Big Bass

My first thread and I hope this hasn't already been discussed.

Question: If your trying to stop drinking any type of alcohol, would you say that drinking non alcoholic beer or any other non alcoholic beverage is just a way of tempting yourself in a non gratifying way??

I tried near beer back when I was a teen but what's the point unless your into the TASTE of beer..

Beside maybe adding some pounds or other un nessesary health problems??

Anybody want to jump on this one??

novips

I tried the non-alcoholic beer gambit once but eventually got drunk. Today, it just strikes me as very odd for an alcoholic to tempt fate like that. But then again, our disease is nothing if not endlessly creative at rationalizing paths to relapse.

Mysteryman

Ive spoken about this a few times.
Personally I used to love the taste of beer, like hoppy IPA's for example.
I have found a few non alcoholic or <.05% beers which have been ok/pretty good but it is a completely different kettle of fish than alcoholic beer. They'll never be the same to me, and some people suggest they are a gateway back to alcoholic drinks. Not for me in my personal experience but everyone is different!

biminiblue

All I drink is water, milk, coffee, and tea. On a rare celebratory occasion I'll have something carbonated, like Coke.

I don't even drink from the glasses I used for alcohol. Threw them out, along with the corkscrews and bottle openers.

I don't see the point in drinking NA beer or wine, at all.

zenithboy88

Non alcohol beer is allowed to have up to half a percent of alcohol in it.
alcohol is my big problem,
So I stay away from it.
Along with various over the counter meds; NyQuil, cold meds, sleep aids, etc

Dee74

This comes up from time to time Bass …

Your instincts are right I think.I’d advise newcomers reading against NA beer because for me it looked like beer, felt like a can of beer, it smelt like beer, it had that same condensation thing on the can like a beer, the same fizz and foam when you pop the can…

I was still knee deep in old behaviours, and didn't even realise it.

There’s so many other kinds of non alcoholic beverages out there today I’d suggest drinking anything else but something that reminds you of your favourite alcoholic drink?

D

ToughChoices

For me, alcohol is poison. It is ridiculous for me to romanticize or mimic poison. Hard pass on the N.A. beer.

Hodd

I was definitely addicted to NA beer when I first quit alcohol. Luckily this fizzled out after a year or so. Things could’ve gone the other way.

It’s a divisive topic on SR, but it’s a fair question, Big Bass.

I’m not going to demonise NA, but as Dee says, if you’re unsure, steer clear 🙂

VikingGF

One of my favorite quotes here is, "Non-alcoholic beer is for non-alcoholics." I wish I could remember who said it. While to each their own, I stand by this myself- and I steer clear of mocktails, alcohol free versions of beer, wine, ect. Too many other good options out there which would not get the AV going.

Zebra1275

No

Big Bass

Thank you all for some excellent points.. Each with a personal experience, that tells it's own story.

Zebra1275.. Straight to the point..

DeplorableDog

I can see both sides of this. Myself I will not drink non-alcoholic beer because I never was a big beer drinker anyway. To tell the truth I could drink one real beer or two real beers and walk away. However, I won't play with that fire because those one or two beers could lead me to stop at the liquor store and buy a bottle of whiskey on the way home. However I could see non alcoholic beer satisfying ones craving and save them from buying real beer. I quit chewing tobacco over 8 years ago. I still to this day keep a can of Smokey Mountain wintergreen in my toolbox out in the back garage and in my desk at work. It is very rare now and by rare I mean you could count on one hand how many times a year I get a craving for a chew. It is usually when I am working on a long project at home or at work. Instead of caving and buying a can of Skoal or bumming a chew off a co-worker I just take a dip of tobacco free Smokey Mountain. It satisfies my crave but doesn't get me addicted to tobacco again. So I could see alcohol free beer doing that for one whose regular drink was beer. Alcohol beer wouldn't satisfy my craving I don't believe since I was a whiskey drinker.

zenithboy88

Again, if you Google " does non alcohol beer have any alcohol in it?"
it will come back as, yes up to .5%
Although "legally" they can label it as non alcohol, it Does Have alcohol in it.
Be careful with legalese!

I don't know about you folks,
But I'm an alcoholic!

biminiblue

I meeeeeeeeeannnnn -

I didn't drink because of the taste, I drank because it settled me down (hah), quieted my mind, helped me forget, gave me a party any time any place, gave me that massive dopamine hit, and then - slowly eroded every semblance of sanity in the name of chasing that 24/7.

Offthemast

Pointless IMO. I've tried it a few times over the last year to scratch an itch but overall it did nothing for me.

Oglsby

It just made me want real beer, but that's me. I can't have even anything that's like alcohol.

Hodd

It’s off topic sort of, but bread contains over 1% alcohol and orange juice isn’t far behind.

For me, I don’t think it’s so much the alcohol content as the intention. I mentioned having 2 cans of NA beer on holiday recently. I was later surprised to see those beers had 1% alcohol. That’s more than I’d have chosen to drink, but for me it’s not a big deal. I assumed the content would be 0.5%. The intention wasn’t there. I also reckon if someone was nasty enough to ever spike my drink with, say, a double shot of vodka, I probably wouldn’t even notice and suffer (hopefully) no after effects such as cravings. But if I went out and bought real beers to drink, the intention would be there. I’d end up in big trouble.

So it’s not so much is NA good or bad, it’s more a question of why do you want to drink it?

KneePads

Hi Bass.

I think it depends on the person, but I lean towards ‘No’. My experience with it is the following:

All the other times before now when I’ve tried to stop drinking, I have included AF beers. Looking back now, for me personally, I see them as bottles of prolonged frustration. My subconscious habit around my drinking saw me drink 16 bottles of Becks blues blue on a Saturday night. I spent most of the evening on the loo and woke up with a headache, despite not having ‘real beer’. I don’t even like beer either, so it was odd I was even on the AF beer! But anyway…I now realise my subconscious was still trying to get me pissed on AF beer. I was still trying to get some sort of buzz, ‘but within the rules’. RIDICULOUS!

This time around, everything about sobriety feels different to me and I haven’t even contemplated buying AF beer. I think that says something.

Plus - as others here have pointed out - each bottle still contains 0.5% alcohol. If you have ever read about something called ‘kindling’ in relation to alcohol relapse, then this might just explain why all my other attempts to stop drinking were set up to fail by me drinking AF beer.

I really don’t think I’ll bother with it because of this. Same goes for AF wine, AF spirits.

Alcohol and cigarettes have these ‘faux’ replacements (like AF beer and vapes). But if I was engaging in any behaviour that was destructive to my life, it actually seems bonkers to try and replicate it with something ‘similar’ to
it!! It does, doesn’t it?

I think a bigger portion of alcohol addiction is psychological. The physical side is only a part of it. So what would be the sense in me doing a dress rehearsal of the same motions to keep that psychological side alive and eyebrow wiggling?

Each to their own. Everyone is different, but I think it’s not worth it.

That’s just my humble opinion anyway!

xxx

Offthemast

Good post KP. I've had a total of about 4 AF beers over the course of the last year until Friday. I had the day off and wanted to watch Formula 1 qualifying and some softball. In the past this would involve drinking all day while I watched. I got some NA Guiness and had about 8 of them. Now I sit here today really wanting the real thing. It might have opened up a door somewhere in my brain. Just the ritual of it.

So I guess I think they can be useful early in sobriety in social situations, ultimately they serve little purpose and could actually be harmful mentally.

freedomfries

I haven't been to a pub in ages but sober in a pub I would get NA beer instead of coke zero or something. I can't make a bottle of coke zero stretch for as long as it takes company to finish a drink.