I have to say right away that I have nothing against beers, wines and spirits without and without alcohol.
I’ve paid little attention to it, but I’ve noticed the shelves in my local Woolies groaning with bottles that look like gin or whiskey. I make no attempt to investigate. I walk over and grab some fizzy water and Diet Coke for my basket.
For your average person, I actually think the increase in these drinks is great, better for people’s health, great if you make it a little strong. I know that the pandemic forced many of my “normal” friends to look at their drinking, which may have been placed on them while they were in confinement and isolation. Many have made the decision to replace their alcoholic drink of the night with a non-alcoholic whiskey or low-alcohol chardonnay.
And these things taste so much better than they used to. I’ve tried a couple of beers in the recent past and they taste real, much better than the ones I tried about 20 years ago when I tried to give up alcohol.
As a recovering alcoholic, however, part of a group that many people would assume would welcome this development, I feel uncomfortable with these drinks. A couple of years ago I tried a non-alcoholic beer and now I firmly believe that they are not for me.
“Pretending to drink” is too dangerous and I know many of my “alkys” friends feel the same way.
Unlike normal drinkers, alcoholics have a mental obsession with alcohol. It brings such relief to our uncomfortable state of mind, that no matter what problems it has caused us in the past, and it’s a huge list I’ve had to make up, we somehow find ourselves forced to return to it again and again. .
There is a belief among alcoholics that in order to stay sober long-term, the idea that we can successfully drink again must be broken. You have to accept that you are powerless over alcohol and let go of the idea that you can never drink normally.
It’s not just about changing what you drink, it’s about changing your whole attitude, mindset and behavior. Drinking something that is essentially fake alcohol somehow makes you feel like you’re clinging to that old life you despised but can’t let go of. Let the feeling that “maybe this time it would be okay…”
Because, the thing is, alcoholism is more of a disease of the mind than a disease of the bottle. Without the regular help I get and the program I follow, my underlying mental issues start to rise and a drink can seem like a good idea, no matter what evidence I’ve had in the past that it really isn’t. If it was alcohol, then everyone who took a drink would become addicted.
It can present itself in me as a mixture of low self-esteem, over-sensitivity, anxiety, self-pity, lack of perspective, selfishness and resentment. A general discomfort that my demons can still subtly tell me that the alcohol can take away from them.
He knew he had “a bit of a drinking problem” before he got sober. Other people suggested that I might have a problem too. But I still couldn’t stop. Telling me I’d had enough could make me belligerent.
I tried so many ways to stop drinking: psychologists, self-help books, getting fit, not keeping alcohol in the house. And despite being drunk practically every night for the past seven years of drinking, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. He had a job, a wife and kids, and he thought alcoholics drank out of brown paper bags in the park.
I reached a point where I had had enough of life and somehow found myself in a recovery meeting after another virtual hangover breakdown. I haven’t had a drink in over 13 years and my life is immeasurably better.
But I’m never healed. I am never complacent. A drink could bring me back to this life.
As he recently did with a fellow I’ll call Trevor.
I saw him sober seven years ago after his wife kicked him out and he started having alcohol seizures.
Last year he started having some non-alcoholic beer at his golf club after a round of golf. Then, a few months ago, he was at the airport for an international flight, alone, and thought he’d grab a non-alcoholic beer. When the bar said they didn’t have any, he found himself ordering a regular beer.
He says it didn’t seem like much of a jump.
Three months later, Trevor has found himself steadily relapsing, his drinking has returned to unmanageable levels and he fears his marriage is falling apart again.
I feel for him, but I like to see it somehow.
If you had a gambling problem you wouldn’t bet with fake money, and if you were a drug addict you wouldn’t blow harmless powder just to remind yourself of the old days. For people like me and Trevor, it’s too realistic in replicating the drinking ritual and just sets you up to drink again.
And I never want to drink again after the carnage it caused in my life.
Rob Pegley is a freelance writer.
Read related topics: Woolworths