1056

Im new here, looking for some inspiration in the forums here. Im an active drunk who has been at it every day for the last 20 years. I was also a gluton and ate anything I wanted and lots of it. I balloned to 375 pounds and looked worse than a bloated Elvis and I have a drivers liscense photo to proove it.

2 years ago I started eating within my caloric range but had to compensate for the liquor I was drinking which pretty much tapped out my calories for the day. I changed my drinks from strong ale, bourbon and soda pop to vodka on the rocks, coors light and water.

I began eating only low calorie foods and vegetables, reading labels etc and right now only eating about 400 calories a day and tapping out the rest of the day with booze. My diet includes no excersice at all and Im thinking my eating habits are borderline a disorder (Im a middle aged male too!)

Ive lost 195 pounds since then and now at my ideal weight for my height. Right now I feel the best I have felt in my adult life, I can walk, breeth better, sleep better and I dont have a tire around my waste. However im still consuming about a gallon of vodka a week and 2 cases a beer. Im obviously not healthy for that reason in more ways than just my weight. Im very much a drunk.

Im considering cutting back on my drinking, been reading here and looking at The Big Book but I am afraid I will compensate for my first attempt in my life in getting sober/detox with food and consequently, gaining back my weight.

What has been your experience with weight and sobriety and/or alcoholism?

Cascabel

I gained weight when I quit drinking over 30 years ago. I developed a mega-sweet tooth and also used food as a substitute for alcohol. Once I felt comfortable with my sobriety I then went on a systematic, 1800 calorie per day diet. After I quit drinking, I gained about thirty pounds and actually felt good about it because I was no longer drinking. When I went on the diet, I lost the thirty pounds I had gained and another ten besides. I wound up weighing what I did when I got out of the Army Airborne. I still weigh about that although with age, the composition of the weight has changed a bit; I have more adipose tissue and less muscle. I am currently working on recovering from a 1 1/2 year slip and am again gaining a bit of weight; I'll deal with that when I feel confident that I have again quit for good . I personally think that being a drunk is far worse than being overweight.

Threshold

My last year of using, I was essentially anorexic. I'd been an overweight binge eater my entire adult life up until then. I got clean and have managed to maintain my normal weight. It takes a plan, just like my recovery from using.

It sounds like you may have an eating disorder (not as rare as you might suspect for either middle agers or men) I found that the same tactics I use to address my substance abuse, come in handy for my eating situation.

I also have a plan by buying the right sorts of foods, having a daily and weekly eating "outline" in place to help me stay on track.

Take a look at some books on carb addiction, there does seem to be a relationship between people who binge on carbs and alcoholism. It has to do with body and brain chemistry. Low glycemic carbs, eaten in the right proportions at the right times can actually help you control weight AND lessen cravings for booze.

topspin

1056,
Welcome to SR.

One thing's for sure, as tough as it is to quit drinking , the pay-off is huge. I was about 60 lbs overweight from years of nightly drinking. Being able to start an easy fitness program, on a bicycle initially, was one thing I could never manage while I was drinking.

Ended up losing that wt within 7 months. Any doubts you're having is most likely your actual addiction itself speaking to you. The same voice that comes up with a million different reasons TO drink, and another million excuses NOT to quit, or the possible inability to quit.

In AVRT, recognizing that voice, for what it is , helped (helps) me tremendously. It took all my ambivalance out of the equation; ..... There's a thread here in the Secular section that explains some about it.

It can work for deeply religious folks as well as any other non-theistic worldviews.

Congrats on all the discipline to lose that wt ! Becoming a lifelong non drinker is the best thing I've ever done . The mental clarity that comes is a true gift.

Finding out if you can cut down successfully ? ....only time can tell. I tried everything under the sun to cut down. In the end , I had to take a serious look at what my life could become with total abstinance. basically, just becoming a non-drinker.

The last few years , I realized my body began craving booze so badly, I just wasn't able to miss a day. Really a drag. Some folks are able to find help and address their addictions a little earlier, some later. Realizing it was just getting worse over the years

.....and getting to sheer desperation, really; brought me to a scary point. Terrifying,actually. As bad as it was, today, I consider those bad times a true gift.

My journey in life no longer includes the nightmare of alcohol addiction.
....yours' can too



A shocking (self)thought initially; since I was a lifelong heavy drinker. Anyway, hope you'll begin to see some positive long term changes soon.

Check out some more here. .....it's really saved my ass.



There's plenty of info here on SR to help

Hope to see you around.

2granddaughters

"What has been your experience with weight and sobriety and/or alcoholism? "

When you get sober, the rest of your fears and defects will fall into place as time goes on.
As the oldtimers say "First things first".
Don't let the fear of some imaginary "possible" condition keep you from recovery.

Good luck !!

BackToSquareOne

I can't fathom a 195 pound guy living on 400 calories a day, you burn more than that in normal metabolism. You claim the rest of your calories all come from alcohol but those are all empty calories, alcohol has 7 calories per gram and although your body will burn that for fuel it's devoid of nutrition. Your body will not store alcohol as glycogen so you would be existing in a glycogen depleted state. Not a very healthy way to live in my opinion.

LeeK

I never gained weight while drinking, I normally didn't eat much (I had a habit of putting liquor and beer before food). So I can't exactly relate to your situation. But I can say from experience that when your main source of food is alcohol, even if you're at a healthy weight, it is far from being healthy. Your muscles will diminish and your overall appearance becomes very distorted and sickly, and the inside will match the out. Even if your weight is 'healthy', you are by no means healthy if you're living off beer and a mere 400 calories of food a day.

dawnrunner

If you have the spiritual wherewithal to make the modifications you've made already, losing weight and changing your daily doses of alcohol to be less caloric, then why not stop drinking altogether?

What you are doing now is destructive to your body all around: the alcohol, the bad diet, and no exercise whatsoever which is surely connected to the other 2 things. You probably have little to no energy for working out, because you're essentially in starvation mode metabolism.

The sad story of what this is doing to your liver is something you should read about. In my life experience, two family members did something similar to what you are doing, and they felt pretty good until they suddenly went downhill into liver failure. It took about 2 years for them to be dead after much misery. In other words, the liver doesn't always raise flags and send you emails about how it is being hurt; it keeps soldiering on until it can't any more.

I hope you will go ahead and make the changes you know you need to make. Your body will be so thankful. Coming here is a great step.

greeneyedhope

My first time going through detox I gained 20lbs I finally got my appetite back (which was alot since I used to be a gym rat and I'm a 5'2" female) but once I stopped I lost the weight pretty quickly by getting back to the gym and eating clean again. You do need to eat more you need the nutrients. Congrats on wanting to cut back and it's ok if you gain some weight the important thing is that you get healthy. Good luck

DayTrader

There's the program of OA - Overeaters Anonymous - they took the AA Big Book and substituted "eating" for alcohol and low and behold, those same spiritual principles work just as well for them. I know several ladies in my homegroup who lost and have kept off a bunch of weight for 8 yrs for one and 20 yrs for the other through applying the BB to their eating problem (they also attend OA meetings from time to time).

The big difference is, obviously, one can't totally abstain from eating.....it MUST be done with "moderation." To me, that would make doing it under my own power EXTRA difficult. Luckily, the 12-Step programs don't have anything to do with me doing X or Y (or not doing X or Y) via my own willpower. If you can do it by your own will.....you don't need the 12-Step programs.

I'd warn you (or anyone) that thinking you can pick up the book and grab a couple neat ideas and keep the weight off (or get your drinking under control) by taking what you want from the book and not practicing the WHOLE deal was not the intention of book. It's not a "self-help" program. You may find, like I did, that taking bits and pieces here and there as you see fit won't be much of a help for long and won't contain any "solution."

Then again, maybe you're in a position where you don't need the whole deal to stop drinking. Maybe you haven't crossed that invisible line into alcoholism and you can reign it in on your own. I'd suggest you try to be as honest with yourself about how it's going and make an objective educated decision about whether you can get well, stay well, and do it happily on parts of the program or whether you may just need the whole enchilada. (pun intended.....lol)

Either way.....there's some damn good stuff in the Big Book - there's a reason it's been around as long as it has.

1056

Ive had a family member say the same exact thing But I dont have " the spiritual wherewithal" or discipline neccessary to do this. I have chosen liquor over nutrition as sick as this sounds.

The cruelest part about it all, I feel the best physically I have ever felt despite my sickness.

Thanks for all your responses, I have lots to consider.

ForeverDecember

My experience: I was a beer drinker and found that I craved sugar heaps after quitting. I was never a sweet tooth in the past, but I found I was munching through chocolates and all sorts. I didn't gain weight, because the number of calories from alcohol had gone, but I maintained at my obese weight (I gained almost 40kgs from drinking). I let myself eat what my body wanted at the start of quitting, then after about a month or so I started to behave better. been dieting this last month strictly, and have lost 10kgs in the 3 months since quitting drinking all up.

I find that my will power is much stronger when it comes to binging on greasy food now that I don't have a hangover.

north

I quit drinking almost three years ago and within a very short period of time (a month or two), I permanently dropped about twenty pounds of fat. I wasn't fat to begin with but I was beginning to push the envelope - now I am in superb fighting condition.

The kicker was that it was not the empty calories in the alcohol alone - and it could never have been as I never drank everyday etc. It was all the negative effects (lowered metabolism) and bad habits (eating, lack of exercise) that came with drinking - which adds one more reason why I would not consider that question "well, what about moderate drinking?".

When I was drinking, I also had elevated liver enzymes typical of an alcoholic fatty liver. Plus elevated cholesterol levels. However those dropped into the normal zone almost immediately after quitting the booze too (cholesterol is still slightly high).

Last year, I was surprised by slightly elevated trigylceride levels in my latest blood tests and I probably gained 3-5 pounds. I realized the culprit was not just snacking on too many carbs but specifically too many carbs with fructose (including high fructose corn syrup) which metabolizes very much like ethanol (without the 'kick' or 'high' we get). As soon as I cut that stuff out (eg. I was snacking on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from Halloween), business as usual.

And maybe that was my one lesson learnt from 2011 -- that ethanol C2 H5 OH is very similar to fructose C6 H12 O6 - especially when it comes to being metabolized by the liver.

CarolD

Welcome...glad to know you are heading into a healthier future..
Please dont stop making improvements.

californiaguy

I'm on day 5 and I already notice the bloating going down, my wife actually pointed it out to me which made me fell good about what I am doing. Of course, I drank beer like a fish, so I eliminated at least 1500 extra empty calories per day. Weight loss or weight gain, you stop drinking and you will become a healthier person overall! Alcohol is poison, food is food. Best wishes to you