Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 29, 2026

This policy explains what information withdrawaltimelines.com (“Withdrawal Timelines”, “we”) collects, why, and what choices you have. We know that visiting a site about withdrawal can be sensitive, so we try to collect as little as possible. This page describes how the site actually works today; we checked it in a browser on October 29, 2026.

What we collect

• Contact form messages. If you use our contact form, we receive your name, email address and message. The message is stored on our website and sent to us by email so we can reply.
• Email sign-ups. If you leave your email in the “Get new timelines by email” form, we store your email address on our website so we can tell you about new timelines and the tracker we are building. Ask us on the contact page to remove it at any time, and every email we send will include a way to unsubscribe.
• Forum accounts. If you register for our community forum, we store your username, email address, password, display name, any optional profile details you add, your registration date, and the IP address used to register and post. Your password is not stored as plain text: WordPress stores only a hashed (one-way scrambled) version of it. Your email address is used to confirm your account, reset your password and send notifications you ask for (such as topic subscriptions). It is not shown publicly.
• Forum posts. Topics, replies, your username, profile page and post times are public and may be indexed by search engines and quoted by other members. Moderators can see the IP address saved with each post to deal with spam and abuse. Please use a username that isn’t your real name and don’t post health details, photos or contact information you want to keep private.
• Comments. Articles do not currently show a comment form, and we don’t display comments. If that changes, WordPress would store a commenter’s name, email, optional website, comment, IP address and browser information to help detect spam, and we will update this policy.
• Visit counter. Our own visit counter adds one to a single site-wide total when a page is opened. The request contains no page details, choices or identifiers and is sent without the page address. To stop the same browser from counting twice, our server briefly (about 20 seconds) keeps a scrambled code made from your IP address and browser type, and your browser keeps a “wt-visit” flag in session storage until you close the tab. We don’t store IP addresses for the counter, and logged-in admins and known bots are not counted.
• Basic technical data. Like most websites, our web host records server logs (such as IP address, browser type, pages requested and time) to keep the site running and secure.

The withdrawal calculator and date pickers

• The withdrawal calculator runs in your browser. The substances you pick, the dates you enter and any answers about amount or length of use are not sent to our server, to Google or to anyone else, and we don’t store them. The calculator downloads one public data file from our site, without sending the page address.
• The full calculator page has no ads and no analytics, and loads only files from our own site.
• On the full calculator page, your picks are kept in the address bar after the “#” so the page can be bookmarked or shared. Browsers don’t send that part of an address to websites, but it stays in your browser history, and anyone you send the link to can see what you picked. If you arrive with a link that lists a substance in the address (an older “?add=” link), our server receives that address when the page first loads, as with any web page, and the calculator then removes it from the address bar.
• Downloading the chart image, printing the checklist or copying a share link creates a file or text containing your picks. It stays on your device unless you share it.
• The home page has a compact version of the calculator. It also does not send your picks anywhere, but that page does show Google ads outside the calculator. Ads are kept out of the calculator area, but any script running on a page can technically read that page. For the most private use, use the full calculator page.
• The “When did you last use or take it?” date picker on articles saves the date you pick in your browser’s local storage (as “wt-dp:” followed by the article name), so it is still there when you come back; the calculator, the quit tracker’s “Save” buttons and the printable symptom log can also read it to pre-fill a date. It is never sent to us. Use the picker’s “Clear” button or clear your browser’s site data to remove it.
• The quit tracker keeps what you are tracking, your quit date and time, and any optional cost per day in your browser’s local storage as “wt-tracker”, on your device only. It is not sent to our server, to Google or to anyone else, and the tracker page has no ads and no analytics. “Export” saves a file to your device that only you hold; “Import” reads such a file in your browser without uploading it. Use “Clear everything” on the tracker page, or clear your browser’s site data, to remove it. If you share a device, others using the same browser can see it.
• The self-checks (AUDIT, AUDIT-C, CUDIT-R and Fagerström) score your answers in your browser. Your answers and scores are not stored, not saved in your browser and not sent anywhere, and those pages have no ads.
• The printable symptom log is built in your browser and is not stored or sent anywhere. Printing or saving it as a PDF creates a copy on your device or printer only. The page has no ads.

Health-related information

Anything you tell us about your own substance use, medications or health is sensitive. We only use it to reply to you, we don’t sell it, and we don’t use it for advertising or share it with advertisers. Please don’t send more detail than you need to.

Cookies and browser storage

• Our own site doesn’t set cookies for ordinary visitors. WordPress sets cookies only when you log in (including to the forum) to keep you signed in.
• Browser storage we use: “wt-theme” (your light or dark choice, local storage), “wt-dp:…” (date-picker dates, local storage), “wt-tracker” (your quit tracker entries, local storage) and “wt-visit” (visit-counter flag, session storage). None of these is sent to us.
• Analytics: we don’t run Google Analytics or any other analytics tool. If we add one, we will update this policy first.
• Advertising cookies: on pages with ads, Google and its partners may read and set cookies and similar identifiers on their own domains, as described below.

Our Android app

Our Android app, “Withdrawal Timelines” (com.withdrawaltimelines.app on Google Play), opens this website full-screen in Chrome or your default browser, using a Chrome feature called a Trusted Web Activity. Everything in this policy applies inside the app in the same way, including the Google ads on the pages described under “Advertising”.

• The app itself contains no analytics, advertising or tracking code of its own, doesn’t use your device’s advertising ID, and asks for no permissions. It doesn’t send us notifications.
• Same browser storage: anything the site saves on your device while you use the app is kept in your browser’s storage for withdrawaltimelines.com, exactly as when you visit in the browser. Your light or dark choice, date-picker dates and other on-device data stay on your device and are not sent to us.
• App visits: pages opened from the app include “utm_source=android_app” in the address, and your browser keeps a “wt-in-app” flag in session storage until that session ends, so pages can tell they are being shown in the app. This tells us a visit came from the app, not who you are.
• Offline copies: to let some pages work without a connection, the site keeps a short offline notice and copies of a few key pages when you open them (the home page, quit tracker, withdrawal calculator, Get Help and All timelines), plus our own design files and images, in your browser’s offline cache, on your device only. This also happens if you use the site in a supporting browser without the app. Ads and other sites’ content are never saved, and nothing is sent to us.
• Removing it: clear the site data for withdrawaltimelines.com in your browser’s settings. Uninstalling the app doesn’t remove that browser data and doesn’t delete a forum account. To delete your forum account, see Delete your account.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

Most articles and the home page show ads from Google AdSense, using Google’s automatic ad placement. We don’t show ads on Get Help Now, Dangerous Withdrawals, the withdrawal calculator page, the community forum, the Community Guidelines, the Support page, the quit tracker, the self-checks and the printable symptom log. To show and measure ads, Google and its advertising partners may use cookies, device identifiers and similar technology, and they receive information your browser sends, such as your IP address, browser type, the address of the page you are viewing and your approximate location. Because article addresses name the topic (for example an alcohol withdrawal article), Google can see which article an ad appeared on. They may use this to show ads, limit how often you see the same ad, prevent fraud and measure results, and, where you allow it, to personalize ads based on your visits to this and other sites.

• Consent: Google requires sites that show its ads to visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland to use a certified consent message. When we last checked (October 29, 2026), we had not yet confirmed that this consent message is shown on our site; we are working on it and will update this section when it is in place. Until then, wherever you are, you can control ad personalization with the tools below.
• You can turn off personalized ads from Google at My Ad Center, and from many other ad companies at aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.eu.
• Learn how Google uses data from sites that use its services: How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.
• Google’s policies don’t allow ads to be personalized based on sensitive information such as health. We don’t send Google anything you tell us about your health or enter in our tools, and we don’t give advertisers your name or email address.

Affiliate links

There are no affiliate links on the site at the moment. If we add any, our Affiliate Disclosure explains the rules they will follow, and the store you visit through such a link could set its own cookie or tracking code under its own privacy policy. We will update this section when that happens.

Donations

We don’t currently take donations; our Support page says so. If we add a way to support the site, payments will be handled by a third-party payment service on its own site, under its own privacy policy. We would never see or store your full card number, and we would update this section first.

Who we share it with

• Hosting and site tools: the site is hosted by Hostinger, and we use Hostinger’s site and email tools, which process data on our behalf.
• Advertising partners: Google and its ad partners receive the technical and cookie information described under “Advertising” when ads load on a page.
• Legal reasons: if required by law.
• We do not sell or rent your contact details, and we never share what you tell us about your health.

Links and embedded content

Our articles link to the sources they cite and to helplines. Those sites have their own privacy policies. Pages may include embedded content from other websites; those sites may collect data about you as if you visited them directly.

How long we keep it

We keep contact messages only as long as needed to reply and follow up. Email addresses stay on our list until you ask us to remove them or unsubscribe. Forum accounts are kept until you ask us to delete them. Forum posts stay public until you edit them (within the editing window), they are removed by a moderator, or you ask us to delete or anonymize them along with your account. Posts that break our Community Guidelines may be removed at any time. The visit counter keeps only a running total.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to show, correct or delete the personal data we hold about you, including your forum account and posts, or remove your email from our list at any time. Depending on where you live, you may have extra rights under laws such as the GDPR or state privacy laws. To make a request, use our contact page.

Children

This site is meant for a general adult audience and isn’t directed at children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes

We’ll post any changes to this policy on this page and update the date at the top.