Astro

Like you said earlier, you'd definitely bloat up and pee like a race horse to find that out!! Lol

And Sheryl, I don't want to know what's hiding in that fridge of yours;-)

ay100

I wouldn't drink non-alcoholic beer. It would eventually tempt me to go for the real thing.

Taking5

One question: Where would you be drinking this N/A beer?

In my case it was at a bar, with lots of old drinking buddies. I even did this several times before the temptation wore me down and suddenly I was drinking burbon and soda.

At my AA group, we pray every day "lead us not unto temptation". It makes little sense for me to pray that, then walk right into the temptation of a bar.

To me drinking N/A beer is walking into temptation regardless if it is at a bar or not.

Hush007

You nailed it right there my friend!

Dave31

Speaking for myself, the reason for drinking is to get high from the drink. If the beer is NA then it wouldn't get me high so there'd be no point. Oh and in my experience NA beer tastes bad.

paulmh

I tried to quit drinking using NA as a substitute quite a few times, and it definitely helped me to turn three weeks into four, or one month into two.

But it didn't help me get sober. AA did - absolute abstinence!

Debaucher

My wife and I talked about this last night... she is the one who got me thinking about it... she asked me if I was teasing myself.. with NA beer... if I was substituing...

So I told her I really need to think about it...and determine if I drink NA beer because I just like it... or because I miss "real" beer... ???

She agreed I needed to just be honest with myself...

I told her I wasn't making excuses or trying to rationalize but... to help her understand the possibility that I just like beer be it NA or not... I said... you drink decaf coffee right... is that any different...

She retorted... she isn't a caffein addict... I agreed... and she said she undertstands now how someone "could" just drink it for taste...

-- Ok a few comments about what other people said --

Hey I don't deny my friends denial... agree... I just say.. he hasn't picked up in a year... and the NA beer hasn't temped him... I am not him so I need to decide if this is a tempation for me... honestly..

the point about where I would be drinking NA beer is a good one... it is with old drinking buddies... that being said (here comes the rationalization lol)... 1 is a dry drunk... and the other guy decided he isn't going to drink when we play darts (and he can do that???... I wish I could have just done that)... and the other guy is my brother... and he supports me...

Am I temped? I haven't been... will I be? I don't know... So once dart season is over... I am not going into bars... without a really really good reason...

I also like it at home... but like I said to my wife... if it really is just for the taste then I should be able to take it or leave it... so I just leave it and see if I desire it... that should give me an answer... I really had an M&M thing a while back... and it was causing me to put on weight... I realized it.. cut out the m&m's and I wanted some at the time I usually had them one day and then no more... so I'll use that as a yard stick...

I also want to thank everyone for the back and forth discussion... you really gave me (and I think others) some good stuff to ponder... if I am honest with myself and really think about what has been said here I will arrive at my answer...

CarolD

He has not quit drinking either.

I do hope you find sobriety
it's a grand way to live!

Tazman53

Carol that cracked me up!!! Only a real alcoholic would say that!! LOL

Debaucher

Taz & CarolD... It cracked me up too... really I had a little chuckle... and the crazy thing is before AA I would have gotten mad about about that... I would have thought you were not listening to me...

now I know you hear me you just don't agree with me... and you know what... that is ok... and moreover it is good... how boring would life be if we all agreed with each other all the time...

I also think that if another alcoholic says X is wrong... and I think X is ok... that I need to take a good hard look at it... so I will...

also this conversation has made me question my NEED to start my morning with a glass of OJ... hmm... lol...

Missymae737

I have always said, if I can't have the REAL thing, I don't want it!

doorknob

LOL!

Bread has a similar amount of trace alcohol as well. But.. you toast it, right? ..oh geez.. you have to watch the fruit preserves you put on them as well.. and skip the breath mint if it is sweetened with sorbitol...

Astro

Well I like my cake, but eating rum cake probably wouldn't be too wise........

Oh for cryin' out loud this is gettin' friggin' ridiculous! ;-)

Tazman53

The last thing you want is to have an alcohol bath if you had a real high fever!!!!

Budfrog

It's important to know what is meant by alcohol free. This is particularly so for people who avoid alcohol for religious reasons or those on certain medications which create a severe reaction to even the smallest alcohol content.

Government regulations control what terms can be used. The rules that control how we label drinks according to their alcohol content are different in the UK from the rest of Europe.

In the UK there are strict regulations that split drinks into specific categories:

Non- alcoholic: contains no alcohol at all (0.0%)
Alcohol-free: contains 0.05% alcohol or less
De-alcoholised: contains 0.5% alcohol or less
Low-alcohol: contains more than 0.5% but no more than 1.2%

On the Continent the rules are not so complicated. All drinks with up to 0.5 per cent alcohol are regarded as alcohol-free.

To put this into context, an ordinary glass of fresh orange juice can naturally contain up to 0.5% alcohol. Malt vinegar you put on your chips is about 0.2% alcohol.

For more information on non alcoholic beer, de-alcoholised and alcohol free drinks, visit http://www.alcoholfreeweek.co.uk

Budfrog

Been drinking Cobra 0% (available in the UK) NA beer over the past 3 weekends and a couple of glasses of Merlot grape juice with my evening meal.

Can't say that any of the above has given me the urge to drink alcohol even though I have several bottles of wine in the rack and some Rolling Rock in the garage but as i have already stated I do not believe that my alcohol addiction is that severe.

The only problem I've found with N/A in the UK (use to be a poet ....) is the appalling taste of most of the overpriced junk that's available .... the Gov't should encourage the consumption of N/As for drivers by cutting out the tax, but the greedy morons are more interested in the revenue than a few innocent lives.

concolor1

I had my first non-alcoholic beer at seven years off the sauce. I was nervous as hell, but no craving...

I think I had three all of last year (that's almost 20 years after the first one).

I don't go into bars except when my job requires, and then I'm in and out . . . I have no qualms about an O'Douls with Mexican food, particularly if it's around dinner time since I avoid caffeine after about four or five in the afternoon because of the trouble it causes me sleeping (just finishing my third cup of coffee for the day, and that'll be it; it's about three in the afternoon right now).

I've never been able to finish a second O'Douls or Coors Cutter because of the bloating described... As for peeing like a racehorse, the other day I was out with some friends and hit the iced tea really heavy (curiously, right after reading the NA beer thread here. O'Douls was available). I was up late and squeezing a kidney repeatedly. I'll probably avoid iced tea at night as a result even though I love it . . .

Those are my decisions for me, however, and if you're new and want to hang around bars and drink N/A beer (or Virgin Marys or tonic-and-lime or plain Coke), you're probably a disaster waitng to happen . . .

I drink orange juice, too, to replace the potassium the diuretic I take for my blood pressure depletes... Most alcoholics don't have problems with blood pressure, though, because alcohol acts as a solvent to scrub out the walls of the blood vessels . . . It takes a lot of years of sobriety to develop that one...

Honest, if you want to get drunk, go for it with the real thing . . . Shoot, I gave up drinking much beer early in my drinking career because it didn't work fast enough; scotch-on-the-rocks was my preference for many years (unless you were buying and drinking something else).

But yeah, if you've got a choice between a Bud and an O'Douls, go for the O'Douls (unless you need the Bud to help you with that First Step).

Question you need to ask yourself is what are you wanting/expecting to get out of it? To me, that's diagnostic of whether you're engaged in alcoholic or sober thinking . . .

And the question I'm always asking myself is whether I'm engaging in telling someone else how to live their life or run their program or examining and working my own . . .

Reminds me, I think I better drop down to some of the Al-Anon meetings down below . . .

barb dwyer

Having been a bartender for years before coming back to AA ... I can only speak from my own experience watching others do the NA beer thing -
100% of them went back to the real thing.
Read tht again - 100% of my customers ... went back to the real thing.

Because - 'near beer' is not alcohol FREE. Read the label - or go to the webpage. That's common knowledge at the bar I worked at.

The craving ... is physical. The craving ... is real.

It's like the content of certain vinegars ... but it's there. I forget the %. Teensy, but enough ... which I wasn't too keen about - cuz I collected vinegars ... sounds dumb, but everybody has their thing, I guess. Mine was vinegars and honeys ... *shrug*

Same thing of people who were in AA or 'on the wagon' who took flower remedies ... because a 'tincture' is made with alcohol. Period. 100% of the people who took that stuff .. went back to drinking.

Just my two cents,.

Debaucher

concolor1,

nice... the alcoholic thinking or sober thinking...

Why did I even propose the question... was it alcoholic thining or sober thinking... well... it was doubt... I was worried that I was rationalizing... I was worried that I discounted my wife's concerns because... well... she isn't an alcoholic and doesn't understand... (not the best thinking but the thought is there in my mind)...

So I feel I did ask the question for the purpose of getting counter arguments to my thinking... and not to get affirmation I am right...

I got alot to think about in terms of resolving this issue... for the moment... my rational mind says the answer is easy....

If I just don't even drink NA beer I don't have to worry about if I am right or wrong... what my motives are... why I drink it ... if it causes cravings... etc...

All I know is... went to my beer fridge yesterday first thing when I got home to see if my wife got any o'douls when she went grocery shopping... she didn't... I was dissapointed... enough said...

for now I am going to avoid it... (one day at a time thinking... today I am going to avoid it)

also... your comment "I think I better drop down to some of the Al-Anon meetings down below " confuses me... care to elaborate?

nocellphone

Sometimes, when I'm wondering if the decision I'm thinking about making will have dangerous consequences (and let's face it, using alcohol can and often does have FATAL consequences), I think of it this way:

If I'm walking through the woods and see a snake sunning itself on a rock, I may not know whether that snake is poisonous or harmless (I guess I could travel with a field guide to poisonous snakes, but I digress... ). What I DO know is that I'm certainly not gonna pick the snake up and carry it around under my shirt for a few hours.

What would I do in that situation?

I would respect the snake as something that is has the very real potential to kill me and I would give it a wide berth.

I'm not willing to compromise my life today when I have a choice in the matter, and today I know that I always have choices...