Hi, daisi,
There is no physiological reason to avoid non-alcohol beers. 3Legacy, your buddy in the boat would have to drink them at a 10:1 ratio to real beer to get any kind of a buzz. It isn't what killed him. The alcohol level of the orange juice you drink is about the same as that of NA beers, due to natural fermentation. We are all regularly ingesting alcohol without intending to.
So that gets to the behavioral and psychological aspects. Drinking NA beer won't make you go drink real beer. It may remind you of situations or feelings you had when you were drinking the real stuff. You may be using it as a substitute. But it doesn't cause your behavior. If those memories or feelings are intense, avoiding the things that trigger them can be helpful.
I'd suggest that you feel guilty about drinking NA beer because you were drilled to believe that it is harmful, during a time when you were emotionally vulnerable. Let me point out quickly, though, that that isn't necessarily an inappropriate thing for them to have told you. As a way of achieving short term sobriety, we all use 'whatever it takes' to avoid that first drink.
But you're sober nearly a year now, and you should congratulate yourself on having achieved that. You can take control of your own sobriety now and focus on the key to longterm sobriety: firmly adopting the belief that drinking to feel the effects of alcohol has no place in your life.
I'm not belittling strongly aversive approaches such as Peter's. One of the hallmarks of people who are successful at longterm sobriety is making simple lifestyle changes, and avoiding all forms of alcohol is actually a pretty simple one. I also adopted a 'no alcohol in my house' approach--but I do have cooking wine and Listerine. We each adopt our own versions of these rules.
I loved to cook with wine, but also realized that had been an excuse to buy it. So I chose to avoid recipes for which wine was a key ingredient, and consciously changed my cooking style. When someone gave me a bottle, I added salt to it to render it undrinkable and then used it up in cooking--but my tastes had changed so much that it took me nearly a year.
'So pants'?! What an expression! But I agree...surely there must be something better you can drink?! To get the refreshment and 'mouth feel' of a carbonated beverage, one of my favorites is cranberry juice mixed with seltzer water.
Don S