nonalcoholic beer and regular beer has reduced my drinking...
 

in trying to cut things back a bit...

i've started drinking a non-alc beer after every 2nd or 3rd brew.

it seems to be working to ween myself down and keep it under control as much as i can. my 'routine' fix is fulfilled...and i get the buzz i need but not super drunk

i'd appreciate any input from folks who have a) either tried the same tactic or b) had negative or positive effects from substituting non-alc to help fix the prob.

Tks..JOE

Hi Popojoe

well, non alc beer never worked for me - I always got annoyed drinking it, cos I drank for the buzz.

I tried the 'every 2nd beer a NA' trick too - I just ended up drinking more to compensate, or ended up just giving the NA away entirely.

That's my experience anyway.

Hope you stick around - you'll find a lot of support here.
D

I tried non-alc beer once, but found myself drinking it compulsively just like regular beer, which was a little weird for me, as my body was still expecting a buzz to happen. It's a little like my liver got stood up or something...

Rev

lol Rev ;-) I hope it's ok that I got a laugh out of that.

Re NA beer, it would be like smoking oregano instead of pot to me, I am sure I would end up just drinking the real deal or drinking twice as much to compensate.

Welcome to SR :welcome

Sounds reasonable at first, I tried drinking two glasses of water between drinks, ....but eventually always "forgot" as the evening wore on. Welcome to SR.


Lots of great info here

It is great if you can control your drinking. Many heavy drinkers find they need to do this after times of excess and they are successful at it.

But an alcoholic will not be able to control their drink indefinitely. That's one thing which sets us apart from other drinkers.

Having said that there is an invisible line which you can cross from being a heavy drinker with control to being an alcoholic with no control. I crossed that line during a one week vacation. It was no one drink that did it - alcoholism is a progressive disease and always gets worse. After 20 years of heavy drinking, I just reached the point where my body and brain had become damaged to the point of no return while I continued to put alcohol in it.

Good luck.

Could never control my drinking.
I learned that the only thing that workd for me is total abstain from any alcohol.
NA beer does contain a small amount, read the label.

l think non alc beer tastes like camel p**.
Might as well have a nice orange juice.

Hi Pop
I'm an alcoholic taking my recovery one day at a time.
For me trying to wean myself off alcohol was like a newborn infant trying to wean itself off mother's milk. I tried all the "weaning" strategies: the "glass of water in-between drinks" strategy, the "only three drinks today" strategy; the "only on weekends and occasionally on monday too" strategy: the "beer only" strategy (beer can't be as bad as spirits, can it?); the "first drink after six pm" strategy; the "non-alcoholic beer mixed with the occasional beer" strategy; the "waterered down whiskey" strategy;and even the "non-alcoholic beer during the week and the let-rip with the real thing on saturdays and sundays" strategy. All my strategies eventually ended with the same result: drunk as a skunk. It was a real revelation to me when my addicition doctor told me that non-alcoholic beer is a no-no in any alcoholic's house because it's a surrogate addicition.
Good luck and welcome to this board. You'll find it very helpful. (:

Thanks AWOL - I used non-alcoholic beer to be a useful substitute during a "dry drunk" period, and normally used pot for the anaesthetic. Changing back to real beer was always pre-ordained, I think, because for me the N/A beer seemed to come with a "maybe I can drink the real stuff again" mentality.

I feel so much better now that I'm finally sober.

Popo....My solution was to stop all together. For an alcoholic there is no other way. Reducing or trying to control in my experience has never worked. Maybe short term but then you find yourself right back up there again. You say that you need that high and to become sober you have to quit completely and have a recovery program in place that will help you understand why you need the high. There are so many treatment options available for the underlying cause of why we drink.

I wish you success in your quest for recovery. SR is an excellent support tool.

Kim

I went through this phase last year after a bad arrest. I would chug this stuff down like it was real beer, drank loads of it too!

To me it defined my "dry drunk" period.

Needless to say it didn't last long before I had my last NA beer and went straight back onto the buzz-giving beer.

what the point of drinking if you aint gonna get blasted
seems very odd to me.....but thats me..

rather like a new sports car without an engine.....looks good......smells good.
but it hasnt got the va va vooooom..

love that trucker!

ah!, the Drinking Experiment

for me, i turned into the Mad Scientist,

and just about blew myself up!

and all those that were still around me.

welcome to the family pop,

and good wishes

Weaning off alcohol is hard to do. Not many can do it. I had to quit altogether. It was the only way for me to go as trying to control my drinking never worked. I wish you success, but if you can't manage it, think about quitting for good. I've been sober four months and feel great!:)

I did that a couple of times, that NA beer/real beer thing... yea, that's the ticket, I said... did that for a day or two...

Good luck with that.

I didn't drink NA beer when I was still drinking alcohol, but when I was drinking I did try similar tricks like trying to drink water before and/or in between drinks. I think that's a form of what's called "controlled drinking". Didn't really help or if it did - it did not last.


Now that I've quit drinking alcohol, I sometimes drink NA beer when I am out and am fed up with iced tea and ginger ale. Or, sometimes after working outdoors in the sun. NA beer in the US can have up to 0.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) while in the UK, NA beer can have up to 0.05% ABV. However, the brand I drink is 0.00% ABV.

Absolutely. That was the idea. IMO, if you can't laugh or joke, how can you get through ANYTHING?

Rev

I've never done the NA beer or wine. There is no "weaning" off for me. I either drink, or I don't drink.

I won't drink anything out of a wine glass, or a chilled beer glass either.

There is a small amount of alcohol in all NA drinks. They cannot be served to anyone under 21 in the US. The label might say 0%, because of labeling laws, but there is still some alcohol there. I've read quite a few articles about this...

From here: How Are Nonalcoholic Beer and Wine Made? : Secrets of fake booze revealed - CHOW

that's a mighty expensive buzz....not to mention the calories.

I always drink seltzer out of a wine glass, with a pretty slice of fruit, i think it looks appealing that way.