fenster67

well, i do love the taste of beer, and i must say, it was a pleasure drinking that Odoul's.
I only drank it for the taste.

RobbyRobot

Sober living is all about quality of life without alcohol consumption in foods or drinking. Quality is an entirely subjective and personal value. Even sobriety has different values for folk from different experiences and walks of life.

I don't drink O'Douls or anything like it. I don't cook with alcohol. I'm already sick enough with alcoholism and I don't need more of the same. I've been sober for a long time now (decades) and if i was to drink an O'Douls i would not reset my sobriety date because there is simply not enough alcohol in such a drink to get me drunk. Having said that I'll never drink an O'Douls because I don't play games with my alcoholism. My drinking problem has been gone [removed actually] for many years now but my alcoholism yet remains arrested spiritually and playing with fire is just something I don't do and purposefully drinking the stuff in the form of an alcoholic beverage, no matter diluted the alcohol, is not in the game for me. Others of course follow their own experiences and what they drink or eat is okay by me unless they are getting drunk on it and being in denial of their alcoholism.

Not all abstainers of alcohol have the actual illness of alcoholism. Some are more like problem drinkers than alcoholic. Who is really to know? Who can point fingers with absolute certainty and declare whom ever an alcoholic? Not me is what I've come to understand is it my business to tell others what their sobriety date is or isn't and if they are or are not alcoholics with the illness of alcoholism. I can share my ESH and that is the all of it. Live and let live.

Threads like these always amaze me in that alot is talked about around sobriety experiences but not so much alcoholic experiences. Like taking a bit of alcohol is okay because they taker still feels sober and so what is the big deal sort of thing. To each their own I say, even if i don't agree with it as a recovered alcoholic.

Sobriety is [for me an alcoholic] not just about not drinking. Not drinking is simply the starting off place for the alcoholic with the illness of alcoholism to live a recovered spiritual life. For others not sickened with the illness of alcoholism, sobriety is whatever they want it to be because it's meaning really has little to do with their quality of life. They can stop and go without fighting the fatal illness of alcoholism. They struggle with addictive realities and behavours, responsbilities and consequences, but hard dinkers and problem drinkers do not struggle with the illness of alcoholism.

A rose is a rose is a rose.

Rob

gerryP

Yes Sarah, you 'read'that correctly....

Apparently OJ and apple juice for some is compromising one's sobriety. And if you are Smart and serious about your sobriety, you will refrain from consuming such beverages. Pa-leeze.

least

I wouldn't want to drink wine-substitutes as I never drank wine for the taste but only for the escape.

Lushwell

This kind of begs the question of whether you have "agonized" enough to do the right thing, or just rationalize playing with fire.

I mean, this really is a life or death situation. Do games really belong here?

I admire daring. People who confront their fear to experience jumping from an airplane. Stupid, not so much.

stu·pid 

–adjective

Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes; foolish; senseless; lacking in common sense, perception, or normal intelligence.


I seek sober support networks. Not "Lets support each other in high risk, recovery threatening activities. We can always quit again tomorrow" I have yet to witness any meaningful success among those needing to stay sober, yet defiantly maintaining the lifestyle at any cost.

Sorry, I just haven't.

Toronto68

It's not like a thread similar to this one won't come up in a few days, but I thought of this one immediately, so I guess I will share here what is probably a blunder of mine from the last week:

I just found out that I probably had 3 cookies with alcohol in them between Boxing Day and yesterday. A friend gave me a batch of homemade cookies, plus a few Lindor/Lindt candies (you know, the chocolate things that are shaped like eggs). I didn't touch the Lindors because I figured they had brandy or something in them and would look that up online when I felt like it to verify. I did that today and I get the impression they probably do. So they're still sitting there unopened.

Then I roamed around online to look up the cookies I had. My stomach has felt like a rat is in there chewing away at me ever since I spotted a recipe for kourambiedes (round cookies with sugar flour coating on them), which calls for cognac. I even chopped one open and smelled the inside before trying the first one too. It could be that they didn't use alcohol. I know I didn't taste it or feel anything. I also know they tasted divinely good. But I can't assume they didn't contain alcohol. The person who gave them to me knows from me that I am an alcoholic too.

I have a lot of misanthropic things I could say right here, and I do still love to air out my anger in written diatribes. But it won't do me or the readers much good. It would be advisable though to remember that you can't assume other people have your best interests at heart or in mind. You can't very well walk around with a chemistry kit and microscope and petri dish every day of your _______ life trying to figure out whether someone is harming you with their Xmas ideas or not, but you can think for yourself and be precautious if you want to.

As for the Lindors, I doubt I will have somebody passing by in the next day or two that I can hand them to, so I will probably chuck them. I'm sure they are yummy, but too bad. I don't avoid Listerine or alcohol soap...or orange juice, but baked goods like that are not for me, just because that's the approach that I've been taking intentionally since I quit drinking some time in Nov of 2009.

And another page turns!

Mark75

hmm... I liked rusty's post, for reasons that have little do with this actual specific question... sorry to be obtuse, but as usual when we deal with alcoholism, it ain't about the alcohol, in my opinion...



Toronto... it's interesting... I wouldn't care too much if turned out someone used alcohol to make some cookies I ate, or a little cooking sherry in gravy... or whatever.... not that I would seek it out, perhaps even avoid it... but I probably would eat those cookies without much of a second thought... (chocolate Liquor is not necessarily alcoholic... it's a product from processing the cocoa bean....)

But it's funny... Alcoholic Mouthwash and to a lesser extent, hand sanitizer, bugs me out... I won't touch it...

So... To Thine Own Self....

Toronto68

Yes, you're right, Mark. That was part of my meaning, but I edited what I was saying so many times, I probably lost track. I sketched out that post as an example of the cogitations that you go through and the different ones that different people have. But at the end of it all, I don't know what the H was in the cookies, didn't notice a thing other than how good they were, and didn't eat them like I had just cracked open a beer. So it's kind of Much Ado. I think my brain actually looks for things to find fault with...So that I can confront another "beating," which is alcoholic.

ISPYSOBRIETY

Tecnically, there was alcohol in it but puleeeeze. How low is that? We all know what a drink is from a light beer on up to overproofed liver killer. There might be a resemblance in taste as well as appearance as that of beer, but it's not real beer.

I would think it's flirting with danger as the little addict inside could easily try to convince you that if you could have an Odooles, why not one single light beer. I personally wouldn't allow myself to get that intimate with a drink that so closely resembles what tried to destroy my life. No thanks.

Then again, you can't live your life like a coward, hiding in shadows 100% of the time, until you die. So you might just look at it as though you were tested, experienced an Odouls and you passed the test.... you don't need alcohol.

Dee74

There seems be a certain amount of derision in this thread - thats not the way we do things here.

Civil discussion will always benefit everyone involved - it's possible to disagree with someone while still according them respect. Check out rule 4 if you have any doubts of whats acceptable.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ting-tips.html

Back to the topic - to me it was not actually the alcohol as much as it was the behaviour.

to each their own, but I was a beer drinker...I used to drink NA beer - that smelled like beer, tasted like beer (well a bit)...and came in a can - and drink it exactly like I drank real beer...and then wonder why I always ended up back on the real thing....

There's a world of other fruit juices and soft drinks out there - I'd have to wonder (and I've had these thoughts myself about NA beer) why I 'wanted a beer'.

D

MsCooterBrown

"I used to drink NA beer - that smelled like beer, tasted like beer (well a bit)..."

It tastes like something the cat dragged in...

Kmber2010

Couldn't agree more. To each their own folks but we are our own keepers if something presents itself as a trigger or stirs up any mixed feelings then by all means.....we do what we need to do.

I use mouthwash and never had a problem with it.....but if someone else does then they are right on to eliminate it from their home, etc. and work their recovery harder.

Recently I have had non alcohol related stress over some things in my life. You can all bet your sweet green beans I have been working my recovery all the much harder as I know what things lead me to dark places. The joy of recovery...to know better and choose the better course of action to help ourselves

Kmber2010

Oh and to add how....at a Thanksgiving party I went to there were tons of delicious treats. I piled up my plate and started working through the goodies when I overheard someone say they got a buzz off of something that I had put on my plate. Turns out there was alcohol in it. I confirmed with the chef of said item and promptly returned it to the tray.

Why? Would I relapse if I ate it? Probably not but I am a pregnant recovering alcoholic and I don't want that garbage in my life ever again.

Of course it prompted some comments like oh come on....not much in there. For me....it was my choice and I don't need your validation. None of these folks know I am in recovery of course but it was on me to know what I was ok with or not.

Just a share to add.

WakeUp

I was looking as getting de-alcoholized wine for cooking. For cooking, NOT for drinking. I figured it was already .05%, and with it being cooked over a period of hours there couldn't possibly be any traces of the alcohol left.
Then I thought, why? I can make plenty of dishes with no alcohol at all, I don't need the "essence" anymore. They dish still tastes good without any alcohol at all. Dead or .0001%.

Nope, don't want it, don't need it. Sobriety is a good thing.

getr345

Sorry to drag up an old post and beat a dead horse but I gotta say this and it came to mind last night watching Celebrity Rehab when one of the patients asked what is wrong with a non-alcoholic beer, what's the problem with that? And the answer is not what you think at all, and it's NOT the alcohol in one of them that you might feel a buzz from, and so it's not the trace amount of alcohol that poses a problem to an alcoholic/addict.

It's the carbonation.

When you drink a carbonated beverage (esp an OVER-carbonated one like a NA beer) what happens is the bubbles (the carbonation) actually cause a bit of pain to your tongue & mouth and in response to that pain, your body sends out natural pain meds, a little endorphin/dopamine rush and what do ya know? You feel a little buzz, a little high even and maybe you confuse this with an alcohol buzz. In any case, it's that little buzz that can be dangerous to a real alcoholic/addict for obvious reasons.

So, that's what's wrong with non-alcoholic beer, IMO and from what I have read.

Nikkle

Hmmm...I was gonna add my 2 cents before, I agree with "to each his own" on these things. It is good to know carbonation can give you a buzz from your body's own natural pain killers. Probably why I am hooked on hot tea right now, eh? Feeling the burn from exercise could do the same as well as many other activities. So recognizing that the buzz is not from alcohol, may allow someone who really enjoys the taste of beer to do so safely. I really enjoyed those full flavored yeasty beers that tasted like fresh baked bread smells, but I do not think there is a N/A beer in existence like that and would not insult my taste buds ever again with the one's I know are out on the market. I have never felt a buzz from orange or apple juice, which is curious, because I have felt an unexpected buzz from my cheap dollar store toothpaste (switched brands after that) and I swear I felt a warm all over, rum like feeling from spraying on my perfume (I now apply it to my clothing only, letting it air out a bit while I'm away from it in the shower) So that is my take on it. We all have different triggers and should respond accordingly.