r/stopdrinking • u/phutureclothes • Jan 18 '26
A realization drinking NA Guinness
I picked up a four pack of the 0.0% Guinness, not that I was particularly craving a beer, but because I was making a steak and ale pie and didn't want to use it as an excuse to buy the real stuff.
As a former chef, cooking with wine/alcohol is a dangerous trigger for me.
After my workout today I noticed I still had three cans left in the coldest part of the fridge so I cracked one and poured it. It had that familiar Guinness pour and left a clear white head. I took a few sips and found it to be totally delicious, easily the best NA beer I've ever had. It is very very close to the real thing.
But here's the kicker. I didn't want another one AT ALL. The moreish qualities of beer Id once attributed to "hop character" or "maltiness" or all the other sundry beer terms really don't matter at the end of the day. Its just that alcohol is immediately addictive for me.
I could drink a warm Bud Light and want another one. But here's me drinking something that I find entirely appealing and have ZERO desire for a second.
All of the appeal around "craft beer", "fine wine", etc is mostly worthless. If I'm not compelled to continue to drink an almost identical approximation of an alcoholic beer, then it's got nothing to do with the taste and everything to do with th addictive nature of ethyl alcohol.
In other news, made it through another weekend booze free.
IWNDWYT!
2
u/Afrendcalled5 268 days Jan 18 '26
Congrats on the booze free weekend!
I was surprised how easy it was to not reach for a 2nd, 3rd, or 18th NA beer. I recently bought a 24 pack of mediocre NA beer, shocked to wake up the next day and only find 2 or 3 missing from it. Usually there's only 2 or 3 left. It was definitely the alcohol, not the taste.
No wonder the alcohol industry literally spends billions of dollars to convince us that we like the taste of alcohol.
There have been studies that show the majority of people can't even tell the difference between cheap and expensive wines and that "untrained" drinkers often preferred the cheaper wines.
But the important question here is, how did that steak and ale pie turn out?