Can Addiction Cause Weight Loss?
Question by Mad Hatter ☪: Can addiction cause weight loss?
For a while now, I have been drinking a lot of alcohol, to the point where I get serious withdrawal symptoms when I don’t drink any alcohol. Just this month, I noticed that I lost a lot of weight. I pretty much look like I have anorexia. I haven’t been doing any dieting or anything to get me to lose weight. Could this be due to my addiction?
Best answer:
Answer by Koolkat
Of course it can.
While you are getting enough calories from the alcohol, you don’t feel hungry so you don’t eat as well as you should, or as much. So you end up with malnutrition. Alcohol is also a diuretic, so you pee out what little vitamins you are eating. So you end up losing muscle, and reduce the functioning of your other organs, like liver, kidney and hormone-producing glands.
You might also have early liver disease as well.
You can get withdrawal symptoms from heavy drinking, without being a full alcoholic, because it is almost your only nutrient. Or you may have slipped over into being truly alcoholic, which is when the chemicals in the brain have changed to make you need it, even if your nutrition is otherwise well supplied.
You know it is making you sick. Low weight and poor nutrition make you an easy target for any disease that comes along.
Deciding to stop drinking is a big step, but might be the only thing that will keep you healthy.
As a first step, NEVER binge drink. Just sip a little when the withdrawal symptoms start, just enough to keep them at bay, treating it as medicine.
That leaves you time, money and stomach space to EAT FOOD. Get a good brand of hi-stress multi-vitamin formula, and take the recommended dose TWICE a day. Make yourself eat 3 meals a day (4 is better) each one containing PROTEIN (meat, fish, eggs, cheese, milk) some vegetables and/or fruit (bananas, avocadoes are better than citrus) and some grains (bread or pasta, wholemeal preferred).
Also get a body-builder’s protein supplement drink and have two small glasses of that a day. Do some exercise (walking or swimming would do) so the proteins build up into muscle again.
As you start to eat better, you will feel better, and be able to withstand the withdrawal a lot better. But remember, just SIP enough to take the edge off it.
Long-term, you should see a doctor, to check out if you have any associated disease, and for help with cutting out the alcohol.
If you are medically cleared, find the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous and GO. You can do that even WITHOUT deciding to never touch another drop….just go to learn tricks for cutting down, and how to eat and manage the rest of your life better.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!