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.

Tesco do a red wine stock pot for anyone who wants the flavour but doesn't want to have a bottle of wine open while cooking spaghetti.

I use scissors when cutting sundried tomatoes, much easier than chopping

Great tip! Thank you.

My friend is in AA and spends a lot of time with me, I cook for him and he’s absolutely no alcohol in anything

i tend to use stuff like marmite, umami paste, anchovies etc to add depth of flavour to things

Op is an AA member.

Secondly, there is bitterness on this thread - you're correct. Only, it doesn't come from me 😄

It was actually red wine I’d bought for cooking that knocked me off the wagon a few years back (I am sober again now) so I try to avoid having any alcohol in the house. It wasn’t even very nice!

I buy the little single serving bottles for cooking. Risotto, for example, just isn’t nearly as nice without the white wine in it. Ditto a beef casserole like bourguignon and red wine.

My father is 17 years sober. He won’t cook with alcohol but is happy to eat anything that I’ve cooked with it.

Op is an AA member

I am not. For the four hundredth time I did SMART. I used the term alcoholic in the thread title because everyone knows what I mean by it. I call my best friend my "sponsor" just because we help eachother through our sobriety and again everyone knows what I mean by it and I foolishly didn't think it would trigger an intervention.

OP has said she didn't do AA, and has also said more than once that she did SMART.

Apologies for the cross post.

Sorry to hear this. I'm actually really interested in this psychologically....

So I always think now if there was brandy/sherry/pernod (boak) in the house it wouldn't bother me at all, because those drinks are disgusting. Not like back in the day when anything would do.

But now it sort of feels like red wine is the only "temptation" because other than beer (for which there are now excellent 0% alternatives) it was the only drink that had the dual advantage of getting me slowly hammered and tasting good.

So I wonder if the smell of RW has a sort of double activation effect on the ol' dopamine/neural pathways... As in it wakes up the alcohol one and the yummy yummy one...

2 years sober and I do sometimes, it depends on the recipe. I will use alcohol as a flavouring if it’s the sort of thing I’d give my kids. But not too make anything ‘boozy’.

For example, I’ll put a mini bottle of red wine in a big pot of ragu that I plan to slow cook. I won’t do a rum cake or a Christmas pudding with brandy. Basically, it’s fine if it’s something I’d feed my dc.

I don’t find it difficult to be around alcohol or have it in the house. I have no interest in drinking. I think if I did or I was doing it as a way to have alcohol on the sly, that would be very different. Then I wouldn’t touch it or have it around.

I think if I did or I was doing it as a way to have alcohol on the sly, that would be very different

I think that's the crux of it... Examining your motivation honestly. Like for example I used to use my fear of flying as a "legitimate" excuse to get shitcanned before a flight but when I was really, really honest with myself it was probably more about having an unchallenged excuse to neck wine at 6am 🤣

This thread is getting very far away from what's actually important here, i.e. did you make food? Was food delicious? The people need to know!

It was unbelievably delicious. Sauce of gods.

Then full recipe please Op!

My father is a recovering alcoholic - sober for 33 years now. He won't touch it in any form - the one time it happened by accident at a dinner out by mistake, he was incredibly upset because he felt 'contaminated'. We always buy alcohol free Christmas puddings, and never buy boxes of chocolates if they have liqueurs in them etc etc.

None of us children drink, and we teach our own children not to drink. I cannot really understand why you would risk it all for a 'better tasting recipe'. Just don't bother. It's simply not necessary. Other countries don't always cook with alcohol or find it hard to avoid - Greece, Turkey, India, to name a few, so why do we Brits have such a problem with it?