My grocery store often has sample stations where they are giving out beer and wine. There’s probably 1-2 on a weekday and 4-5 on a weekend. They are not just in the alcohol section. They’re scattered throughout the store and it’s impossible to avoid them. Does such easy access to free alcohol provide a problem for recovering alcoholics?
I know for me, it’s hard to avoid samples of things I shouldn’t eat (e.g. cookies). I can avoid the cookie aisle to avoid temptation, but if I’m passing by free cookies throughout the store, it’s harder to resist. I would guess it would be much harder to avoid something which was an actual physical addiction. Alcoholics can avoid the liquor section, but when there’s free liquor given out by produce, frozen foods, cereal, etc. it becomes impossible to avoid. Does that type of environment cause recovering alcoholics to relapse?
Some alcoholics are right on the boundary, using all their willpower to fight temptation. Putting temptation right up there in their face might push them over.
The last time I saw free samples of alcoholic beverages given out, I wrote to the store/chain management and suggested that it could be harmful to a very small part of their clientele. (I got a very nice “non-answer” from their customer services department.)
If a person who says he wants to be a recovering alcoholic, then takes a drink for any reason is just lying to themselves IMO.
If a person really wants to be a recovering alcoholic, is doing some kind positive action program with complete belief, then they will probably not take the sample. IMO
People new to recovery should also be going to a different grocery store or send someone with a list to shop for them.
There is no entertainer / band that is good enough or reason enough for a new to recovery person to go to a bar to see. IMO
Yeah, My gut is that it would be illegal here. With all the politics and paperwork behind getting a license to serve on premises, I can’t see how giving it away would be worth it.
But then again, I don’t know for sure, the Microbreweries give samples on tours(although they sell package and growlers as well), maybe there is a samples loophole.
For several decades I used alcohol as a sleep aid.
I didn’t think I was addicted until I decided to stop.
So, am I an alcoholic?
If so, at least some alcoholics CAN have liquor in the house. CAN have a beer with their pizza and wine at lunch WITHOUT triggering a binge - I was sleep before I got horribly drunk, and have never (since college) drunk until puking. I have never found myself in a gutter, or anywhere I didn’t remember going.
I have a difficult time believing this “fact” that an “alcoholic” ABSOLUTELY MUST NEVER touch etoh again or will promptly go on a bender.
This is not what AA says. All alcoholics are different. Some can, most can’t. It’s just not worth the risk. I was in recovery for six years, went back out to do more research for three years, now in recovery for 17 years. I might be able to have a drink now, but I don’t think I have another recovery in me. I’d rather not take the chance.
Are you from Michigan? Somehow I associate that with you. I’ve seen this here in Ann Arbor.
When my wife and I tried the sample, they checked our ID, and we had to put our name on a list with probably our birthdate. It was a little bit of a pain, and made the sample not really worth it. So at least at the store here, it’s not as simple as just picking up a cookie sample.
We have it in many grocery stores in Texas. Mainly in larger cities and their suburbs, but still. The delightful new trend, at least in newer Whole Foods, is to sell pints of beers to imbibe while you shop.
EDIT: the newest one on Post Oak even has a bicycling “keg man” who’ll pedal the aisles, selling pints of their onsite-brewed beer
I don’t see the point of that. Eating the bread alone is supposed to accomplish communion as much as the bread and wine together (according to Catholic and Anglican doctrine, I would assume Lutheran too), so recovering alcoholics should just eat the bread and decline the wine.
No, but it’s what a lot of AAs say. I mentioned at a meeting that I had tasted the champagne (cheap, warm, and flat–poured hours before) for the toast at my nephew’s wedding. It caused an uproar, like I had played Russian Roulette. No, if I fall off it will be with more of something tastier and stronger, like the Communion wine at church.
Me: What is that wine we serve at Communion?
Kristen: Port.
Ah, a tasty fortified wine, and not the White Port bum wine of song. I kinda avoid church but hate shopping at our grocery store because they have samples right by what I used to drink.
I have only seen this in a liquor store. Otherwise I’ve only heard of it at Sam’s Club but not witnessed (not Costco). I don’t think this would ever prove a major societal problem and the temptations are everywhere else.
Which churches/religions? If we’re talking Methodist or more conservative ones, they always have done this. If we’re talking Catholic or Anglican, that’s probably and unofficial thing, if possible. Yes, you can refuse the wine, for alcoholism reasons, or stand but refuse both parts of communion for personal reasons.
I’m sure the legality of samples is totally dependent on where you are located. Something must have changed in Texas in the past year or two since the alcohol samples have really exploded here. And they must be really successful from a business perspective because there’s no sign of them slowing down. Other samples are done by a store employee, but the alcohol ones have a rep from the alcohol company and sometimes there are two people working a single station.
Just like food samples, the person working the station will ask people if they would like a sample of the wine or beer. Even if an alcoholic doesn’t try a sample, I would think being asked 4-5 times while shopping might put the idea in his head and could lead to him drinking later on. Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to approach passing shoppers and instead have to wait for the shopper to approach them.
I’ve never seen or heard of stores here in Alabama giving away free alcohol samples. I would think the laws and regulations required to do this would be much more of a headache than it would be worth. The outrage from local churches would also probably be overwhelming.
I read an article once that debunked most of what AA claims as fact. It was written by a couple of psychiatrists who had other articles in JAMA and APA affiliated journals. It was in print, though, so I don’t have a cite. The main thrust of the article wasn’t so much that these things were myths, as much as that AA claims them with no actual research behind them. Basically, every claim was older than any experiment that appeared to back it up, and AA publications just plain ignored any experiment that produced contradictory results.
I had a friend who was sober for eight years with AA (and a couple of in-patient rehab programs modeled on AA). She didn’t want to drink again, but she was generally unhappy, and had had some panic attacks, so she saw a shrink, who put her on antidepressants. She felt better within days, but when she mentioned at a meeting that she was taking them, some people actually said that she might as well be drinking again, and pills were just as bad as booze-- even prescription pills, even non-narcotic antidepressants (she was on an SSRI, like Zoloft or something). She quit going to meetings, and is still sober, even though that was 13 years ago. She personally thinks if she had been on antidepressants earlier, she might not have been drinking herself into oblivion in the first place.
Anecdote is not the singular of data, and all those caveats.
