If you're alcoholic...

[HangingOver]

Do you cook with alcohol? I'm nearly 5 years sober and just started using red wine in a certain recipe (the little stock pot things aren't as good). Being so near the sight and smell of it is pretty strange. I buy a tiny bottle just for the recipe and put it all in.

Just curious.

Personally speaking: it's just 'wine' isn't it ? It's not going to pull me down and lead me to "jails institutions and death " just because I bought enough to slosh in my cooking.

But of course, my viewpoints are from how i got to that place. My response requires an explanation.

I think it's hurtful to keep picking at my podcast recommendations. I'm literally just trying to help others.

So 'wine' isn't alcohol, in your view??

Yup. It most certainly is. But from my 'recovery' alcohol holds absolutely zero allure or power of me. It's just a drink in a bottle that some people buy, which is cool with me. Sloshing 100ml in my cooking doesn't frighten me that I'm going to end up in jails, institutions or dead. That threat isn't in my mind or my pysche. I have power of my choices due to the way I 'recovered ' and I'm forever grateful for that.

FYI

I don't understand the hate for @Jalapenosplease ? Unless there is some backstory I am unaware of, it feels like she has been badly treated here.

Re OP's query, when I was teetotal I would have avoided alcohol in cooking, I would have felt it was illicit and shameful.

That is a brilliant suggestion! Thanks, I'll definitely be trying that.

Almost five years sober here... I'll happily eat food that has alcohol in if someone else has cooked it, but I'd never add it myself.

I am also trying this. Does it have to be builders of does Rooibos work?

Thankyou for being supportive🙂

I think it's defensive because if you've spent decades in AA and told you can never progress and that you can't trust you're own thinking etc I suppose you have to believe you're doing the right thing. To admit there's another way Is to let the anger surface (which I'm seeing here) that maybe you've spent the last 10 years repeating that "you're an alcoholic" and the only way to stay sober is to attend meetings multiple times per week and if you default you'll slip back and end up in jail or dead, that's going to be pretty horrific to process. I do think it's a defence mechanism. I didn't actually come on here to rubbish AA, I was just offering initially a way that helped me not worry about adding a drop of wine to my cooking

Thanks again for helping me feel I'm not going crazy !!

Badly treated? She's bowled into OP's thread, which was a question about cooking with alcohol when in recovery, and made it into a thread about why AA completely sucks and everyone who attends it is a brainwashed moron who has not heard of trauma...

I think it's defensive because if you've spent decades in AA and told you can never progress and that you can't trust you're own thinking etc I suppose you have to believe you're doing the right thing

I DID SMART how many times jesus.

I didn't do SMART.

@freefloating you'll see I said none of those things. I've shown nothing but compassion for those in AA. Re read my posts.

I did actually state some methods (not smart) as I'm being accused of by the non listeners. You didn't want to know. So I respectfully had them removed

I'm thankful some balanced people reading this thread will get a good taste of who's recovery is a good one

Good luck to the AA members. I have nothing but compassion.

@freefloating My long experience of MN has shown me that many people drop into threads and contribute tangential tidbits which don't necessarily address the actual point of the OP.

You might describe it as 'bowling in', I say the contribution itself is the whole point of social media. And your description of her attitude is pure rabid hyperbole not remotely supported by her words.

I literally don't understand why those of you who object are objecting so vociferously. But hey, you do you.

Compassion, my hairy arse.

I absolutely 100% have compassion. Hence why I offer an alternative viewpoint to help women see that they are not "full of ego" they're not "defective". I would never ever blame the members of AA for that. All members were vulnerable women once, those messages being given to them are not their fault, even if they repeat them.

I had to dig out her actual answer to the question, which turned out to be 'wine" is not really alcohol, and no-one ever relapsed and died because of 'wine' (tell that to my dead friend). She'd been too busy not noticing the OP isn't even in AA and playing her tiny violins about people even mentioning her podcast derail to answer the actual question, and now you can join her little orchestra.

@LauderSyme thanks so much again for your supportive message 🙂

In a way it's good this thread Is here. Many people won't actually even be signed up to Mumsnet. But many people will stumble across it. The replies I've had speak volumes about the "health" of those individuals. It won't just be me making links to 'why' - it's all unravelling by itself....

Wow, this nastiness must be why I don't bother with the alcohol threads very often.

Fgs, the vitriolic anger towards @Jalapenosplease is shocking on here. She’s offering an interesting viewpoint which IS relevant to the discussion.

The fury fuelling some of the responses towards her is unwarranted and suggests some very unworked-out emotional backlogs.

I'm delighted you have found a way to live a good life without alcohol. I have found a way too and I certainly won't criticise your way so how about you do go and make a thread, those on this thread who said they'd like to read it can join you. The op didn't ask you for recovery recommendations and it's none of your business if she wants to contact her sponsor regarding using alcohol in cooking.

Did the op ask for alternative recovery methods? I must have missed that

Does the 'group thinking' approach aim to encourage the use of passive-aggression as a tool of persuasion, while ditching boundaries, empathy and social skills, or is that a glitch, @Jalapenosplease?

Evangelism is one hell of a drug.

I don't cook with alcohol and avoid it when eating out mostly because I no longer enjoy the taste, however there are plenty of alternatives to create depth of flavour.

In addition to the other good suggestions here, I find mushroom and the juice from sauteed mushrooms very useful. The mushroom ketchup you can find in supermarkets is good, but also dried porcini can really add a lot to a dish. If you like mushrooms that is!

I love using dried porchini in a herbal salt I make, it can be used in anything savoury and reduces the salt used as well.

Thank you very much 🙂

I'm just grateful there were and are other ways out there. My inner calm is a paradise I'll never stop being grateful for.

If you and others are interested (I was a gutter drinker once - not now thankfully! But its interesting reading even if you are not ) :

Podcasts: sober awkward, sober stories, groupthink

Books: there are so many great quit lit books now. But Catherine gray ones are very inspiring. Great tools for living.

AA is one option. But there are plenty more. I don't think the previous posters are advertising it very well 🙈

Indeed I do.

There's a Jamie Oliver veggie cottage pie recipe recipe when there's amazing depth of flavour from sun-dried tomatos of all things! But they feel horrendously squishy when you're chopping them.