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Zebra Striping Tracker

Alternate alcoholic and alcohol-free drinks, one for one. Tap each round, keep the stripe, see the drinks you avoided.

The one-for-one method

One for one. That is the whole method.

An alcoholic drink, then an alcohol-free one, then repeat. Do it through a night and the night comes out looking like this:

Drinks8
Stripe rate100%
Avoided4

That is the stripe. Hold it and you leave with about half the drinks — same seat, same table, same hours, same people.

This tracker counts taps, so it needs JavaScript. The method above works without it: one for one, all night.

Free, no signup. Your taps are saved in this browser.

Your nights so far

Nights tracked0
Drinks avoided0

The last 10 sessions are kept here. Older nights drop off the list, and the avoided total keeps counting.

Cleared.
Session live
Tonight’s stripe — striped

Nothing logged yet. Tap whichever round lands in your hand first.

Drinks0
Stripe rate—
Avoided0

Stripe rate is the share of your alcoholic drinks that were followed by an alcohol-free one. Avoided counts your alcohol-free rounds — one for each drink they stood in for.

Drinks0
Stripe rate—
Avoided0

Drinks avoided counts your alcohol-free rounds. The method assumes each one replaced a drink you would otherwise have ordered — that is the assumption, not a measurement.

A 1:1 night halves your intake without leaving the room.

How this is calculated

Zebra striping is a rule rather than a formula: one alcoholic drink, then one alcohol-free drink, repeated through a session. Everything on this page is derived from the order in which you tap the two buttons. Stripe rate is the share of your alcoholic drinks that were followed by an alcohol-free one — the last drink of the night is left out of that share because nothing has come after it yet. "Drinks avoided" is a count of your alcohol-free rounds: the method assumes each one stood where a drink you would otherwise have ordered would have gone. That is the method's claim stated as an assumption, not something this page can measure. A session with no taps for six hours is filed into your history on the next visit instead of resuming, and all of it stays in your own browser.

Sources

Our editorial policy explains how these tools and articles are researched and kept up to date.

Why this matters

Nobody invented zebra striping. People have been putting a soft drink between two beers for as long as there have been bars. What is new is that it now has a name, and that the name makes it a plan instead of an accident — one for one, decided before the night starts rather than somewhere around round four, when deciding anything is harder.

That is the whole reason this page exists. Counting drinks fails quietly: by the third round the count is a guess, and a guess always rounds down. A stripe does not round. It is a picture of the night as it actually happened, built one tap at a time, and you can read it in the half-second it takes to glance at your phone between rounds.

Two alcoholic drinks in a row is not a failure here, and nothing resets. The tracker keeps the run of dark segments visible because that is what happened, and then it points at the next round, which is the only one you can still do anything about. A night that went four dark and one light still has one drink in it that did not happen. That is the number worth keeping.

Striping is a moderation method, not a quitting method. If what you actually want is a stretch at zero, the 30-day no alcohol challenge is built for that, and the true cost of drinking calculator turns the rounds you skip into a figure you can spend.

Asked and answered

Frequently Asked Questions

What is zebra striping?
Zebra striping means alternating between an alcoholic drink and an alcohol-free one through the night — one beer, then an NA beer or a soft drink, then repeat. The one-for-one rhythm roughly halves how much you drink in a session while you stay out exactly as long. The name comes from the striped pattern the night makes.
Does zebra striping actually reduce how much you drink?
Held to strictly, it caps you at half the drinks of an all-alcohol night, adds water and time between drinks, and slows the pace your blood alcohol climbs. Surveys suggest large shares of drinkers already do some version of it — this tracker just makes the rhythm visible so it holds up after the third round.
What should I order on the alcohol-free rounds?
Anything without alcohol that you will actually enjoy: alcohol-free beer, a soft drink, soda water and lime, a mocktail. The method works best when the AF round feels like a drink, not a punishment.
What if I have two alcoholic drinks in a row?
Then the next one is alcohol-free and the stripe continues. Nothing resets and nothing is ruined — the tracker shows your night as it actually went, and one honest stripe rate beats a perfect story.
Is this a way to quit drinking?
It is a moderation method, not a quitting method. If you are working toward zero, the 30-day challenge or a sober month may fit better — and if you drink heavily every day, talk to a doctor before changing abruptly.

30-Day No Alcohol Challenge

Thirty days from any start date, milestones marked, and a day you drank logged rather than punished.

True Cost of Drinking

What a year of your current drinking costs in money, hours and calories, from the amount you actually drink.

BAC Calculator

An estimate of blood alcohol from what you drank, your weight and the hours since. Never a driving test.

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Keep the stripe going all month

Rebuild tracks every session, shows what your body gets back, and never shames a night that went sideways.

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