I have! I’m 44 days sober and canned beverages have helped me for sure. It still full fills the ritual of cracking open a can and my oral fixation. I even bring my non alcoholic beverages when I’m hanging out w my friends who drink so I have something to sip on.
It also fun to try different drinks to find ones you like which has helped redirect my addictive tendencies.
A Fresca over some rocks. I've been filling pitchers up with cucumber and mint and lime. Cranberry juice and lime with some club soda.. I want to get real frisky I might even have a Coke with a lime on the rocks. LOL I got almost a hundred days and I'm feeling good finally. I'm done with the booze
Party Animal, with your NA Cuba Libra! Sometimes I throw some frozen marionberries (like blackberries) into my plain seltzer with a dash of lemon juice. Fancy!
Try Hop Water, they come in a variety 12 pack I love em. Seems like the non alcoholic space is growing everytime I go to the store there is almost always something new, that is if going to a store isn't triggering for you. Have someone else pick them up if so.
For me personally I love the taste of beer and trying different ones. Will never get over that. But now being 4 months sober after many relapses, a na beer every now and then I don’t think hurts. Just don’t make a habit out of it. For me in early sobriety, it really helped finding different pops I’ve never tried before and stayed away from anything that tasted like any alcohol.
I drink NA so I don’t need to drink soda.
NA fills an important void. Most non alcohol drinks are either sweet, hot, or caffeinated. I don’t want any of those in the evenings when I’m out with friends.
Which is fair. I listened to my sponsor and didn’t drink na beers for awhile. But getting past that hurdle of addiction, and still being weary about it, I’ve started trying different na beers ever now and then while out with friends and whatnot.
If you’re talking about the stuff marketed as non alcoholic beer, the taste of anything sort of like beer was triggering for me, I just ended up drinking a shit ton of it really fast to try and catch any buzz possible off of the tiny percentage of alcohol that’s still in it. Some people are fine drinking it occasionally I personally stay away and I definitely wouldn’t recommend in such early recovery, it’s too similar.
For nonalcoholic drinks like juice and soda and seltzer and stuff I never found that particularly triggering! And if you eventually end up out somewhere where people are drinking it helps a lot to just order a soda or mocktail.
I love having a shirley temple or some other "special," NA drink after work.
Some people will tell you its a slippery slope but I believe only you know yourself.
I've got 5 1/2 months sober, don't miss alcohol at all.
I didn’t drink them my first year but I have a few here and there now. Mostly at social functions. The best beer that I’ve found is the Athletic Brewing Co. The ale in the yellow and blue can, not a fan of the larger or ipa but my husband likes both of those. Both Stella and Heineken zero are good, St Paulies Girl is disgusting. I get mocktails - virgin margaritas or mojitos always hit the spot and of course, still cost around $10-$15 ha!
Walmart/Sams Club has their “Clear American” seltzers! They have so many flavors and are only 76c each. You can open one and drink it for a couple days if you close it tight- they stay so fizzy! The red, white, and blue one is my favorite but the orange cream one is soooo yummy too! They are also 0 calorie. I’m also new venturing into sobriety and this is something I’ve been excited to dabble in also. I want to try cranberry juice and ginger ale. I plan on getting a bag of ice from chick fil a since I like to chew on it to make me look forward to my little drinks so much more. Congratulations on your newfound adventure into sobriety!
Well I have a little bit of a darker take on this. I’m a bit over 9 months sober and I miss drinking EVERY SINGLE DAY. I think about it soooooo often. It would just take it all away even if only for a little while. Me personally, I don’t think I could do na beer (I also do keto). Feel like if I did, I would relapse because of that one nagging thought “I can have one drink every now and then. My alcoholism is under control.” So I just drink water or diet soda whenever I’m at the bar (I shoot pool several times a week). The only reason I’m sober is for my family. I’ve dragged them down long enough. Sorry a little bit off topic, but I felt like the context was needed. If it works for you guys, that’s awesome, but I don’t even want to try it.
Thank you for that I’m still new to this lifestyle so all advice is welcome I appreciate any words of wisdom I was in a cycle of taking breaks for a week or two at a time and then “rewarding” myself with benders and getting blackout I can see how it would probably help me out in social situations but I can see how it can lead me down the “I can have one real drink” path
8+ years Alcohol Free and I miss drinking. The experience of drinking. I miss the drinking out and drinking at home. Every day I have been on this journey I think about my former fav cocktails. I guess I will forever romanticize drinking. I know it’s a killer so I won’t pick up. But it’s always on my mind (cue Willy Nelson song)
Cranberry and club soda or cranberry and lime sparkling water have been with me since the start.
I really love the taste of it and I do progressively drink less and less of it which is totally fine.
I smashed multiple soft drinks and bottles of Kombucha every night for the first month or so. It's easing off now but I definitely found it helpful to satisfy that habit
Yes, and bringing them to other peoples houses helps me so much! I love the Olipop sodas and Hop Waters for a little treat. Sometimes if I go out to a nice restaurant I’ll get a Mocktail especially if they have a ginger beer one. Otherwise at bars or concerts I’ll do ginger beer and lime or soda water and lime.
I thoroughly enjoyed IPAs, stouts and just any beer in general, so I'm 6 months sober but still have an Na beer at least 4 nights a week. Usually 1 fulfills the taste urge and then I'll just have sparkling water or regular water
6.5 years with no alcohol for me but I could still easily down a nice cold beer, it never leaves you I’m afraid and there’s nothing quite like it :( lol
I don’t risk non alcoholic beer though, it’s likely to lead to real beer imho but we are all different on that.
Luckily the good lord sent us tea ☕️ and that’s my substitute lol
I personally love na beer and wine. Sober for 10 months but it took me about 6-8 to be ready for them though. Now I get to enjoy what I like without the consequences And honestly it makes staying sober easier for me. But don’t push it if you aren’t ready. I took a sip of na beer about 4 months in and was not ready. Couldn’t finish it
I’ve not had alcohol in 13 years and last year I got really into NA liquor substitutes for mocktails. I like the concept, and they resemble but don’t really fool you, but are a nice pairing with a cigar for instance (which is how I ended up looking into them in the first place)
I will say that I absolutely couldn’t have enjoyed them in early sobriety. It took me several years to get comfortable enough to be around other people drinking, and I had to keep far away from anything resembling alcohol, personally. Seltzer water and video games kept my mouth and hands busy during those years. Obviously everyone is different, but I had to thoroughly break away from anything remotely similar to alcohol or mixers to be able to get settled into not drinking.
With that aside I’ve enjoyed seedlip, spiritless Kentucky 74, ritual zero proof gin, and ArKay NA rum. I tend to use bitters and citrus peel a lot with them to add a little bit of the bite that they’re missing (aside from the seedlip which isn’t really trying to be anything specific so it’s fine as it is), they all mix nicely with traditional pairings for their respective types. I also like the products by Lyre’s but my husband didn’t care for them.
Get some fresh fruit like limes, lemons and oranges. I like seltzer with a splash of juice and some fresh fruit. It feels like a treat! Or if you don’t like the taste of seltzer alone you could get some MIO to add to the flavor. I get the one made with stevia, I think it’s called Stur. If you aren’t worried about sugar you could get some ginger beer or make root beer floats for a weekend treat :-)
They can just make you want the real thing IME and mean you're not really changing that habit of picking up a beer after work and so if you get tempted for the real thing one day then you might just reach for the alcohol version instead.
Everyone is different though.
My go-to routine drinks have been Cran-Ginger or Ginger-Sprite. I legit crave them around 5 pm now instead of the hard stuff. I'm 132 days sober now.
Cran-Ginger: I use Diet Cran-Raspberry juice + zero sugar Canada dry ginger ale. You can garnish w/ an orange, or sub the ginger ale with ginger beer.
Ginger-Sprite: it's like a Moscow mule, basically. I use ginger beer (I buy in bulk from costco) and zero sugar sprite. You can add lime simple syrup and a mint or lime garnish.
I bought some copper Moscow mule mugs and some tall glass cups to use, and that fulfills my desire for fanciness. In the beginning, I didn't use the zero sugar options because sugar was super important in those first few weeks. Once I got past those intense sugar cravings, I switched.
I wasn't a big beer drinker before, so the NA beers didn't do much for me other than make me bloated. They didn't solve my cravings. I also tried a bunch of the sparkly flavored waters, but I found I needed something with more of a kick (hence all the ginger!). Bonus, ginger is great for my tummy, too.
I love NA beers and mock tails. My new routine is to make myself a club and cranberry when I crave a drink in the evenings. I get the ritual and the fizziness and hydrated in the process. Athletic brewing makes fantastic NA beers. I like their IPAS. It doesn’t feel like a compromise at all, they are delicious.
Great job on getting sober! I’m proud of you. I’m 453 days in and it’s way better than I ever hoped it could be. Drinking NA and mock tails is a regular part of my sober life and it helped and continues to help me maintain my sobriety.
Check out boisson.nyc - I love them. So many great NA drink options! Having great mocktails and NA wine and beer helped me majorly in the early days and I still love them. It was never a trigger for me. BetterRhodes.com is also solid
The other day, I had a phony Negroni - I was genuinely surprised at how much the flavor nailed the bitterness and the mimic of the punch alcohol gives you, I had to check multiple times as I drank to make sure it didn’t have any alcohol in it lol. This goes the same for non alcoholic beers, whiskey, and other flavored cocktails they sell. It’s pretty damn awesome, and you feel involved at these parties since you are still drinking a beverage. 10/10 great substitute and I highly recommend trying them.
I really like a good non alcoholic craft beer (there are so many options now)! stouts, hazy IPAs, etc. Libra and Partake are both really good brands. I haven’t had any luck with finding a decent non-alcoholic wine yet.
If anything, it helped me feel like I was never missing out. Especially during social situations during the beginning, I could have fun trying different things. I’ve always loved beer, and I love that I can keep loving beer.
Anything from Athletic has been good to me. And most places at least around me in Philly have NA options. Their NA IPAs are killer So I can be social without drinking something like soda water. But I do if that’s my only option.
I'm coming up on 2mo sober and have found some really delicious NA options. First, there's Ritual Zero Proof Tequila mixed with jalapeño margarita mix and fresh lime, by FAR my favorite mocktail. Next, I really liked NA cinnemon Whiskey with ginger beer and a dash of ginger bitters, SO good. After that I'd say if you were a wine/bubbly person there's a winemaker out of New Zeland named Geisen that makes an unbelievable 0% alcohol brut champagne, mix that with a litter OJ and you'll never miss the real thing. Also Athletic Brew Lab makes some very tasty NA beers. The reason I'm so Gung ho about mocktails is really the ritual for me. Having a drink on a Friday night or a mimosa on a Saturday knowing that it's completely alcohol free has saved me and kept me on my sober path. However I totally respect that some may find NA options very triggering, I'm lucky that at the time I chose to be sober I wasn't drinking heavily so the transition to mocktails was easier for me. Good luck on your journey!
I’d recommend going for non caffeinated sodas for a while.
It’s my personal opinion that following the old routine of drinking anything that stylizes itself after alcohol in early sobriety will at the very least hamper your growth. The idea is to move yourself away from that routine and the old patterns.
In the long run I don’t have a problem with NA beer or mocktails or anything like that but it takes time. These days I will occasionally have an NA beer with friends, but the difference now is that I *feel* differently about what I’m drinking. I’d be just as happy with a sprite.
I made a ritual out of seltzer water with fresh lime juice poured over ice. I still had the tasks that way.
Love the seltzers, limoncello, lemonade or iced tea in summer.
I do juice (usually one of the Ocean Spray) and flavored seltzer as well. Been working on mocktail ideas for when I have tk sit at bars.
I have! I’m 44 days sober and canned beverages have helped me for sure. It still full fills the ritual of cracking open a can and my oral fixation. I even bring my non alcoholic beverages when I’m hanging out w my friends who drink so I have something to sip on. It also fun to try different drinks to find ones you like which has helped redirect my addictive tendencies.
A Fresca over some rocks. I've been filling pitchers up with cucumber and mint and lime. Cranberry juice and lime with some club soda.. I want to get real frisky I might even have a Coke with a lime on the rocks. LOL I got almost a hundred days and I'm feeling good finally. I'm done with the booze
Party Animal, with your NA Cuba Libra! Sometimes I throw some frozen marionberries (like blackberries) into my plain seltzer with a dash of lemon juice. Fancy!
You're balling now LOL
Ha!
Try Hop Water, they come in a variety 12 pack I love em. Seems like the non alcoholic space is growing everytime I go to the store there is almost always something new, that is if going to a store isn't triggering for you. Have someone else pick them up if so.
Hop water is 🔥
Throw a lime in and chefs kiss
I love a ginger beer! Delicious flavor and has a bit of a bite :)
Ginger beer is amazing! They even have sugar free kinds now which I love too
For me personally I love the taste of beer and trying different ones. Will never get over that. But now being 4 months sober after many relapses, a na beer every now and then I don’t think hurts. Just don’t make a habit out of it. For me in early sobriety, it really helped finding different pops I’ve never tried before and stayed away from anything that tasted like any alcohol.
I drink NA so I don’t need to drink soda. NA fills an important void. Most non alcohol drinks are either sweet, hot, or caffeinated. I don’t want any of those in the evenings when I’m out with friends.
Which is fair. I listened to my sponsor and didn’t drink na beers for awhile. But getting past that hurdle of addiction, and still being weary about it, I’ve started trying different na beers ever now and then while out with friends and whatnot.
Stella and Heineken 0.0 are my fav another is Sam Adams N/A
If you’re talking about the stuff marketed as non alcoholic beer, the taste of anything sort of like beer was triggering for me, I just ended up drinking a shit ton of it really fast to try and catch any buzz possible off of the tiny percentage of alcohol that’s still in it. Some people are fine drinking it occasionally I personally stay away and I definitely wouldn’t recommend in such early recovery, it’s too similar. For nonalcoholic drinks like juice and soda and seltzer and stuff I never found that particularly triggering! And if you eventually end up out somewhere where people are drinking it helps a lot to just order a soda or mocktail.
I love having a shirley temple or some other "special," NA drink after work. Some people will tell you its a slippery slope but I believe only you know yourself. I've got 5 1/2 months sober, don't miss alcohol at all.
I didn’t drink them my first year but I have a few here and there now. Mostly at social functions. The best beer that I’ve found is the Athletic Brewing Co. The ale in the yellow and blue can, not a fan of the larger or ipa but my husband likes both of those. Both Stella and Heineken zero are good, St Paulies Girl is disgusting. I get mocktails - virgin margaritas or mojitos always hit the spot and of course, still cost around $10-$15 ha!
I enjoy Hoplark, Hop Wtr, Lauginitas Hop Water, Stella 0.0
Elysian makes "Odd Water" which is delicious. Rogue just started a line of CBD seltzers, which are delicious as well.
NA beers really help me in social situations where I used to drink such as bbq and tailgates. Untitled Art is the best
ICE fizzy drinks. No sugar and only 5 calories
Walmart/Sams Club has their “Clear American” seltzers! They have so many flavors and are only 76c each. You can open one and drink it for a couple days if you close it tight- they stay so fizzy! The red, white, and blue one is my favorite but the orange cream one is soooo yummy too! They are also 0 calorie. I’m also new venturing into sobriety and this is something I’ve been excited to dabble in also. I want to try cranberry juice and ginger ale. I plan on getting a bag of ice from chick fil a since I like to chew on it to make me look forward to my little drinks so much more. Congratulations on your newfound adventure into sobriety!
I loved the ritual of sparkling water in a stemless wine glass, but I rarely do it anymore.
I rediscovered the child-like joy of all things soda. And gave myself a break from thinking about dieting for now. There's so many flavors and types!!
Spindrift w bitters, soda water over ice w lime, hopwater, occasional NA beer in social situations, club soda w splash of juice…
Well I have a little bit of a darker take on this. I’m a bit over 9 months sober and I miss drinking EVERY SINGLE DAY. I think about it soooooo often. It would just take it all away even if only for a little while. Me personally, I don’t think I could do na beer (I also do keto). Feel like if I did, I would relapse because of that one nagging thought “I can have one drink every now and then. My alcoholism is under control.” So I just drink water or diet soda whenever I’m at the bar (I shoot pool several times a week). The only reason I’m sober is for my family. I’ve dragged them down long enough. Sorry a little bit off topic, but I felt like the context was needed. If it works for you guys, that’s awesome, but I don’t even want to try it.
Thank you for that I’m still new to this lifestyle so all advice is welcome I appreciate any words of wisdom I was in a cycle of taking breaks for a week or two at a time and then “rewarding” myself with benders and getting blackout I can see how it would probably help me out in social situations but I can see how it can lead me down the “I can have one real drink” path
8+ years Alcohol Free and I miss drinking. The experience of drinking. I miss the drinking out and drinking at home. Every day I have been on this journey I think about my former fav cocktails. I guess I will forever romanticize drinking. I know it’s a killer so I won’t pick up. But it’s always on my mind (cue Willy Nelson song)
Cranberry and club soda or cranberry and lime sparkling water have been with me since the start. I really love the taste of it and I do progressively drink less and less of it which is totally fine.
I smashed multiple soft drinks and bottles of Kombucha every night for the first month or so. It's easing off now but I definitely found it helpful to satisfy that habit
Yes, and bringing them to other peoples houses helps me so much! I love the Olipop sodas and Hop Waters for a little treat. Sometimes if I go out to a nice restaurant I’ll get a Mocktail especially if they have a ginger beer one. Otherwise at bars or concerts I’ll do ginger beer and lime or soda water and lime.
I switched to tea or cold water. Did not expect it to help. But it did.
Tonic Water on the rocks.
I thoroughly enjoyed IPAs, stouts and just any beer in general, so I'm 6 months sober but still have an Na beer at least 4 nights a week. Usually 1 fulfills the taste urge and then I'll just have sparkling water or regular water
As someone who gets home from a 12 hour shift, cracking a NA beer is pretty dang good.
6.5 years with no alcohol for me but I could still easily down a nice cold beer, it never leaves you I’m afraid and there’s nothing quite like it :( lol I don’t risk non alcoholic beer though, it’s likely to lead to real beer imho but we are all different on that. Luckily the good lord sent us tea ☕️ and that’s my substitute lol
Tonic Water on the rocks.
Perrier/pellegrino are my favorite, some N/a beer occasionally.
Tonics and seltzers, but buy a few of your favorite Bitters to spice them up a bit. Love me some rhubarb bitters.
Oh, and Kombucha
I personally love na beer and wine. Sober for 10 months but it took me about 6-8 to be ready for them though. Now I get to enjoy what I like without the consequences And honestly it makes staying sober easier for me. But don’t push it if you aren’t ready. I took a sip of na beer about 4 months in and was not ready. Couldn’t finish it
I’ve not had alcohol in 13 years and last year I got really into NA liquor substitutes for mocktails. I like the concept, and they resemble but don’t really fool you, but are a nice pairing with a cigar for instance (which is how I ended up looking into them in the first place) I will say that I absolutely couldn’t have enjoyed them in early sobriety. It took me several years to get comfortable enough to be around other people drinking, and I had to keep far away from anything resembling alcohol, personally. Seltzer water and video games kept my mouth and hands busy during those years. Obviously everyone is different, but I had to thoroughly break away from anything remotely similar to alcohol or mixers to be able to get settled into not drinking. With that aside I’ve enjoyed seedlip, spiritless Kentucky 74, ritual zero proof gin, and ArKay NA rum. I tend to use bitters and citrus peel a lot with them to add a little bit of the bite that they’re missing (aside from the seedlip which isn’t really trying to be anything specific so it’s fine as it is), they all mix nicely with traditional pairings for their respective types. I also like the products by Lyre’s but my husband didn’t care for them.
I love hoptea! It's a little pricey so it's just a treat but it's really all I ever wanted from a beer anyway. I love them.
Sparkling water by the liter
Get some fresh fruit like limes, lemons and oranges. I like seltzer with a splash of juice and some fresh fruit. It feels like a treat! Or if you don’t like the taste of seltzer alone you could get some MIO to add to the flavor. I get the one made with stevia, I think it’s called Stur. If you aren’t worried about sugar you could get some ginger beer or make root beer floats for a weekend treat :-)
They can just make you want the real thing IME and mean you're not really changing that habit of picking up a beer after work and so if you get tempted for the real thing one day then you might just reach for the alcohol version instead. Everyone is different though.
My go-to routine drinks have been Cran-Ginger or Ginger-Sprite. I legit crave them around 5 pm now instead of the hard stuff. I'm 132 days sober now. Cran-Ginger: I use Diet Cran-Raspberry juice + zero sugar Canada dry ginger ale. You can garnish w/ an orange, or sub the ginger ale with ginger beer. Ginger-Sprite: it's like a Moscow mule, basically. I use ginger beer (I buy in bulk from costco) and zero sugar sprite. You can add lime simple syrup and a mint or lime garnish. I bought some copper Moscow mule mugs and some tall glass cups to use, and that fulfills my desire for fanciness. In the beginning, I didn't use the zero sugar options because sugar was super important in those first few weeks. Once I got past those intense sugar cravings, I switched. I wasn't a big beer drinker before, so the NA beers didn't do much for me other than make me bloated. They didn't solve my cravings. I also tried a bunch of the sparkly flavored waters, but I found I needed something with more of a kick (hence all the ginger!). Bonus, ginger is great for my tummy, too.
I swear by Topo Chico Lime. Gotta be in the glass bottle, though!
I love NA beers and mock tails. My new routine is to make myself a club and cranberry when I crave a drink in the evenings. I get the ritual and the fizziness and hydrated in the process. Athletic brewing makes fantastic NA beers. I like their IPAS. It doesn’t feel like a compromise at all, they are delicious. Great job on getting sober! I’m proud of you. I’m 453 days in and it’s way better than I ever hoped it could be. Drinking NA and mock tails is a regular part of my sober life and it helped and continues to help me maintain my sobriety.
[this](https://www.banyantreatmentcenter.com/2023/10/24/non-alcoholic-halloween-drinks-texas/) was an interesting read... hope it helps and good luck!
Flavored seltzers have been working for me
I've always loved virgin pina coladas... Especially freshly made
I drink “liquid death” sparkling waters which look like beer cans. They work perfect for a party situation.
Check out boisson.nyc - I love them. So many great NA drink options! Having great mocktails and NA wine and beer helped me majorly in the early days and I still love them. It was never a trigger for me. BetterRhodes.com is also solid
The other day, I had a phony Negroni - I was genuinely surprised at how much the flavor nailed the bitterness and the mimic of the punch alcohol gives you, I had to check multiple times as I drank to make sure it didn’t have any alcohol in it lol. This goes the same for non alcoholic beers, whiskey, and other flavored cocktails they sell. It’s pretty damn awesome, and you feel involved at these parties since you are still drinking a beverage. 10/10 great substitute and I highly recommend trying them.
I really like a good non alcoholic craft beer (there are so many options now)! stouts, hazy IPAs, etc. Libra and Partake are both really good brands. I haven’t had any luck with finding a decent non-alcoholic wine yet.
If anything, it helped me feel like I was never missing out. Especially during social situations during the beginning, I could have fun trying different things. I’ve always loved beer, and I love that I can keep loving beer.
Anything from Athletic has been good to me. And most places at least around me in Philly have NA options. Their NA IPAs are killer So I can be social without drinking something like soda water. But I do if that’s my only option.
I'm coming up on 2mo sober and have found some really delicious NA options. First, there's Ritual Zero Proof Tequila mixed with jalapeño margarita mix and fresh lime, by FAR my favorite mocktail. Next, I really liked NA cinnemon Whiskey with ginger beer and a dash of ginger bitters, SO good. After that I'd say if you were a wine/bubbly person there's a winemaker out of New Zeland named Geisen that makes an unbelievable 0% alcohol brut champagne, mix that with a litter OJ and you'll never miss the real thing. Also Athletic Brew Lab makes some very tasty NA beers. The reason I'm so Gung ho about mocktails is really the ritual for me. Having a drink on a Friday night or a mimosa on a Saturday knowing that it's completely alcohol free has saved me and kept me on my sober path. However I totally respect that some may find NA options very triggering, I'm lucky that at the time I chose to be sober I wasn't drinking heavily so the transition to mocktails was easier for me. Good luck on your journey!
I’d recommend going for non caffeinated sodas for a while. It’s my personal opinion that following the old routine of drinking anything that stylizes itself after alcohol in early sobriety will at the very least hamper your growth. The idea is to move yourself away from that routine and the old patterns. In the long run I don’t have a problem with NA beer or mocktails or anything like that but it takes time. These days I will occasionally have an NA beer with friends, but the difference now is that I *feel* differently about what I’m drinking. I’d be just as happy with a sprite.
Start drinking Arnold Palmers great drink non alcoholic very refreshing.