BRD

Weekends are hard and I'm meeting someone at a restaurant / bar. What are the thoughts about non alcohol beer?

Sapling

Welcome...Not crazy about the Non alcohol beer idea....Too much of a tease.....For myself I had to stay out of restaurants and bars for my early sobriety...Also too tempting....Is this a meeting that is absolutely worth losing your week for? Day 7??...I got out of detox on day 5.

Dee74

Hi BRD

Welcome to SR

I couldn't have met anyone at a bar on day seven, especially if you're finding it hard this weekend.

Can you reschedule at all? make it a coffee date later on?

I'm not a fan of NA beer either.

My experience is I don't drink NA beer because it looked like beer, felt like a can/glass of beer, it smelt like beer, it had that same condensation thing on the can/glass like a beer, the same fizz and foam when you pop the can, tasted like beer (kinda)....

Then I'd wonder why I'd go out everytime and get 'real' beer.
I was still knee deep in old behaviours, and didn't even realise it.

As a former beer drinker I know it ticks all the boxes for me, and opens the door to old behaviour and old thought paterns.

I don't recommend it.

I understand if you don't want to shout your problem from the rooftops, but I wouldn't pander to it either - why pretend to be a drinker, y'know?

If you decide you really have to go today, order a coke, nurse it, do what you need to do, and get the hell out of there.

D

candi7

I don't wanna take a chance, this caused my sweetheart to relapse in early sobriety...

JWS

I agree about the need to avoid restaurants / bars for the time being. In the same way, I am wondering how I am going to handle Ravens football. I have season tickets and usually drink heavily especially at night games. As luck would have it, we have 3 prime time home games in September. Also, whether at the stadium or home, I have still yet to watch a Ravens-Steelers game sober. I did sell opening night vs Cincy and plan to get rid of week 3 versus New England. No matter what though, I promised a buddy we would go Sept 27th vs the Browns. He usually gets smashed at games. Hopefully I can resist a beautiful September night tailgate.

BruceJ

Well, I suppose a recovering pot addict could smoke some yard grass, and hang around somewhere that a bunch of other people are smoking pot, but I'm not sure what the point would be.

In all seriousness, I hope you are kidding.

All the best.

BRD

Well I went and it went okay. I almost ordered a whiskey but had the N/A beer.

Now I never went through a real detox. A couple of months ago I was having three beers a day with sporatic binging.

I got a DUI a month ago and switched to drinking moderately. However two weeks ago one night alone I drank down 8 beers. Last week I had two last Saturday night. Wound up having a nasty breakup the next morning (not related to alcohol) but made the decision to quit drinking and self medicating.

BRD

I was serious. It may have been stupid but I think it was on some level a self test.

sugarbear1

If you know drinking alcohol will hurt you in many ways, it's just NOT an option. You can watch football with soda or lemonade or something else and maybe focus on the game!

Uninvited

Sometimes I simply see a bottle that looks slightly like a beer bottle (but is not) and I start getting a craving for beer. One day I looked at my hands and noticed a callous I used to have from opening beer bottles was starting to go away, and that led me to thinking about opening beer bottles, and then I wanted a beer. So I'm really sure I couldn't handle a bottle of NA beer...

JWS

Could you meet at an ice cream shop instead? Most people would be open to that this time of year.

BRD

I think it was a mistake for me to go to the restaurant. Nothing bad happened but it could have.

The majority of times I drank things were okay. I would two or three beers and would stop. However there were a minority of times that I would drink way more than I should and have had bad consequences.

It is Russian roulette and I played it today and it was okay. It may not be tomorrow.

Sapling

At least you are aware of that...That's a good thing.