Back when I was a Mormon, I would not have drank it. Since I started life a Mormon, then I didn’t have the aquired taste for beer. Drinking near beer would have been pointless. The other reason was for avoiding the appearance of evil.
Now that I’m an ex-Mormon, I still don’t drink near beer. Why have the substitute when you can have the real thing?
I’m a non-drinker by choice and not by twelve-steps. I’m now 45 and don’t want the threat of potential alcoholism looming over my head. My son turns five today (the same age I was when my father quit drinking) and my daughter turns one soon and was baptised yesterday. My wife loves me dearly. There’s too much at risk for me there to let alcohol get in the way.
I should inject here that several (mostly male) members of my family suffer from some sort of addictive behavior that manifested itself in alcohol abuse. My father was an alcoholic and after he quit drinking, went on to smoking too much… the latter ulitmately killed him.
Hence, I don’t smoke either.
I wouldn’t drink those beers because, well I’ve tried them and they taste like crap. If I have the opportunity to taste a flavorful (microbew or specialty) beer, then I’ll take a sip.
A good friend is LDS, and not a “jack Mormon” by any means, will drink O’Douls.
Not necessarily. My mum’s in recovery (11 years sober last April), and will still occassionally cook with small amounts of alcohol, as most of the alcohol cooks off, and has been known to eat liquer chocolates - because, as she puts it: “When I wanted to get drunk, I didn’t go out for a box of rum truffles”. Her sponser and her group have no problem with this, however, many AA groups are a lot “stricter” - although I must admit, the no-perfume one is a new one on me.
I don’t think she’d drink 0.5% beer though, because beer was one of her trigger drinks, and while I doubt she’d drink again because of it, I don’t think she’d want to risk it.
Recovering alcoholic, and I don’t. A friend of mine who’s been sober 22 years will occasionally have one with a meal. I’ll admit I was surprised the first time he ordered one.
GrizzRich: That precisely sums up my views on the whole issue.
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There are people out there, probably not nearly enough of them but they exist, who abstain for no external reason other than the reality they have observed and the people they have known, who have made up their own minds to refrain from certain behaviors as opposed to making up their minds to follow a commandment or a rule that says they should refrain.
These people don’t join Temperance Movements or Revivals or anything else that might try and force abstinence on others. The zealots and bluestockings exist, but they aren’t the people I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who are pro-legalization but anti-use; people who will fight for your right to screw yourself up and then hope you have the brains not to excercise it.
I’m probably just talking about myself at this point, but I hope someone likeminded proves me wrong.
[/rant]
I drank them once in a while when I was pregnant and craving beer. There are quite a few out there now and much better than O’Douls.
Harkebeck, which somebody mentioned above, is indeed quite good. For me, nonalcoholic beer is nice to have when I want something cold to drink, but I don’t want an alcoholic drink. Or else it might be that I’ve just had some wine , but don’t want to consume more of it right now. Except in certain contexts I don’t much care for sweet drinks so soda doesn’t really fill the bill.
Recovering wino here. I do not drink non-alcoholic wine. I rarely even drink fruit juices–only if I’m at a party without diet soda available.
I complained to my dentist about including a bottle of 44 proof mouthwash in my goodie bag so often that he had a big red ALCOHOLIC stamp made, to be used on patients’ folders.
My muslim friend won’t even eat cakes and things baked with alcohol (like Sherry, etc) baked into them. A .5% beer would be totally out, and totally against Islam.
Actually, she would probably be shit-faced, which would be sort of amusing, but she would be really upset about it, for sure.
29 years sober here. I don’t drink nonalcoholic beer because I never drank beer for the taste, so why should I start now? Also, I have definitely known more than one person who went back out to drinking who started off with nonalcoholic beer – as one guy described it, first he had one, then he had a sixpack, then he drank a half a case, and then he just went back to the real stuff. I figure there’s no point in taking the chance.
It’s not that I’m nuts about it – if I’m prescribed medicine that contains alcohol, I’ll take it. But if I have a choice, I try to find nonalcoholic substitutes, like for cough syrup or mouthwash. I don’t eat desserts that contain anything alcoholic. I don’t eat candies that contain alcohol. And if I eat something that’s been cooked with alcohol, I make sure it’s been well cooked. But if there’s even the faintest alcohol tingle, that’s the end of it for me.
What you do is your business, not mine.
I was a big beer drinker, so for me something that tastes like beer but isn’t would probably be a bad idea. There are plenty of other things I can drink, so I really don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by not having an O’Doul’s or whatever.
I’ve been sober for a good while, but I still try to avoid things containing alcohol if possible, though I don’t stress overmuch about it. I’ll look for alcohol-free medicines but will buy ones with a small amount if those aren’t available.
Thing is, I don’t even like the taste of alcohol any more. So dishes that have wine or liquor in the recipe, even if the alcohol’s been cooked off, just don’t taste good to me.
.5% beer is just another drink no biggie you like it or not.
The amount of alcohol is minor and many things have alcohol in them. Ripe fruit, orange juice, medicines, and who knows what they are doing behind the door at a resturant. Plus out own body produces a small amount of it regularly.
I havent had a NA bear in over year I think I will have one tonight or tomorrow.
10+ years sober here.
I was almost exclusively a beer drinker, and I have some N/A beer in my fridge (Upper Canada Point Nine). For me, it’s not about the alcohol, it’s about the taste. I love the taste of a cold beer after I do outside chores in the summer. I bought 12 of them in April, and there’s 3 left. Now that I’ll probably only have to cut the lawn one or two more times, those three will stay in the fridge until next summer, right next to the real beer we have for when friends come over.
I don’t really have any triggers any more. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to even take a small sip of a “real” drink. Let me get a whiff of a cigarette though…
A mere 3+ years sober here, not through AA or anything. I don’t drink non- (or low-) alcoholic beer because although I do miss the taste of alcoholic drinks, I’d rather have a soft drink. And, I know I’d lie to myself, eventually. I can see the thoughts running through my head… “those 4 cans of .5% lager were ok, weren’t they? So 1 small can of 4% lager is alright, obviously. Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? So another 1 would be ok…”
You can see where I’m going. However, I don’t have a problem with slight traces of alcohol in aftershaves, or even foodstuffs. I’m not happy with something that’s strongly alcoholic, or where the whole point is the alcohol. Liquor chocolates, for example.
It’s the principle of the thing, I suppose.
Surely the question is a no-brainer, unless the word ‘absolutely’ has taken on a new, more moderate meaning since the last time I picked up a dictionary.
Interesting.
Stainz’ (ex-)stepfather (who is a recovering alcoholic) was coming over and I was going to make my world famous pot roast. But I use 1 cup of “Grahams 6 Grape Port” as a bast to cook the roast in.
I thought it would be okay (it cooks for a few hours, so I’m sure the alcohol would have “burned-off”), but she didn’t think so.
So what’s the verdict, sounds like a no?
Oh well I don’t have to worry about cooking around him anymore…
MtM
My father has been sober for over 12 years (I actually don’t know exactly when he quit) but he drinks a Labatt 0.5 nearly every day. It’s just such a habit for him, and he enjoys the taste of beer, but it in and of itself wasn’t an alcoholic tigger for him. it was never about the drink, it was about the buzz. He was a binge drinker, and would drink anything and everything. So anyways, he’ll relax in the afternoon with a 0.5, and/or have one with dinner, but he says he’s never even felt the slightest buzz off it. It satisfies a craving without actually putting him into that dangerous situation. He’s a manager of a place with a restaurant, and occasionally he’ll be sent back a bottle of wine that a customer thinks has turned, but he won’t taste it. That’s too risky for him.
About 3 years ago, he quit smoking too. He often comments about how he wants a beer and a smoke, but his emotional reasons for quitting both are much, MUCH stronger than his physical reasons for doing either.
He’s a good man.
Don’t be a snark. Obviously 0.5% alcohol is considered absolutely nonalcoholic for regulation and taxation purposes. IIRC children may possess and consume it. And at a former job of mine, the daily lunch truck used to sell it. The question I was asking was whether those people who consciously decide not to consume alcohol consider that half-percent enough alcohol to violate their personal rule, or not. Apparently, some do, and some don’t, so it does seem that the avoidance of alcohol doesn’t mean exactly the same thing to everyone.
I don’t like sweet drinks either, but I love club soda and fruit juice. I order the juice on the side so I can mix in as much as I like - it’s usually about 1/4 juice and 3/4 soda.
As for drinking non-alcoholic beer, when you don’t drink at all, you really lose your capacity for alcohol. I suspect I am at least a little allergic to alcohol, judging from my wicked hangovers from minimal amounts of booze, so I just stopped drinking altogether (I still have a couple of sips of my husband’s beer, but that’s it). I would probably get a serious buzz from drinking one .5% beer now, and I’m not interested in getting a buzz, so I don’t drink them.