How to stop drunk texting your ex: 7 methods ranked
Seven methods, ranked by how well each holds at 1am rather than how sensible it sounds at 3pm — plus what to do when it has already gone. None of them assume anything about why you're awake.
First, a wider note
This page uses the word "drunk" because that is what people type into a search box, and we would rather be findable than delicate. But the problem is not really the drinking. It is the gap between wanting to do something and doing it, which gets thin late at night for a lot of reasons — insomnia, grief, anger, loneliness, exhaustion, a phone within reach.
Plenty of the people who send the 1am message have not had a drink at all. Some of them stopped drinking years ago and found, uncomfortably, that the impulse did not leave with it. Everything below works the same either way, because none of it depends on why the urge showed up.
Short answer
The methods that hold are the ones you cannot reverse on your own. Blocking and deleting a number take under a minute to undo. On iPhone, set Screen Time Downtime from 20:00 with Communication Limits set to Specific Contacts, then have someone else set the passcode. That combination is free, takes about five minutes, and is the only version that survives a bad night. Ringing a friend instead of texting works better than all of it and costs nothing.
You are not unusual. In a peer-reviewed study of 236 drinkers, 66.1% reported regrettable social behaviour while drinking (Dunne & Katz, Alcohol and Alcoholism, 2015), and a 2021 study of 620 students found about one in five send messages of this kind at least monthly. The research in this area happens to study drinkers, because that is an easy population to recruit and measure. It does not mean drinking is the only route to the same 1am decision.
So the interesting question isn't whether you're the only one — you aren't — it's why the same man who knows perfectly well it's a bad idea does it anyway, reliably, at the same hour.
Why do I text my ex at night?
Two things line up. Attention narrows onto whatever is immediately present, and the step where you'd normally picture how this reads tomorrow gets skipped. Meanwhile the hour supplies the raw material: it's late, the distractions have run out, and the phone is right there.
Alcohol is one thing that produces that narrowing, and the best-studied one. It is not the only one. Tiredness does it. So does a bad day, a grief you thought had settled, or simply being awake at an hour when nobody sensible is available to talk you out of anything.
The wanting isn't stronger than usual. The pause is missing. That's why "just don't do it" fails — it's advice aimed at the exact faculty that has gone offline. Everything below is instead aimed at putting time or effort between the impulse and the send button.
The 7 methods, ranked weakest to strongest
1. Deleting their number — barely works
You know it by heart, or it's in your email, your cloud backup, or three other apps. Deleting a contact removes the reminder, not the route. Do it if you like; don't count on it.
2. Blocking them — works a bit
Better, because unblocking takes deliberate steps rather than a tap. But it's reversible from the same phone in under a minute, and it never covers everything: email, a different platform, a second account. It raises effort slightly. It does not close the door.
3. Handing your phone to someone — works when you're with people
Excellent and completely free, right up until you go home alone, which is when this happens. Worth doing when you're out; not a system.
4. Write it somewhere else — genuinely useful
This one is underrated. The urge is usually to say the thing rather than specifically to have them read it, and a notes app absorbs a surprising amount of that. Write the whole message. Don't send it. Read it at noon.
The weakness is obvious: nothing stops you copying it across at 1:05. It works because it satisfies the impulse, not because it blocks anything — which means it works right up until the night it doesn't.
5. Screen Time — the free option most people skip
iPhone can shut the messaging apps overnight on a schedule. Downtime from 20:00, App Limits at one minute, Block at Downtime switched on. And the setting almost nobody finds: Communication Limits → During Downtime → Specific Contacts, which is the only per-person block iOS offers.
Full step-by-step guide here. It's free and takes five minutes. Do it before paying anyone for anything, including us.
The catch is that you hold the passcode, so it's a four-digit speed bump when the person restricted and the person restricting are the same man.
6. Give the passcode to a friend — strong
This is the step that turns Screen Time from a speed bump into a wall. Someone else sets the code and doesn't tell you. It feels like a big thing to ask. It's the highest-return item on this page, and it's what the £50 hardware gadgets in this category are really selling.
7. Ring someone instead — strongest, and free
The morning-after call already happens. Move it twelve hours earlier and it becomes the thing that stops the message. Ask one person, while sober, whether you can ring them at 1am instead of texting your ex. Most people say yes without hesitating.
If there's a live legal case, treat this differently
Divorce, custody, a restraining order, anything ongoing: a 2am message isn't embarrassing, it's evidence, and it can be produced in court by someone with every reason to produce it. If that's your situation, don't rely on willpower or on a lock you can switch off — talk to your solicitor about what contact is appropriate, and put a barrier in place that somebody else controls.
What should I do if I already sent it?
- Don't send a second one. The follow-up explaining the first is almost always worse, and it's usually the one that reads as desperate.
- Wait until you're properly awake. Not 7am, hungover, still half in it. Noon.
- If an apology is warranted, make it one line. "Sorry for last night's message, ignore it." No explanation, no request for a reply. A long apology is a second contact in disguise, and it asks them to respond — which is often what the first message was really for.
- Then set something up before the next weekend, while you still remember how this morning felt. That feeling is the resource, and it's gone by Wednesday.
Or put a wall between the two of you at 8pm
Dont You Do It shields the apps you choose after 8pm. Anything you still want to say goes in a vault you can't even re-read until noon, when you decide sober. Ten real questions before anything opens, and a button that rings your mate instead.
See how it works69.69 once · no subscription · nothing leaves your phone
Frequently asked questions
Is this a sign I'm not over them?
Not necessarily. Late-night loneliness and a missing pause explain most of it without needing a deeper meaning. What it does reliably signal is that the hour and the drink are a bad combination for you — which is a practical problem with a practical fix.
Will they think less of me?
Possibly, and that's uncomfortable rather than catastrophic. The more useful question is what it costs you materially — a live case, a working relationship, a co-parenting arrangement — because that's the version worth building a barrier against.
Should I just delete all social media?
Some people do, and it works. For most it's a bigger change than the problem requires, and the all-or-nothing move tends to collapse in a few weeks. A nightly window is smaller and survives longer.