Bush and non-alcoholic beer

Why does Bush brag about drinking n.a. beer when it's not?

From the website alcoholism.about.com:

"There is really no such thing as beer which is completely free of alcohol and the so-called non-alcoholic beers can be problem for those trying to abstain from drinking."

The Dangers of 'Non-Alcoholic' Beer
Those trying to abstain from alcohol are warned against the use of non-alcoholic beer, now there may be scientific evidence to support the admonition.

Does Non-Alcoholic Beer Contain Alcohol?
The definition of non-alcoholic beer might vary from country to country, from max 0.1 percent to max. 0.5 percent alcohol by volume.

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Could some of you who know more about this than I please explain the dichotomy?

Indeed because it does still contain alcohol, and the taste alone sparks a renewed interest.

a dry-drunks way of engaging foreplay......

I've weighed in on this topic before. I aam an alcoholic who has not had a drink in 17 years. I enjoy an occasional Genny or Labatt non-alcoholic beer, have for many years. I don't consider myself a "dry drunk" and as for foreplay, well I don't know what to say about that except I don't understand the point.

I have not a good thing at all to say about Shrub. I kinda doubt he is off the real stuff, but, if he is, and he enjoys an occasional non-alcoholic brew, then so what?

People really say some odd things on DU, stuff that could be taken as pretty hurtful if you take everythin seriously!

Honey, do yourself a favor and get some therapy!!!

(Kidding, see post below, I agree)

That's what you do a little while before you have a Genny N/A! :-)

You'd know that the Genny N/A is just a 'refreshment' break! ;)

Old behavior is drinking behavior ...drunks eventually get drunk. Its playing Russian Roulette with the disease of alcoholism...

The near beer leads one back to the path of drinking insanity. Drunks who drink near-beer are only looking for a safe rationale to give oneself permission to return back to what is comfortable..

It leads to the real stuff...thats the prize to a dry drunk.

Its delusional.... Drunks can't drink, period...The behaviors are part of the disease which involves the mood altering affects of alcohol.

Drunks don't drink because they like the taste but because they need to get drunk.

and it is really comforting to know that someone as cleary insightful as yourself is looking down on -- I mean after -- the rest of us!

of alcoholism that I speak honestly of...If you have the disease, I'm sure you have been given tools to deal with it....You just have to open the tool box.

And lets not take the focus off the behavior of drinking and suggest I look down at drunks. No, on the contrary. I just say what drunks need to hear and don't always want to hear.

They can't drink....not even fake beer...

leave the rest. If it works for you, great. I do enjoy the taste of a beer and so I drink N/A beer. It has absolutely nothing to do with old behavior. Some people actually are able to integrate totally back into the real world and just enjoy their life. You'll get there too one day. In the meantime, go to meetings, work your program and don't drink even if your ass falls off!

recovering adolescents and their famlies. You share excellent adivice to working the program. My feedback is rendered as a generalization. You are a bit too defensive.

The point is that drinking near-beer is dangerous to recovery...relapse is part of the disease.

Now, look at our President.....

I just read your post above. A non-alcoholic trying to treat drunks.

Never mind.

almost a decade but I can not enjoy Mexican food without a Beer so I drink Sharps or O'Douls or some such for the taste. I like the taste. It doesn't make me want to go get drunk or even close. I was a mean drunk but I (and I may be in denial) don't consider myself an alcoholic. I have no desire to resume drinking. It caused me nothing but problems. I do like the taste though.

I wouldn't recommend it to anybody new, but after 20 years, I enjoy a nice cold 'beer' on a sunny afternoon. I also take cold medicine with alcohol when I'm really sick. And my husband was on serious pain medications after his legs burned up in a fire. People who are going to relapse are going to relapse. Your mental state 'lapses' first, then the drinking follows. And I've known plenty of people who've come to the exact same place as me after an extended period of time and are just fine.

Again, not recommended to anybody with less then 5 years at least. The mind is still playing tricks.

They empty out the n.a.s down the toilet and refill them with real beer. Who's gonna call 'em on that?

and think about this for a while.

Nice.....:)

alcoholics can't eat food cooked with wine or beer. The alcohol has been burned off, but it reminds the alcoholic of the real thing and could send them looking for a real drink.

As far as Bush is concerned I think he is drinking the real thing.

I cannot believe what gets spread around as fact. Alot of these things are good advice for newbies, it's the mind games, not the reality.

My daughter's boyfriend is a gourmet cook and he cooks with wine in his food all the time. It's FOOD for chrissake. When you've been sober for a very long time, sanity returns and you know the fucking difference!

Now, keeping wine around the house on the pretense 'it's for cooking' might be a bit more dangerous. But eventually, every alcoholic who is truly in recovery ought to be able to have a piece of wine-based marinated chicken without thinking they're going to relapse. In fact, any drunk who can't after 10 years, might want to take another look at their program.

and you wouldn't believe the number of times we had requests to cook certain wine based dishes without it, because the customer who requested it, always stated that they were recovering alcoholics. I argued once with the manager about the fact that there wasn't any alcohol left in a cooked dish and he kindly told me that it wasn't an unusual request so therefore it must have some substance to it.

I brought the problem to one of my recovering alcoholic friends who affirmed it and also confirmed that it was the same reason they couldn't drink near beer too. So before you go off in high dungeon look up a few facts first.

Some in their early years of recovery don't do these things and I would never encourage them either. I've posted that elsewhere. But it isn't something that is permanently written in stone and can be applied to every single alcoholic for the entire course of their lives. It's an individual choice. And as it pertains to this post, there isn't any reason to equate George Bush's NA beers to sobriety or lack of it. Frankly, I don't think he has anything resembling sobriety, but I sure don't base that opinion on whether he drinks an NA beer. And I wouldn't judge somebody else's sobriety on it either.

Now a guy I now who got his 25 year chip and who I later found out was smoking pot every day. Now that, I would judge as not in sobriety. I don't care how many days it had been since he had a drink.

It's not a cut and dry thing, that's all.

I'm an ex-meanass-drunk but I have no problem with wine. I love a fine Merlot with dinner. It's a totally different thing than drinking to get drunk.

...and one day, I had a so-called 'non-alcoholic' beer.

I got a buzz. Bigtime. I'm not sure if it was a 'contact high', or whether it was because my tolerance had gotten back to reasonable levels (or had, in fact, gotten far less, due to biochemical changes from when I drank a lot), but I was buzzed. No question about it.

Got a headache, too.

Bush is still a drunk, in my opinion.

It's never happened to me! In any event, don't do it again!!!

sitting around a table with about a dozen other people. On the table are about about a dozen beer bottles. Some sharp-eyed DUers wondered if Bush's was non-alcoholic.


rocknation

"That? Oh, That was just a glass of that O'Doul's stuff, y'know, that shit that don't have no alky-haul in it? No, I don't know how those Texas Pride bottles got in the trashcan..."

You can get a buzz if you drink enough. Yes, I know.

edit (damn these tpyos) :)

is always a bone of contention among alcoholics. I don't recommend it, and I discourage my sponsees from drinking it. However, we all have choices, and I don't pass judgement on those who choose near beer.

Personally, I think its very creation is something of a ploy on the part of liquor companies to win back a few of their best customers.
Perhaps I'm too cynical. I'm holding out for the no alcohol vodka, and perhaps the near-cocaine powder to snort.

Great post; hit me where I used to live. 10 years sober as of August 21st, and I may make it through today. I have often joked about the non-alcoholic beer issue (there are some imports that actually contain 0.0% alcohol, but they are expensive and hard to get). Now, non-alcoholic vodka has appeared on the market, fo those of us that finished our drinking careers with vodka +anything but lacquer thinner. Non-alcoholic vodka=potato flavored water (yuk!):hippie:

profoundly dangerous to work other people's programs. And yes, that includes Bush's. But the evidence here is mounting that he is just not doing well. There is the near beer (and not just occasional if the accounts of his trips on Air Force One are to be believed). There is the wedding video. There is the various alcoholic deserts. There is the pretzel incident. There is the bizarre way he holds himself behind podia. I recognize that posture very, very well. I have used it many, many times. I think, that he needs an advisor to give him a message on alcohol that Clinton needed to hear on women. Just like near sex got Clinton in a world of hurt near beer could be doing the same to Bush.

certainly give a bit of a buzz. She did even finish one. I think she liked my iced tea better. (Don't worry, it's decaf.)

and occassionally indulge in a sharps or Odouls, go to meetings everyday and work only my own program. Would not suggest N/A to a newcomer, but anyone with any amount of sobriety and has a working program can make their own decisions and if their comfortable with themselves and their programs don't give a damn about what anyone else thinks. What others think of me is none of my business, how I think of myself every night before I go to bed is what counts, personal inventory and personal responsiblity is what counts for me. * does not appear to have a program because he is so thin skinned, that is a scary thought.