EndGameNYC

Yet the dog still craves the treat and, one way or another, will eventually get it. In the interim, he remains frustrated and, if he has human-like traits, resentful.

I have a brief and unremarkable history with NA beer. It wasn't a big deal back when I first got sober, and I didn't think much of it at first (which was part of the problem).

I regularly met friends for dinner by the time I was sober for a couple of years. Many of them drank one or two beers or a glass of wine, and a few didn't drink at all. This was never a problem for me. I decided one night, at about ten years sober and when we were having Mexican food that an NA beer would go nicely with what I ordered for dinner. I did this a few more times after that, based on what I was eating. And then I stopped doing it.

I wasn't afraid that I'd drink the real thing and get drunk; I was more concerned with the behavior of ordering the beer and thinking that it would satisfy me. Something was not "right" about it, and the more I did it, the more uncomfortable I was about doing it. Something like returning to the scene of the crime, or to a place that held bad memories for me. In the end, it was as though I was using NA beer as a placeholder until I was ready for the real thing again. I occasionally had thoughts and feelings around "getting away with something" that were reminiscent of my thinking and feelings while I was actively drinking. And I truly didn't need any of those things in my life.

So I touched the fire, a small flame in the grand scheme of things, but I wasn't at all interested to discover "what happens next."