Forgive me if this subject has been discussed too much, but I've just joined (see me in the Introduction forum). As we know, when we eat too many carbs, often is sets off a chain reaction of wanting more and more carbs. Some turn to cookies or other sweets. My sweet of choice is all too often bourbon . No, my life hasn't been consumed by alcoholism, because I can control this urge with low carbing and suppliments like amino acids. I'm just interested in chatting with people for whom alcohol is a problem that comes with high insulin outputs resulting from carbs.

Hi! Interesting topic. People with alcohol problems often choose a treatment plan that includes a diet controlling - guess what? - carbohydrates. I think Susan Powter's plan is an example. Remember her? The blonde, buzz-haired, noisey, mouthy low-fat chick? She was an alcoholic and later wrote a diet book for recovering alcoholics.

I think my alcohol "cravings" (and they're purely emotional cravings, not physical) arise from what I associate with drinking: being out with my honey, chit-chatting over beer and wings. Being with friends that I don't get to see often, except at the bar. Dancing - I love dancing at clubs.

When I stopped drinking which seems like eons ago, guess what happened? I turned into an out-and-out sugar junkie. I even remember commenting that I had developed a taste for sweets that had left me while I was drinking. Both over stimulate the same chemicals in the brain.

Now I'm a recovering sugar addict who has no interest in drinking, but still have a morbid interest in sweets. This too shall pass.

An interesting read is Potatoes not Prozac by Kathleen Desmaisons. She goes into the alcohol-sugar connection and has a dietary plan to aid in the process of recovery.

Karen

Hmm, I'm going to have to read that book. I've seen it mentioned a few times. I've never been much into alcohol, but the last time I indulged in a carb-fest (Stouffers Mac n Chz), it felt so much like my epidural that it was kinda spooky. Also reminded me of the vicodin/gas combo I had at the oral surgeon. I've read about the ol' serotonin connection courtesy of Deb Waterhouse (Why Women Need Chocolate), and though I'm not normally a depressive type, I've been there enough to recognize it when it hits.

My MIL has given up drinking, smoking and sugar and says that sugar/caffiene is by far the hardest of the lot.

Food, as they say, for thought.

Friday

Joan Mathews Larson's book Seven Weeks to Sobriety has really helped me understand and deal with this issue. She rights about several types of alcohol abuse, and ties one category to hypoglycemia and sugar/carb binges. She recomends supliments like amino acids and L-glutamine (much of the same stuff that Atkins recomends). Like so many of us, I've been successful low carbing, and when I do (and take the suppliments), I have absolutely no alcohol cravings. When I lie to myself and think that I can go several days eating too many carbs, then the cravings (and weight) come back.

BTW, it is day 5 of induction, and things are good so far. Also day 6 of no alcohol. I think I felt a bit more room in my clothes this morning!

Hi --

So you're a low carber who drinks bourbon?! That's like saying you are a low carber who eats bowls of spaghetti with garlic bread sides!!!

But seriously, I gave up drinking before I had even heard of the low carb WOL, and I think former experience informed the latter. That is, I can more easily look past that bowl of popcorn having already learned to look past that bottle of bourbon.

When I drank all I wanted to do was to drink more -- was this to get more drunk or was it part of the insulin response? I have no idea, but I'll tell you this: when I stopped coming home and having glasses of bourbon I took up drinking cranberry juice (read: corn syrup juice with cranberry coloring and flavoring). So I gave up one carb-fest to indulge in another!

I'll tell you another thing: I'd never have been able to give up carbs if I were still drinking. I think going low carb almost demands being dry -- or to put it another way, abstinence from alcohol is an important part of the larger low carb WOL (way of living).

Just my tuppence --

Add to all of this that half a glass of wine now makes my head spin and a whole glass makes me stagger and alcohol just sort of becomes a very rare indulgence it at all on this WOL. I was never a major drinker, but 'cheap date' is putting it mildly now.

Cheers,

Friday

Did she do it in the order above? I think if you've recovered from one addiction and go on to recover from the next, the next battle becomes the hardest.

With me it's nicotine: the final frontier! I don't understand why there's no detox centers for nicotine. I wanted to check into the Betty Ford the last time I quit.

Karen

Yup, it was in the order above. She and her two sibs went through most if it together. Traded alcohol for cigarettes, cigarettes for sugar and *massive* amounts of diet Pepsi/Coke. She's pretty whole grains/whole foods now and is doing a lot better. She still likes coffee, though.

The bad thing about drinking is after I have a few I tend to "somehow forget" that I am trying to lose weight. My Atkins diet would suddenly become, Who the hell is Atkins? Therefore, I limit myself to a maximum of 2 drinks for the times that I do decide to drink. So far, I've only had a total of 2 drinks since I started lowcarbing.
asugar