Is this ok?
 

I've been sober for a week now. When I woke up I knew it was gonna be a rough day. There was no reason for it but all day I felt so much anxiety and I wanted to drink so bad. Finally I went to the store and bought an odouls non alcoholic beer to help the craving. I drank it and it worked with defeating the craving. Was I ok to do this?

They always made me want the real thing.

you might be different? I think there's better ways to deal with cravings tho

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-cravings.html

D

TZ, just a thought, but in Germany they mix beer with lemonade. If the non-alcoholic beer starts to make your cravings worse, you could try the mix and slowly increase the amount of lemonade. Other mixers are ginger ale (in Great Britain I believe) and even coke.

I would encourage you to develop other ways of getting by- chocolate helped me with craving early on, as well as "urge surfing"

I don't know, is it okay? I think that is something you need to personally decide.

I used to wish there was a non-alcoholic whiskey tasting something out there. I thought that if I could find something then I could drink that with my diet coke and all would be well.

It was not the taste I wanted, it was the high. If drinking the non-alcoholic beer is unsatisfying because there is no high then it could lead to the regular kind.

If you read the label you'll see there is a small amount of alcohol in odouls.

Drinking N/A beer to stop cravings is a placebo affect. It will do nothing in the long term except fool you into thinking a few "real beers" is OK.

Pay close attention to your diet. I've found that what I eat and drink in the evening will have some affect on how my anxiety level the next morning. Eat healthy for awhile and the cravings will level out.

I never noticed this before because for years I always had beer for breakfast.

Congrats on one sober week! Hope it is the first of many more.

Congrats on one week!

I personally don't see that as a problem, but it could at as a gateway into drinking again. At an A.A meeting I went to they said, "Non-alcoholic beer is for non-alcoholics.'

Congrats on the week. For me it's not o.k. Non-alcoholic beer leads to the real thing.

That wouldn't be okay for me. Drinking was "the event" in my social scene, I need to work on eliminating that behavior too. To me it would seem like a pot addict smoking oregano, or a coke addict snorting baby powder. No drug, but still practicing the behavior. Not my place to criticize what does or doesn't work for others though.

It raises an intersting question about electronic cigarettes and anti smoking aids which you put in the mouth. Do they cause the user to continue addictive behaviour?