cancel any time in your App Store settings; refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
No. It is a private record of your cravings, and it is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It does not adjust doses, interpret symptoms, or tell you what your night means. Decisions about medication and treatment belong with your prescriber.
Call 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, free and confidential, at any hour. For treatment referral, SAMHSA's National Helpline is 1-800-662-4357, free and confidential, in English and Spanish. If someone may be in immediate danger, call 911 now. Reaching for one of those is not a failure; it is the right call.
The register
Be written in for the day North Star opens.
One address, kept on our ledger and used once: the day it ships. No newsletter follows it, and it is never attached to anything you write in the app.