I Accidentally Drank Alcohol—Am I Overreacting?

And is it bad that I don’t know if I wanted feel the alcohol’s effects?

I have been sober for a little over two years. The other night, I was out at dinner with my wife, and we both ordered a beer; mine was non-alcoholic, hers had alcohol. When they arrived, the server put the wrong drinks in front of us and I took a sip of the alcoholic beer. I realized it as soon as I swallowed, and we immediately switched drinks, but I had already panicked. Panic was my first reaction before I even processed what happened. But the feeling lingered, and even though the rational part of my brain knew it wasn’t a big deal, it still felt upsetting. Then, I waited for the beer to kick in. It didn’t, but I can’t tell you if I was relieved or not. 

My questions are:

1) Did I break my sobriety streak? It doesn’t feel like I did, but it doesn’t feel exactly like I didn’t.

2) If I didn’t, why was it so upsetting? Was I being melodramatic about the whole thing?

3) Is it bad that I don’t know whether or not I was relieved not to feel the alcohol’s effects? 

Sincerely,

NAB

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Hi NAB,

I was five years sober when I came down with a nightmarish virus that kept me awake and coughing all night. My boyfriend offered to bring me some leftover prescription cough medicine that had been sitting in his medicine cabinet for years. I asked him if there was any alcohol in it, and he assured me there wasn’t. I was specifically looking to avoid the familiar warmth and numbness I associated with liquor. But I was also desperate to sleep. 

When he arrived, medicine in hand, I tried checking the label, but years of bathroom steam had faded the words into an illegible smear. Deciding to risk it, I took a big slug out of the bottle. The moment I’d swallowed the syrup, I knew he’d been wrong. The syrup definitely had alcohol in it. Immediately, that telltale tingling warmth spread through my chest. As soon as I realized what was happening, the sensation was gone—replaced with a cold panic. Had I just tossed five years of sobriety out the window? 

Only you can decide how to define your sobriety, but I think about sobriety in terms of deliberate actions, not accidents. Your sobriety isn’t a product of being alone on a boozeless island for two years where you couldn’t drink—it’s a product of ongoing, active decisions you make to avoid consuming alcohol despite its availability. When you ordered that non-alcoholic beer, you were making a decision that supported your sobriety. 

So, no, I don’t think an accidental sip breaks a sobriety streak, but I also understand that what probably freaked you out wasn’t just that one sip, but the possibility of what might happen next. Would this suddenly unlock something in you, releasing an alcohol monster that had been caged for two years? Was this the beginning of an ugly and speedy descent from which you’d have to climb out again? And how the fuck were you supposed to reconcile all of that with this tiny, uncertain part of you that thought you might get a little bit of a guilt-free buzz with all the thrilling, terrifying, and confusing emotions that come with it?

I don’t think you were being melodramatic. Panic is an entirely understandable response to being hit with an intense and complicated swirl of feelings you weren’t expecting to encounter while at a nice dinner with your wife. 

It’s a bit like getting into a fender bender. You’re driving along, obeying the speed limit, when someone slams into the back of your car. You pull over, get out, and see that you and the other person are fine, though your respective bumpers are slightly dented. But when you go to get your insurance information, your hands are shaking uncontrollably. This seems silly, you think; no one was hurt. But that doesn’t change the fact that a giant hunk of metal just hurled itself into you while you were making a routine drive to work. 

How did I respond to my cough medicine snafu? I immediately burst into tears and started pacing around the couch like a dog with separation anxiety. I called a friend, hyperventilating. Slowly, she talked me down and assured me that an accident was just that—an accident. She also mentioned that I should take it as a warning to be more careful and maybe stop taking other people’s old medicine. She would tell you to take your NA beer incident as a warning to double-check the label before drinking. But the panic you experienced probably already firmly etched that lesson into your brain. 

To your last question: no, it’s not bad that you were unsure if you wanted to feel the alcohol’s effects. Presumably, this whole thing was so unsettling because you, like me, loved alcohol too much, and it was causing problems in your life. Of the people I know like us, I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t fantasized about an accidental buzz. It feels so close to a get-out-of-jail-free card. But I think you know that’s an illusion—if you didn’t, the incident wouldn’t have been as upsetting as it was. 

Accidents happen. You should try to avoid them, but they happen. When they do, the most important thing you can do is be honest with yourself and others about your feelings. The fact that you can admit panic and ambivalence makes me a million times more confident in how you’re approaching sobriety than someone who boldly proclaims that nothing and no one can ever pierce the rock-solid fortress that is their recovery. 

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