Alcoholic in a brewery

Hey everyone after years of denial and excuses I have finally accepted that my relationship with alcohol isn’t a healthy one. I’ve had an idea for a while but the other morning after a brewers conference I woke up in a hotel shower in a puddle of urine and checked myself into a mental hospital unit bc of suicidal thoughts. That was my rock bottom. I have been a successful brewer and business owner for a few years now. Craft beer is my life day in and out. It’s a toxic industry that provides you with every excuse in the book as to why it’s ok to sample an ipa at 8:00am for quality control. I’m scared with moving forward as I’m not sure I can continue to operate a successful brewery and be sober. Im excited for this journey and challenge and hope places like this will get me through each day at a time.

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Welcome to TS, glad you are here!

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Welcome; I believe you absolutely can run a brewery sober. It may take adjustments and thought moving forward but not impossible.

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You can do it! I’m an alcoholic that manages a large liqour store. I help sample products before bringing them in so i understand that aspect as well. It’s difficult but definitely doable. Join some daily NA/AA meetings. Once you join the fellowship and build some relationships, getting loaded will never feel the same again. You can do it. You can do anything. You have this my friend!

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Welcome!! Love the encouragement so far and I agree. It is astounding what we can do when we fight for it. That said, in early sobriety one of the things that helped me a LOT was focusing on my sobriety and the day at hand (not looking toward a future not yet here). My #1 focus was staying sober and building my sober muscles. I left any life changes or big decisions til I felt a sense of solidity in my sobriety. That’s just how I work…I can only handle so many big changes at a time and not drinking was a big ass change after 40+ years.

So glad you are working toward a healthy sober you!!

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Just a thought but the non-alcoholic beverage market is really taking off.

I love a non-alcoholic beer but there are not enough on the market (seems to be changing)

Also Kumbucha is amazing but again it’s really hard to find it (I’m in the UK)

Could you take your business into the non-alcoholic direction??

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There’s a craft brewery in Edinburgh that only makes alcohol free craft beers and they are really great. I don’t know the owner’s backstory but the company is called Brulo.

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That’s fantastic! I agree, there are a lot of NA options, especially IPAs that I do enjoy from time to time. Athletic Brewing is my favorite.

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NA beers are definitely taking off in the industry and I’ve been thinking about them for a while. Is drinking an NA that’s .5% or less like Athletic an acceptable thing?

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It’s not for everyone but it works really well for me. I’ve never been a soda fan as it’s always so sweet. When I first stopped drinking alcohol the alcohol free options were limited and not really worthwhile for me but lately the AF output has been great. One of the AF lagers I like has been brewed with a yeast that doesn’t produce alcohol so it is 0.0% but there is no flavour that something has been removed if you know what I mean.
We’re all different. For some, the taste of beer will always be a reminder of wanting to get drunk especially if they only ever drank to get drunk and not for the taste. That’s not been the case for me and I do enjoy the flavour of a nice beer.

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