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There are tens of podcasts out there telling you not to drink alcohol. This is not one of them. And in fact, today I'm going to talk about why you might want to stay away from low and no alcohol drinks. From the ridiculous to the sublime, back to the slightly ridiculous again. Let's have some fun today with six or maybe more reasons not to drink low no. You're listening to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast, where it's my goal to help you take back the power of choice from alcohol. I'm your host and mindful drinking mentor, Denise Hamilton Mace, and this is the start of your journey to a life less intoxicating. Reason

You want an exact replica of your favourite boozy drink

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number one, you're looking for an exact like-for-like replacement of your current alcohol full favorites. I always like to start with an obvious one. Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. But let's face it, starting at the beginning here, one of the biggest hurdles to enjoying a life less intoxicated is finding drinks that you can enjoy in place of the full-strength ones that you've come to know and love so well. That's understood. We all want that. But I'm going to be super honest with you here and tell you that alcohol-free drinks and low alcohol drinks do not taste like alcoholic drinks. And the sooner you can get your head around that, the better it will be for you and everybody around you. You cannot expect to remove in wine, for example, 14% of the content of your favorite Argentinian Malbek and expect the resulting liquid to taste the same. Whether the wine has been dealized or whether it has been fermented to a certain amount, it's going to taste fundamentally different. If you are insistent on having the exact same drinking experience that you've always had, then I'm afraid you're just going to have to keep on drinking the exact same drinks that you've always been drinking. Low and no drinks are only for those who are ready to embrace something different. If you're ready to try something new, to have an open mind about these drinks and understand that the thing that you like about your alcoholic beverage, the alcohol itself, is actually one of the cheapest ingredients in the glass. It's not where the value lies. And the flavor and the texture that it adds have to be found in other ways when it comes to low, no, and light drinks. Now, to caveat that, I've put light drinks in that category as well. Now, light drinks or mid-strength drinks, they do obviously have more of that body, more of that texture, more of that aroma that is familiar to what you're currently drinking if you're still drinking full strength alcohol. So if the taste and the smell and the feel of alcohol in your mouth is something that you are looking to hold on to, then mid-strength drinks might work better for you as a gateway, I guess, to uh low-no drinks. And then there are other categories like beer, which do an exceptional job of imitating the taste of the uh real thing that you would enjoy a lot more. But if you are looking for a deep uh strong tannic red that reminds you of your favorite Rioca, if you're looking for a white wine that can stand up on its own against a really heavy fish dish, then the alcohol-free versions are not going to give you that same initial impact. Now, the good news is that once you have been drinking lono for some time, if you are along the path of removing alcohol altogether, your taste buds do begin to change. And I did actually do an episode about this a little while ago. I'll find it and um link to it in the show notes for you. It's episode uh number 78, how your tastes change when you start drinking lono. Um, you will find that after a while, you start to be able to notice the nuances in the low-no drinks a lot more than if you're still drinking full strength alcohol every other day. Um, and also one of the things that's happened to me is that because I drink less and less and less alcohol now, actually, the taste of full-strength alcohol becomes too overwhelming, too overpowering, and actually less enjoyable than it used to be. So your tastes will change, your appreciation for those tastes will change, but mentally you have to get over the hurdle of expecting a low-no drink to taste exactly the same as a full strength one.

Wine alternatives

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Another quick tip before we move on to the next one here, actually, is that one of the things that you can look at, particularly as we we've um used wine as an example a couple of times, is to look for alternatives rather than reductions. So rather than just going for um a 0% wine or a 0.5% wine, is to go for a wine time drink, something like a sparkling tea, um fermented kombuchas. Uh well, it's a good brand is something like Non, who are an Australian brand, but they are available here in the UK and in the US as well. And they use big bold food flavors to make wine time drinks. Or for sparkling teas, brands like Copenhagen, who have this really great deep fermented flavor. Muri M-U-R-I is another great one. Um, so there are alternatives out there to look for, but part of drinking low-no drinks means you have to be prepared to experiment and you won't like them all, but you don't like all pizzas, doesn't stop you from trying them. Okay,

You don't have a personality

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number two, the second reason why you shouldn't drink low-no drinks is that you don't have a personality. I know, I know it sounds harsh, but is it true? So we rely on alcohol for a bit of Dutch courage, don't we? Uh, when we're entering social situations, it's it's it's all too embedded in the way that we do it. Um, even if it's a work situation, maybe you've got to give a presentation, or you're going for uh a working lunch or dinner with some clients or some colleagues, and you want to uh relax a little bit, you know, we say, Oh, have a little bit of Dutch courage to ease yourself into it. Or maybe you're going on a date and you're meeting somebody for the first time, maybe a blind date. Um, so you have a little bit of Dutch courage to give you that little bit of uh oomph. But there's a very fine line, okay? It's a very fine line between that Dutch courage and cockiness in the moment, uh, which leads to anxiety in the morning. Yay! Uh it can be scary to go out for those first few times after those first few interactions with someone or something, without a few under your belt to ease you into the night. But is it really the social elixir that you think it is? Instead, how about relying on your own charm, wit, and intelligence? Yes, it can seem daunting to begin with,

Growing confidence in your own social abilities

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um, but there is a surge, honestly, there is a surge of self-confidence that comes from socializing sober. And it's that moment that you realize that actually I can do this. It's like, hang on a minute, I really am quite funny, or I'm really quite sharp, or I'm great in conversation, or I've got I can be clear enough in this moment to pay attention to what the other person's saying. I can ask questions about them instead of just talking about myself. Whatever it is that you've been relying on booze to do for you in these situations, you have within you to do it yourself. But as long as you keep farming it out and and um what's the word I'm looking for? Delegating it to alcohol, you're never going to give yourself the chance to realize that actually the ability was within you all the time. And it's your self-belief and self-confidence that can bring it out of you, not just booze. But if you're not ready to believe in yourself wholeheartedly and let your personality shine, then perhaps you're not ready for low-no drinks just yet. Number three, fitting in with the crowd is very, very important to you. Now, pardon my French here,

You want to be in with the in crowd

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guys, but it takes a pretty big set of cojones to decide to go against the grain and drink low-no as a way of life, or maybe even just as a way of the evening or the party that you're going to. You will likely be questioned, you may be judged, you may suffer a few questioning glances from other members of the social party that you were in. And if it's your first time doing this, then you'll almost certainly start to feel some sort of external pressure to drink their way, real or imagined. Because quite frankly, some of those times when we're feeling a bit judged, it's not other people. It's coming from inside, it's coming from ourselves and us thinking that we need to do what everyone else is doing to feel like we are part of the group that everybody else is in. And it takes a tough outer shell to be able to stick to your conviction and keep your lono glass filled with your favourite non-alk sparkling wine or beer while everyone around you is doing tequila shots and bonding over version 17 of the same story. Now, as lono drinks become more popular and more mainstream, uh, what constitutes the in-crowd for the way that we drink is changing. And I'm constantly reading articles and reports about the fact that more and more people are drinking lono as a more normal part of their social experience. Everyone's telling me that it's becoming mainstream at the moment. I don't know if I believe it's entirely mainstream, but I do believe that it's far more popular and acceptable than it was before. However, within your social circles, your personal experience, that might not be the case. And if you can't handle the pressure, real or imagined, of what other people think that you should be doing, then maybe you're not ready for this yet. Reason number four that you shouldn't drink low-no drinks is that you refuse to keep an open mind. Drinking

You refuse to keep an open mind

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less isn't the answer to all of life's problems, okay? Going sober, going low-no, going teetotal, becoming a mindful drinker, whatever you want to call it, is not going to be the magic wand that fixes everything for you. But it's certainly not going to make anything any worse. Don't believe me? Well, then maybe you're not ready for this yet. The most successful, sober curious or mindful drinkers understand that reducing booze won't suddenly make all their dreams come true. You'll hear in the sober circles lots of talk of the pink cloud, which is the uh sober equivalent to the runner's high. And if you're neither sober nor a runner, then none of those examples have helped you at all. But basically, it's that moment where you get the feeling where everything is fantastic and the world is wonderful and you can do absolutely anything. Okay, that pink cloud moment, if it exists, is pretty short-lived because you will soon realize that just because you're not having alcohol, it doesn't make everybody else around you uh wonderful at all the things you need them to be wonderful at. But you'll be amazed at what you can achieve when you wake up with a clear head for several mornings in a row, when you're not wasting time to being hungover, when you're not constantly um reducing your mental capacity by worrying about what you said or what you did uh in situation X, Y, and Z. But you've got to believe in the possibility of what you can achieve and what you can do, and be prepared to put the work in, and that is when you will start to feel the benefits of drinking lono on a regular basis. So don't expect miracles overnight. Um, but also don't think that just because it hasn't happened, that the possibility isn't there for this way of drinking to have some serious positive kudos on your life. It opens you up to new opportunities, new possibilities, but you still have to put the effort into grabbing them and running with them. So if you can't keep an open mind for that and you are expecting an overnight miracle, then this isn't the path for you. Reason number five, you are price sensitive to quality. Oh, the price conversation, the cost debate,

You're price sensitive to quality

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which has come up many, many times in my career, speaking at events, training people, coaching people, speaking to businesses. It's the cost. It's why does this cost so much when there's no alcohol in it? Should this be cheaper? How much cheaper should it be? When will it be cheaper? Despite my best efforts to inform the world, there are still a lot of people who don't understand why low and no drinks cost as much as full strength ones, or almost as much, depending on the category and where you are. I have done uh many episodes on this before, and I will link to one or two in the show notes if you want to dive into it deeper. Uh, suffice it to say, there are several very, very valid reasons, including the fact that alcohol is a preservative, that it's a flavor carrier, and it does so much more in your drink than just get you suzzled. Without alcohol, Lono brands have to spend a lot of time and money and resources and research and man hours on creating drinks that you deem are good enough for your social situations, drinks that you are going to enjoy, that you're going to return to again and again, drinks that touch that spot for you, drinks that can replace alcohol either in their flavor, in their texture, in their longevity, that they can stand up next to a meal. There are a lot of complaints about, or there have been a lot of complaints about the thinness or the depth of alcohol-free drinks. But what I need to make clear is that you can't have it both ways. Okay, we can't expect alcohol-free creators and producers to spend all this time or money on the research and development that I've just listed before, and expect them to give us these drinks at half the price of the cost of alcohol. Okay, the two things don't just don't marry up. And if you want to have good quality alcohol-free drinks, then we have to be prepared to pay for them. And if your only measure of the value of a drink is by the ABV of it and how much alcohol is in there, then you're never going to be able to appreciate the efforts and the flavors and the tastes and the techniques that go into making alcohol-free drinks. And if you can't appreciate them, you're not going to enjoy them. And so you shouldn't drink them.

You find them triggering

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And that is that they might be triggering for you. There are studies that show that some 95 plus percent of people, it's it changes from paper to paper, but in the high 90s, percentage of people who buy low-no drinks on an occasion in, say, a supermarket, are also buying full strength drinks. Okay, so this leaves a large chunk of people for whom this is not a sobriety journey. Most of the people who are drinking low, no, and light, who are listening to this podcast and others like it, are not trying to go sober. But for a percentage of people out there, they are. There are people who find alcohol to be a life-damaging substance for them. And for those people, low and no drinks need to be considered very carefully. If you find that when you come into contact with low no drinks, it triggers in you a desire to consume full-strength alcohol, and that desire leads to behaviors that are damaging to your life, then low and no drinks are not for you. Okay? Joking aside, if they are triggering for you and you find that they make you want the hard stuff and that you can't stop yourself from then consuming it, then stay away from them. For you, things like alternatives might work better, like I mentioned in the in section one. So things that are made from drinks and ingredients that don't resemble full strength alcohol, but can fit into those times when you might consume them, could be a great way to circumnavigate that. Think about brands like uh Bativo, uh, Muri was one that I mentioned before, uh, or Silver if you're here in the UK. Or you could move more towards the drinks that um are more sophisticated adult soft drinks, brands like Mush, who make uh functional mushroom drinks, uh, dash waters and punchy. Um, or you can go fully functional and get some biological benefits without the booze from brands like Kin and Sentia and Impossibre. So there are alternatives out there for however you need to drink. But if you do find alcohol-free drinks to be triggering, to make you uh long for alcohol-full drinks, which you find difficult to resist, then definitely low and no is not for you. I have lots of other reasons though. I have lots of very funny reasons why you shouldn't drink um low and no.

The real point

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For example, you might love having morning headaches. Nothing says I've had a good night more than waking up feeling like you've been hit by a truck. Maybe you have a deep fear of clear thinking. Why risk clarity and focus when a foggy mind feels so cozy and comfortable? Or perhaps you find decision making too easy. It's far better to make important life decisions after a few strong cocktails. There's plenty of uh silly reasons out there why you shouldn't drink low and no. But the truth of the matter is that if you are looking to live a life less intoxicated, if you want to change the way you allow alcohol to show up in your life, then low no and light alcohol drinks are a fantastic tool for the majority of people who want to drink differently. They cover beers and wines and spirits and cocktails and champagnes and pretty much every category of drink out there. I've even come across alcohol-free sambucas in the past. Uh, liars used to make an alcohol-free absinthe. There is a drink for every drinker out there in the low no and light sphere. So there really is no excuse other than the fact that you don't really want to. Okay, I hope you've enjoyed a little bit of fun together this week. I'll catch you next time. And until then, cheers to a life less intoxicated.