I’ve found that non-alcoholic beers are the best way to fake it when you’re in a bar with friends (I’m not a recovering alky, but for years I took a medication that interacted badly with alcohol).
However, I agree that “club soda” is just movie shorthand. It has an anodyne, insipid sound that that the other alternatives don’t have. If a movie character ordered coffee, I’d think he was trying to wake up; if he ordered ginger ale, I’d wonder if he was suffering from nausea.
I’d just order a virgin Cuba Libre. With diet.
In many jurisdictions, a beer can be called “non-alcoholic” if it still has alcohol in it, below some threshold (usually 0.5%, some over 1%). Most people I know in recovery won’t mess with it, won’t eat food cooked with alcohol, etc. Now, even orange juice will have some naturally occurring alcohol content. Vinegar can have residual content as well–trace amounts, say a single drop in a tablespoon. But in recovery, many people’s perspective is to not tempt the fates with something where you know there is likely some alcohol in it.
To your point, though, there is non-alcohol beer that has 0.00% alcohol listed, but even for those, I’m not sure that can’t mean 0.001% in some instances. And for a non-alky “faking it,” it’s all probably fine.
IN order to be a “manly man” things have to suck. Normally, when a manly man goes to a bar, he can prove his machismo by downing a shot of whiskey.
If he’s on the wagon, he can no longer prove himself in that manner, and he sure as shit isn’t going to feminize himself by drinking one of those sweety froo froo drinks like Coke or 7-up. No, he’ll take a soda water, because only a real man man can choke that shit down and pretend to like it.
/Satire
I drink lots of plain seltzer at home. Club soda is not seltzer anywhere I’ve lived; club soda typically has added salts, such as sodium carbonate and citrate.
I’ll order it when I’ve had my fill of alcoholic drinks. I like fizz and I usually don’t want something sweet.
When i go to the bar and am not drinking alcohol, I like to order club soda. I like to have something carbonated, i like the taste of it, and nutritionaly its basically the same as water (meaning its about 1000 times healthier than drinking a coke or a pepsi or gingerale).
My mom is a recovering alcoholic and frequently orders club soda. She gets really tired of soft drinks, so she often gets club soda with lime or iced tea.
I’m a huge fan of soda water myself (though not a recovering alcoholic). It’s caffeine free, which is important since I usually only drink soda at night, plus I think iced tea is an abomination and I really don’t like sweet drinks with the exception of an occasional diet coke or frou frou virgin daquiri.
Please tell us your less lazy, more artful and “realistic,” but equally economical way of imparting the information, please. Bear in mind that more than one poster in this thread has attested recovering alcoholics engaging in exactly the behavior described in the OP.
This thread is really making me miss Lennie Briscoe. 
:: raises a club soda in Jerry Orbach’s honor ::
Hmmm. I really like Coke, and I order it with meals. I drink it practically every day, but I never drink very much at once. I guess I underestimate how much Coke someone else would drink if that was their drink of choice for the night. When I get drinks at fast food places, I get smalls, and even then, sometimes I don’t finish them. I never get a refill in a restaurant. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because I eat a lot of fruit, so I stay hydrated that way.
I don’t even like club soda, but I’d drink one to honor Briscoe.
I’ve tried club soda before, and the OP is right that it’s nasty stuff. There’s a reason why soft drinks add a ton of sugar.
If I’m the DD, I’ll just order a soft drink, or maybe coffee. I’m not self-conscious about it.
I always forget that I’m a “taster,” which is to say that I have a gene that lets me taste a bitter chemical some people can’t taste. I put sugar in coffee and tea, because they taste very bitter to me without it, and there are some things I just can’t stand, like artificial sweeteners, licorice, and certain uncooked vegetables (eg, broccoli). Club soda may have a bitter, chemical taste to me that other people can’t taste. Club soda tastes like medicine to me, and I guess I should have started the thread by asking “Does it taste this way to everyone?”
I sometimes wonder if the flip side of tasting the chemical is that very sweet things, like regular colas, and tangy juices, don’t taste overwhelmingly sweet to me, because of the bitter and acrid background flavors I can taste. To some people, they may be more like sugar water.
Could be. But this bunch likes to get crazy.
Yes, some of the AA crowd is prone to ordering a CLUB SODA, PLEASE with a certain overtone of affectation. Never said otherwise and wasn’t going to be the one to poke at AA/RA posturing.
As for the OP’s exact question, it’s used in exactly the same way a character dropping a cigarette and pointedly grinding it out is used - that latter act is absolutely, 100% filmspeak for “By god, I’m going to do something.” A character going into a social situation where most of the cast is drinking alcohol, or can be assumed to, and pointedly ordering a club soda, means just that one thing - I CAN’T ORDER ALCOHOL (and very likely BOY AM I STANDING ON THE PRECIPICE JUST BY BEING HERE).
There are a hundred more subtle and less-worn ways to visually deliver or underline both situations. If the screenwriter or director just wants to put a pin in the ground and move on, fine. But the times one or both takes just a little more care with the turn and shows a little respect for the audience’s intelligence - I’ll do a little quiet thumb-applause.
“Anything unleaded, thanks.”
“I stick with ginger ale, thanks.”
“Water on the rocks.”
“Lime with a little soda. Make it a double.”
“7-Up, neat.”
… need I go on? If the actor and director can’t make it clear that there’s a reason the character is ordering such stuff, then they’re hacks. All it takes is the delivery, probably with a bit a of wry grin. Any bartender would get the message instantly - as would anyone in a movie audience not stupid enough to require an intertitle card.