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Old 09-20-2016, 08:10 AM
  # 11 (permalink)  
ScottFromWI
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
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Originally Posted by SomeSortOfHuman View Post
Hello,

I'm on 3 weeks and just wondering what people think about non alcoholic wine and beer in early sobriety?

I have been trying a few non-alcoholic wines and beers in the evening - many are awful, but I've found a couple that I like the taste of, and I enjoy the familiar ritual of opening the bottle, using the nice glassware etc. I find it comforting to continue the ritual of the habit in the evening - holding a cold beer bottle or an elegant wine glass - even though the substance in the glass isn't alcohol. Bottles of alcohol free beer were a life-saver at a recent wedding, where I didn't feel like drawing everyone's attention to the fact that I wasn't drinking.

Do you think there's any harm in this? My way of thinking about it is that my priority is keeping alcohol out of my mouth - so I can drink anything else in any kind of fancy glass if it helps! But my husband (a moderate drinker) worries that I might be playing with fire. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

x
Lots of good advice here already. I personally drank NA beer as part of my "moderation" attempts several times and also after I quit the first few times, but it generally led back to drinking regular beer for me, which was my exclusive drink of choice. So yes, I it's definitely playing with fire. I also found myself exhibiting some of the same behaviors with the NA beer...drinking it quickly, hiding it from others, continuously calculating how much of it I could drink before I actually felt a little bit of the alcohol...because NA beer/wine is not actually alcohol free. A 6 pack of NA beer contains about as much as one regular beer, so it's absolutely possible to get a slight alcohol effect if you drink enough of it.

I think another "red flag" is that you seem to still be romanticizing alcohol in your post...the ritual, the coldness of the bottle, etc. It happens to most of us and is just another indicator of how strong our addiction really is.

The other comment I wanted to point out was that you saw the NA drinks as lifesaver at the wedding because you "didn't feel like drawing everyone's attention to the fact that I wasn't drinking". That's a common assumption in early sobriety - that people notice or even care if we are drinking or not. Most people simply don't even think about it...we obsess over it of course because or addiction wants us to...but for the most part no one really even pays attention to it.
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