This is a guest post from The Discovering Alcoholic, who writes a top rated recovery blog, www.discoveringalcoholic.com, covering alcoholism, substance abuse, treatment and recovery issues.
I guess with the drink-oriented, food-centered, and desert-stuffed holidays around the corner it’s a better time than most to address the topic of “eating alcohol”. By this I mean ingesting alcohol through means other than drinking it- such as partaking of the popular desert Bananas Foster or liquor filled chocolates. My sweet examples of alcohol delicacies are obviously dangerous, but what about other dishes? You know what I’m talking about… those dishes where it’s easy to rationalize that the alcohol has “cooked off”.
Well if you clicked the last link, then you know that alcohol is rarely totally evaporated from most dishes. More importantly for the alcoholic though, it’s not the remaining alcohol that is the problem regardless of the amount. The real issue is knowingly ingesting it, especially when doubts exist or it just feels like the wrong thing to do (and it does), because whether it’s baked, boiled, or flambé’… it’s still alcohol and that beast in the back of our mind knows it! Relapse is a process and the end results are the same when we willingly deceive.
I think this is especially important for those struggling with early sobriety who often ask, “is it okay to eat dishes prepared with alcohol?” Don’t tell me that over the holidays you didn’t realize that it was rum in the candy or thought it was lighter fluid instead of banana liqueur that produced such a dramatic dish. Alcoholics are notoriously perspicacious when it comes to identifying sources of alcohol and devious when it comes to justifying drinking or eating it. You know it’s there. You know you shouldn’t have it. Crunchy, creamy, or just extinguished- it’s still alcohol.
