# AH and non-alcoholic beer?



## Riven

My husband is an alcoholic. He hasn't drank for a bit over 9 weeks since he woke up from drunken oblivion with another woman...

I told him no drinking or I'm gone, that's my line. Today he brought home some non-alcoholic beer, I told him I didn't know if I was okay with that... he said that he understood and I can get rid of it if I want.

I'd like some other point of views on this...


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## Riven

After stewing on it for about an hour, I decided no way. My line is no beer, that means no beer. 

He can drink it if he wants, while he's looking for a new place to live. I deserve better than for this to ever happen to me again.


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## daisygirl 41

I think you are right Riven
I have no experience with this type of thing but it sounds like he was tesing you. I might be wrong, but i still think you are right.
How did he respon?


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## oregonmom

Agree with you Riven, no beer of any kind.

It is a bad idea for alcoholics to drink anything that resembles alcohol. No "virgin" drinks either. It won't satisfy them, and will heighten the urge to use.

My H's drug of choice was oxycotin or percocet. He didn't seem to think there was any problem getting vicodin when he severely injured himself because it was a "lesser" pain killer. Wrong. Just drove him to seek that "perfect" high he gets from the usual drugs.


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## trey69

He is still doing the behavior even without the alcohol, its pointless for him to remain sober if he is continuing with the same behvior. If you say you are leaving though, you need to do just that if he refuses to listen.


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## Riven

When I saw it in the bag from the store I said "I don't know if I'm cool with this" and he replied that he understood. 

I'm upset and hurt that he even brought it home. What's really odd about the whole thing is that today I wrote him a two page letter about all of the ways alcohol and him drinking it has hurt me. 

He knows that I will leave. I did some looking around and found that a lot of recovering A's who start drinking NA end up back to drinking A. It's not the taste he misses no matter what he thinks, it's the high the taste got him.


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## Riven

Last night he was in the shower, I went in and talked to him and told him that I was very hurt and angry that he would bring any kind of beer home. He apologized profusely and said he felt like he went about 3 steps back that day and he would get rid of it as soon as he was out of the shower. And he did. It was all in the outside trash can exploded when I checked.

He has made changes since everything happened, he took medical leave and transferred to a job at home. With his work it's kind of a difficult thing, transfers are primarily on seniority when they come open. He knew this position was going to open up and he was going to bid it anyway, but he could not have just transferred before it was open. And he hasn't drank since that night. 

Thanks for the support... I feel a disaster was averted.


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## oregonmom

So glad that went so well for you Riven and your H could see clearly the error too.

I meant to ask if you have been to Al-Anon? I was one of the resistant ones and now wish I had been going for years


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## Riven

I go on occasion, my biggest issue is that we live 30 minutes away from the meetings, and when I'm in town I'm usually in class, or would have to wait around for 5 hours for the evening group. 

For a while our counseling was set up to facilitate us both going to meetings, but we're in the process of changing counselors. I ended up there because I had no place else to go, I'm so glad I did. In fact if I could go back I would have spent my time there instead of with our worthless counselor we started with.


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## TBT

Glad he got rid of it and I think if you look on the label you may see that non alcoholic beer actually contains alcohol.


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## Riven

It does contain a tiny percentage, but so does OJ and mouthwash and all of that. In the hospital you see people trying to drink hand gel ... he's not that bad, lol.

My biggest concern is that it would actually make his cravings worse. I do my part about declining invites to eat at places like bars, and usually he doesn't even walk down the beer/dairy isle with me at the store because it will make him crave it.


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## Runs like Dog

People don't stop habits they change them. This is not a change.


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## TBT

Riven-Yes its amazing what products contain alcohol.Some mouthwashes are actually as much or more than 25% alcohol.As far as NA beer goes they've done some studies that show that smell and just the anticipation of alcohol can raise the levels of dopamine.

The funny thing about alcoholics is that should we be tempted to relapse the first thing that comes to mind is not all the negative consequences but only what we perceive as the positive benefits....One won't kill me.It'll loosen me up and put me in a better mood,like that great night over at so and so's place etc.ad nauseum...We are so in denial to fool ourselves in such a way.We have to learn to reverse that type of thinking,so that if we're ever tempted to relapse the first thing that comes to our minds is the damage our drinking causes to our families,ourselves and others.I'm many years sober now but it took practice to replace positive mind images with negative ones in the beginning.Tell your husband not to worry about how he'll live the rest of his life without alcohol and just worry about today.I wish you both the best.


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## fearful55

I'm a recovering Alcoholic. Around AA, if you've gone through enough pain to surrender, admit that you are powerless over alcohol and that your life has become unmanageable (Step One), it is counter intuitive to be 'romancing the drink' enough to buy something that looks and tastes like beer. In my early days of sobriety, in the back of my mind, the disease was telling me that this 'no drinking thing' wasn't permanent somehow. For me the O'Doules was tied to that subtle denial. 

After I'd used meetings to stay away from booze and drugs long enough that I no longer had the mental obsession (a few years), the disease convinced me I didn't need AA. During the next 7 years, I didn't drink but slowly changed my thinking. I did things like drink O'Douls. Eventually at ten years sober, the disease told me that drugs were my problem and not booze. I gave myself permission to drink. 

That's the role O'Douls played in my story.

Ulitmately, 20 years down the road from first getting sober, I was right back where I was when I walked in to my first meeting. My life was not my own. The disease was running the show. Through the grace of god and the fellowship of AA, I went back to meetings and have been sober since. 

That doesn't always happen. Some NEVER make it back.

Alcoholism is cunning, powerful, and baffling. It is progressive and always gets worse. Left untreated, it is a fatal disease. It is very serious.


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## working_together

Riven said:


> My husband is an alcoholic. He hasn't drank for a bit over 9 weeks since he woke up from drunken oblivion with another woman...
> 
> I told him no drinking or I'm gone, that's my line. Today he brought home some non-alcoholic beer, I told him I didn't know if I was okay with that... he said that he understood and I can get rid of it if I want.
> 
> I'd like some other point of views on this...


My ex was a recovering alcoholic for 20 years, when he got sobar he began drinking the non-alcoholic beer, he liked the taste, and he still drinks it. It never seemed to trigger him into a relapse, although in AA they don't agree wtih it. Your call.


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