Part of the recovery process in AA with the 12 steps is honesty but it's also how you perceive it. To me, a beer after 4 years is a slip, but it's a slip that taught me how dangerous this disease can be and how I needed to do more in my recovery....at which time, I received a 24 white honesty chip and started attending meetings once again.

If you feel that near beer is not alcohol and does not count then so be it but if you feel guilty about it then it might be a good idea to think about it. I'm not saying your right or your wrong because that is for you to decide. You are your own judge. One measure could be if you feel comfortable with it and are still able to stay sober then you have achieved your goal of sobriety!

God Bless!

Thanks Bob, although I didn't drink near beer, if I remember correctly it was half a strawberryrita beer, it was awhile back.... I was just comparing it to those that actively drink near beer and claim double digits years of sobriety.

'Double digit years of sobriety'..... there you go. Surely sobriety is the goal here over avoiding alcohol. Unless you were hammered on half a beer, I reckon your sobre clock is still running.

Half a beer is still alcohol. Being sober is all or nothing.

Hello Lexilynn,

Although it can be disappointing to lose past sober time and maybe having to reset the sobriety clock, that is not necessarily the most important issue that needs to be addressed following a ‘slip’. Far more important in my opinion is to examine the reason for the said slip and to try and reduce the danger of a repeat occurrence.

I remember a wise gentleman of mature years and with a long period of sobriety often saying at AA meetings: “You must leave that old life behind”. To me, that means total and absolute acceptance that I cannot use alcohol safely. Following on from that acceptance, I have closed that chapter of my life, for example by no longer visiting the bar where I would go every day, sometimes two or three times. Neither do I wander through the alcohol lanes of the local shops, looking longingly at the bottles or the price of the product. Drinking ‘near beer’ would make no sense whatsoever considering that the one and only reason that I drank beer was to get drunk.

Having closed one troubled chapter of life, I have opened up another stimulating and exciting one that is based on freedom and sobriety. Today, I am free to visit that old barroom haunt of old or any other licenced premises should I have good reason to be there. I occasionally peruse the supermarket shelves for a bottle of wine for my wife or someone else but never with the temptation to sample the product. This change of attitude towards alcohol has not come about automatically; it has been through the AA programme of recovery that I have achieved such freedom.

Therefore, I would say that it was not the ½ beer that you drank, the question of keeping it to yourself or getting a new chip that are the most important issues. The more important questions are, why did you drink beer at all and what are you going to do to maintain your sobriety into the future?

Thank you everybody! : )

Congradulations, staying sober means not drinking anything alcoholically.

It's just that the old me would be underhanded and sly and lie about drinking a half a beer. Somehow the new me is honest and so the goal is being sober , no booze , especially not near beer because my mind immediately wants a real one. I'm an alcoholic and that means I don't start craving unless I have one, not starting is how I roll today.
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Thanks guys! , Just for the record it wasn't near beer and I HAVE fought cravings SOBER .... Having drank ZERO alcohol, so I don't agree with you obviously about NOT having cravings as long as I don't drink, but thanks.

I'm anti the near beer. Have never had a NA beer in sobriety. Would never do that. Too many temptations for my mind to want to grab the real stuff.

Rats, I worked on my reply and it's just poof! gone. Anyway, there's an old saying when it comes to slips, more aptly called relapses. Let your conscience be your guide. Just keep trudging that road to a happy destiny!

Maybe your not an Alcoholic maybe you can take it or leave it - if you have any doubts it says in the big book why not go to a bar and try some controlled drinking - i tested this theory a few times in and out of AA still told myself the same sort of bullshit that it wasnt that bad. I didnt even know I was telling myself and others all these lies. Its call Denial - Dont even know I'm lying. Does a chip from AA improve our life - For me its a day at a time and today all I can do is do my best to live a sober and honest life.

There is a difference to me between craving and obsessing. The craving is what makes me want more. The obsession is when I haven't had a drop in my system in some time and I get that small thought... ooo a cold one would be nice right now... or the thought of how booze can make my problems disappear. I do tend to call all these cravings but in my body there are two things. The craving is what made me never able to have just one I would drink till I was drunk. And the obsession that maybe THIS time it will be different. The issue is complicated and I found that just stopping the drinking was never enough. I needed to learn some ways to cope, that's what booze was for me. A coping mechanism I needed it in the bad times and even more in the good. It was a shortcut to not having to deal with life. Problem was I became addicted to the drug alcohol. It's a powerful drug and sneaky and sly. But with some understanding that I learned from other alcoholics I have been able to take king alcohol and kick his as out of my life for awhile now.
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If I could drink a 1/2 a beer I wouldn't need AA or anything else. I'd just drink a beer or two and be done with it. that's not my experience, or my story though so I don't drink a sip or a 1/2 or near beer or fake wine or fake booze of any type. I don't take homeopathic speed, or downers. I just stay the f-k away from anything that can open that door to my alcoholic mind/ body.