All about Alcohol Free drinks

The whole question of alcohol free drinks / substitutes is so often debated, and for so many different reasons, that this will be at the heart of several blogs exploring the subject. 

Two things to remember before we start: 

1. This is YOUR journey to a destination of YOUR choosing. Anything I say about AF substitutes is therefore my opinion and not an instruction of what you must do, or think on this matter. Use AF drinks if you find them helpful. Avoid them if you don't.

2. Because it's a journey, how we think about AF options, and how we use them, is likely to change over time. I personally found them vital in the early days while I was breaking the alcohol habit, and while I rarely drink them now, I do still like a special bottle of something like Freixenet Zero (cava) for New Years Eve or a Leffe Zero (beer) at a drinks party or a Nojito on the sunlounger when a glass of water really doesn't hit the spot and makes me stand out in the crowd for not drinking.

So, a little bit of background.  The main objection arises because some argue that if you're trying to stop or cut back on drinking then the look, smell or taste of AF options will trigger the desire for the real thing. 

The contrary argument is that any residual alcohol content is simply not enough to get anyone drunk, and is in any event containing similar amounts of alcohol to those found naturally in some foods, ripe bananas being the oft quoted example.  

For me, drinking AF options was not triggering. It didn't make me think about, or desire, the real thing. 

At the start of my journey it was important to distinguish between breaking the addiction to alcohol and breaking the addiction to the ritual of drinking. The two things are different steps, in my view. If you have an AF gin when you get home from work then you're breaking the alcohol addiction. 

Later on it will (in my experience) become easier to then break the habit of reaching for anything when I get home from work. Why? Because the better longer term solution I actually need is to find another (healthier) way to de-stress after work. 

But in the meantime, as there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, not drinking (or drinking less) is better than drinking (or drinking more). Reducing alcohol harm, however we individually define it, is the destination, and if AF drinks help us reach that destination then we use them. If they don't, we don't.