Los Angeles man orders nonalcoholic beer. Then the server brings him a regular beer: ‘That was my first drink in 12 years’
A Los Angeles comedian shares an awkward moment from his old serving job at a comedy club, in which he accidentally gave a sober customer an alcoholic beer instead of the nonalcoholic one he ordered. The customer has a surprisingly chill reaction.
In a video with over 20,000 views, TikToker and stand-up comedian Tommy Mitchell (@tommyymitchell) says he sat a couple in his section at the comedy club and told them about the two-drink minimum. The woman orders a margarita and the man orders a nonalcoholic beer.
He takes extra care to ring up the beer correctly and brings the couple their drinks. Just a few moments later, the couple flags him down.
“The guy’s like, ‘Dude, you gave me an alcoholic beer.’ I was like, ‘Oh my god I’m so sorry dude I swear I rung it in the right way,'” he recounts.
Mitchell double checks the drink ticket and realizes that the bartender accidentally poured an alcoholic beer, despite the man’s nonalcoholic beer order.
The couple doesn’t stick around for much longer, and Mitchell approaches them in the lobby to apologize for the mix up.
“He goes, ‘Dude, don’t worry about it. It was just my first drink in 12 years. It was going to happen eventually. And honestly, thank you so much. I am back,'” Mitchell says. “So honestly, I think I did a good thing by accident.”
Viewers question the man’s chill reaction
In the comments of the viral video, viewers wonder what the sober customer really meant by “I’m back.”
“‘Thats my first drink in 12 years, I’m back’ is quite a dangerous sounding statement,” one points out.
“He said I’m back,” another remarks with a crying emoji.
However, some suggest that the man’s statement doesn’t mean he plans to break his sobreity.
“I took it as the guy was able to walk away from the beer, without falling off the wagon. I assumed ‘I’m back’ meant I’m not struggling with sobriety anymore I’m just sober,” a commenter writes.
What happens when servers accidentally serve alcoholic beer?
While the sober customer may not suffer any major repercussions from the accidental alcoholic beer, others who are earlier in their recovery may have a harder time bouncing back from a similar mistake. People working on their sobriety in the r/stopdrinking subreddit share their experience with accidentally drinking alcohol.
“Very early on in my sober journey, I ordered a kombucha when out at a restaurant. They had both hard kombucha on the bar menu and NA kombucha on the NA drinks menu. They brought me the hard one,” one shares. “I asked the server and yes, they’d given me the hard one, and they were out of the NA…I did say [expletive] it and drank it all.”
“This happened to me when 4 months sober. I felt really panicky after and the manager was kind of rude about it (I actually ordered something I thought was n/a but wasn’t, so it was my mistake, not the server’s),” another writes.
A third adds, “Someone was in here a few months ago talking about how they had a really bad relapse that lasted multiple years due to a server doing this in a restaurant.”
However, others on the subreddit say the “intention” of staying sober is most important and encourage others not to blame servers for similar mistakes.
A commenter suggests, “Hopefully this is a lesson for the server and they didn’t get in too much trouble. It’s important for us to realize that our sobriety isn’t what’s on other peoples minds and that mistakes happen.”
The Mary Sue reached out to Mitchell via TikTok direct message and comment. We will update the story when he replies.
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