The Gang Spiked the One Guy Who Asked for NA Beer
By Contributor Tara Oporto
Content note: Contains spoilers for “The War on Alcohol” and discussion of drink spiking and sexual assault.
I love the gang at Paddy’s Pub. I enjoy the characters most of the time, and some episodes have been truly hilarious. But the show goes after a lot of groups, and some of that humor has made me uncomfortable.
“The War on Alcohol,” season 18, episode 6 of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” crossed another line for me. This time, it involved people who don’t drink.
The War Begins
The episode opens with the gang happily working through a round of beers. When the sales rep says people aren’t drinking like they used to, Dee says, “Well, people are pussies, what can we say?”
Then the rep tells them the beer is nonalcoholic, and the gang yells at him until Dee chases him out the door, screaming and wielding a broken bottle.
From there, the gang declares war on the decline of drinking. They give speeches praising booze as great for us, the glue of friendship and a great unifier.
Convinced that people drinking less is hurting business, they decide to recruit drinkers from blue-collar and white-collar workplaces. Dennis, Dee and Frank go after office workers for happy hour, while Mac and Charlie set out to bring factory workers back to the bar.
Then There’s Mitch
Mac and Charlie find Mitch, a factory worker, and size him up as a white-collar nerd who works alone all day. They tell him they’re inviting people to the bar, and he asks if they have nonalcoholic beer.
It’s a simple request. He doesn’t owe anyone a reason.
Then the show piles on. They tell him he doesn’t fit the profile, and Charlie says he’d need more pushups to build the right physique. So Mitch does pushups and says he’s been doing P90X since he was five.
The guy who orders the NA beer has to prove he’s tough enough to come to Paddy’s.
When he sticks with the NA, Mac teases him even more, asking if he wants water with no hydrogen at lunch.
Back at the warehouse, Charlie chants for him to chug. Mitch says he feels tipsy and asks if they’re sure the beer is nonalcoholic. Charlie tells him his mind is playing tricks on him because it’s impossible to get drunk off those. Then Charlie tells Mac he spiked it and Mitch is getting wasted.
Mitch’s tie gets caught in a machine, and they laugh at him. Charlie points out that he’s loosening up and getting cooler because now he’s drunk.
In Charlie’s telling, alcohol is what makes Mitch relaxed and cool.
I know it’s meant to be funny. I found it disturbing.
Why the Spiking Matters
Adding alcohol to someone’s drink without their knowledge or consent takes away their choice about what they consume. Mitch told them what he wanted before it happened. He asked for the NA beer, asked again whether it was really NA, and they lied to him.
We never learn why he asked. He might be in recovery. He might be on medication, driving home or simply choosing not to drink.
For me, the scene reinforces a familiar frustration: The person choosing not to drink becomes someone the group feels entitled to pressure. Anyone who has turned down a drink and had someone push anyway knows how that feels.
It’s a double hit. First, the person who doesn’t drink is made into the joke. Then his choice is taken away.
The Dee Storyline
The Dee storyline crossed another line for me. She gets drunk and sexually assaults the intern.
I understood that her behavior was supposed to be appalling, but I didn’t find enough distance between depicting the assault and treating it as another outrageous gag.
Her drinking doesn’t excuse the violation. For me, the scene needed more weight than the episode gave it.
How It Ends
The episode ends with the gang pouring out all the NA beer outside and saying they should go get a real beer.
That’s the last word.
The beer machine has just shown that most of the beer people bought that day was NA, and they dump it anyway. The gang treats the NA beer as fake, despite the demand for it.
I understand that their refusal to recognize that demand can itself be the joke. But after watching what happened to Mitch, the ending didn’t resolve my discomfort.
“But the Gang Are the Idiots”
I know the defense. RogerEbert.com called the episode arguably the season standout and read it as the characters fighting to live in the past. I get that, and I don’t think the writers are pushing an agenda for the alcohol industry.
I understand the gang’s terrible behavior as the intended target. But I love these characters. Then they do something so over the top that I’m left wrestling with my affection for them and my reaction to what they’ve done.
When a joke hits a nerve on something this important to me, that push and pull is hard to settle. It’s like a song with a chord progression that never resolves.
The episode didn’t land for me because I’m on the other side of this. I value what nonalcoholic beverages offer adults who want to participate without drinking alcohol.
For me, the satire didn’t create enough distance between mocking the gang’s behavior and making the person who ordered NA beer the punchline. Other viewers may find that distinction clear. I kept coming back to Mitch’s request and how little it mattered to the people around him.
It’s Not Only “Sunny”
Reality TV has its own version of the pressure.
In an Instagram Q&A reported by Entertainment Weekly, “Love Is Blind” season 6 contestant Matthew Duliba said producers encouraged him to drink even after he told them he doesn’t. He also said a producer yelled at him for encouraging the other men to be careful with their drinking.
Representatives for Kinetic Content, the production company, did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment at the time.
These are different situations: a scripted comedy and a participant’s account of his experience on a reality show. But both bring me back to the same question: Why should someone’s decision not to drink become a problem for anyone else?
If You Ask for the NA Beer
I’ve worked inside this world.
Early in my career, I was sent out as a tequila rotator to restaurants and bars. Selling tequila poppers was positioned as a positive addition to the overall experience. I made the shots tableside and pushed rounds on people to sell multiple bottles of the brand in a night.
Later, I worked for a bourbon brand that wanted outdoor advertising: a billboard in Helen, Georgia. It wanted what every brand wants, awareness and profitability. It wanted people arriving in a vacation town to know the bourbon and order it wherever they settled in.
That tied liquor to relaxing, vacation, leisure and happiness. That was the point.
Of course, there are movies and TV shows about alcoholism and the damage alcohol can do. But outside stories explicitly about substance use, I rarely see drinking painted in a negative light, except when it’s tied to pregnancy or driving.
No matter the reason someone orders a nonalcoholic beer, that choice should be respected. I’d also like to see alcohol-free options become more readily available.
Watching the gang ridicule that choice and pour those options away was frustrating, even knowing who these characters are.
Entertainment and media are making choices about that story every week. Those choices are worth paying attention to.
If you drink, here’s my ask: When someone at the table orders the NA beer, respect the order. There’s room to be curious about the drink without questioning the person’s reasons. You might even find something you’d enjoy yourself.
If you don’t drink, you may be as annoyed by this episode as I am. Your choice is legitimate, and you don’t owe anyone a defense of it.
The cat is out of the bag, and spiking a beer won’t put it back.
Timestamps from “The War on Alcohol”
- 1:02: Dee, “Well, people are pussies, what can we say?”
- 7:52: Mitch asks if they have nonalcoholic beer.
- 10:20: Mac asks if he wants water with no hydrogen.
- 11:48: Dee finishes a martini.
- 13:02: The intern says he can’t, citing low testosterone and being in a relationship. Dee says it’s about power and that she’s his boss. (Paraphrase, not a direct quote.)
- 13:43: Charlie, “I spiked this NA beer.”
- 18:42: The assault scene.
- 22:14: The gang pours out the NA beer.
- 22:18: Charlie, “Let’s go get a real beer.”
By Contributor: Tara Oporto
Tara Oporto is the author of “Temperates: The New Culture of Drinking Less” and founder of Temperates.
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