Learned a new term today: “sober curious.” I quit drinking 5 years ago, and never looked back. I wouldn’t mind some more variety for non-alcoholic drinks, especially those without sugar. Can’t have pop too often because it’s just sugar. Kombucha reminds me of beer so I avoid it. Fruit juices are full of sugar too. So it’s usually down to tea, coffee or water for me.
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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lol that sounds like vocabulary only an alcoholic would invent.
"I've heard of being sober, but I'm to afraid to try it right now."
It's a super weird turn of phrase. I admit, as someone who doesn't actually enjoy the flavour of alcohol nor its intoxicating effects, I'd not mind having something a little more universal that I can say to people. "I don't really drink" both comes with a lot of unrelated baggage -- they think I'm either a recovering alcoholic or a church nut -- and people get really weird about it if they ever see me having a drink (probably because they think I've fallen off the wagon or something).
But that phrase sure as hell isn't going to be "sober-curious".
How 'bout the phrase "what concern is it of yours what I do and do not drink?"
A: Want some booze?
B: Nah, I'm good.
A: OK.
That's the mature conversation. Since most people aren't like A in this conversation, however, I tend to actually experience:
C: Want some booze?
D: Nah, I'm good. [N.B. this presupposes I don't want some booze: I'm not a teetotaller, but I'm not always in the mood for booze]
C: Why not?
D: In what way does your knowing the reasons make this anything beyond an increasingly awkward conversation?
C: Asshole!
D: Whatever.
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Since things like iced coffee and unsweetened tea exists, I don't really have a problem with options, especially since they've both become common enough to be canned.
That said, the term "sober curious" just sounds degrading, like you're saying "that weirdo guy who's actually wondering what it's like to be sober" rather than someone who doesn't want to be a publicly acceptable drug addict.
"Look, I'm totally a drinker, but I've always wanted to try not-drinking, and I was wondering if maybe you'd like to be my first time?"
Yeah, the term is strange for sure! First time I see it.
Same. I got into kefir and a wide variety of herbal teas/tisanes, myself.
How do you feel about drinks like Bubly?
Not the person you’re replying to but I’ve been sober almost 7 years and I drink tons of flavored sparkling water.
I drank a ton of those 0 sugar flavored carbonated water when I was quitting, but I stopped after a while. Felt bad creating so much recycling. But yeah, I like them! I’ll take one when people offer or when I do feel like something other than water. I just no longer buy them on a regular basis. My home made alternative is squeezing half a lemon in a glass of water or club soda (and I’d buy the 2L bottles).
I bought a soda stream and will cycle through various things to flavor it. My two go-tos are orange juice and mango juice. And I usually just put a splash of it on top. Maybe 1/10.
I got a SodaStream and love it. I feel better about no throwing away as much plastic every time I want a drink. I love water but sometimes I need some variety and it fills that gap quite well.
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I was trying to escape beer to save money, but at $2 a can non-alcoholic is even more expensive despite seemingly less taxes needing to be paid.
Is non-alcoholic beer reallly more expensive than the regular? In Europe they're on par in most places. In Northern Europe (Norway, Denmark) it's even significantly cheaper due to taxes.
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You ever tried kombucha, it may hit the spot similarly.
My initial assumption was that it's because it's newer, ~~so they need to make up that r&d cost~~ (edit: I get why this is silly now). Once there is a lot more competition for it, the prices should come down. Similar to how some plant based meats / milks or gluten-free products became more accessible once general people started buying them instead of a tiny group that could be exploited more easily.
I'm just hoping for fewer drunk driving accidents and reduced health issues
Oh boy you are painfully optimistic about capitalism
Let us not forget, 1 trillion types of non alcoholic drinks already exist.
People don’t event know when they a being marketed.
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fair, again I'm just hopeful that this will become a good option for people
That’s the nicest way to put it lol
R&D cost lol, there’s no such thing. That’s what companies want you to believe so they can upsell medicine and technology.
This is just another market rife for capitalism to ensnare. Some guy crunched the numbers and found that x% don’t drink at events. So to recoup that lost revenue, they made this. The drinks, the ads, the news articles that cover it. All planted to drive up their bottom line.
Because that’s how businesses work. They find an angle and swoop in and start setting up payment systems to see what people will begrudgingly pay for.
I was equating them, probably incorrectly, to things like plant based meat companies that did have to consider margins till they could scale up.
But yes I guess a major conglomerate doesn't have that constraint, and it's probably not that hard to make something that tastes like X beer without alcohol
Non-alcoholic beer is older than most of the people in this thread commenting¹. There's no more "R&D cost" involved in making it. If they're charging more for the non-alcoholic than the alcoholic, it's just straight-up greed.
¹ Source: I was drinking this shit when I was 12—45 years ago, in other words—and even then it was old news!
I wonder if this is a pendulum swinging, and gen z's kids will drink to excess.
Me I limit myself to one or two drinks, only in social spaces/never alone.
That's interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I guess we're seeing a bit of that with smoking vs vaping, but I'd need to look at the rates more to see if that actually was like a pendulum
I'm gen x and have no issue drinking 6 beer alone (alone as the only one drinking in the home) once or twice a month, while I do my own thing or interact with the family.
How does this compare with recent trends of non alcoholic drinks coming out with alcoholic versions of their flagships? I've seen Mountain Dew and Arizona Tea drinks with alcohol in them at the ABC, which is really strange to me.
Didn't Gen Z already destroy hard liquor as an industry if breathless headlines of a decade or so ago are anything to go by?
Has a large proportion of Gen Zers quit drinking entirely? If so, then along with social media facilitating cathartic sharing, and wage stagnation destroying lifestyle expectations, that would add another layer helping to explain the apparently larger percentage of Gen Zers than with previous generations that are (publicly) having trouble putting up with certain kinds of BS at the workplace.
A decade ago, the oldest GenZer would have been 16. They destroyed alcohol by not being old enough to purchase it.
Maybe it was the Millenials who were being blamed then? I lose track of which divide the press is trying to drive a wedge in this week.
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I noticed a huge influx of these this past year. I was a grocer actually stocking the product a couple of years ago, so I know this is somewhat recent. It was really good timing for my wife, though, while she was pregnant this year.
The prices on the non alcoholic craft cocktails in a can though.... yeesh.
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