Search the Community

The article was about people with gastric bypass being able to absorb alcohol quicker so therefore could drink a lot more , lpbands should not affect alcohol consumption other than all those calories u are consuming. The article was specifically to do with gastric bypass people who have more tendency to become alcoholics because of the absorbtion differences .

I too was wondering the same thing? Drinking as in swallowing or drinking as in alcohol? I had roux ny done in 2000 and was just banded this past May 16th....my pouch, after all these years stretched and so lap band was the only thing offered to help this ...I am doing well so far as I was good most of the time on my eating habits with the bypass..it was just one of those things, however, nothing in a drinking matter afflicted me...I like to have a glass of wine or maybe two but I don't see the correlation between bariatrics and alcoholism?

What my doctor told me was, very often people trade addictions. So after WLS, some patients will trade their food addiction for alcoholism or drug abuse. He said this one of the reasons he tells his WLS patients to avoid alcohol, not only because it's empty calories but because of the increase risk of addiction.

It was for alcohol abuse

Did the article give specifics about the type of "drinking problem" the study was referring to? I would be very interested to know, if it referred to simply drinking fluids, or were they were referring to developing tendencies towards abusing alcoholic beverages. I'd find it difficult to believe that bariatric surgery of any type would be a contributing factor to substance abuse...though other behavioral issues might be more understandable. If an individual has an addiction, such as to food, without the proper treatment with a therapist or psychologist, it is fairly common to substitute one addiction for another.

OK, in February of 2011 I said I would get my ass back in gear. I had lost over 100 Pounds since getting my band and was doing great. Sadly I got comfortable. That means I learned things like: Sauces make things easier to eat Ice cream is easy to eat Alcohol is easy to drink Saving your fat guy clothes as you lose weight makes gaining weight back easier as you don't have to go outside naked So, after 18 months I bounced back up by about 30 pounds. Not horrific by my standards of weight loss but still pissed me off. I was still down net 70 but the direction had reversed. I had to do something. I schedule a check up and possible fill. I needed to do that. I had become too comfortable with my ability to cheat the tool. I need the restriction. I got a personal trainer and committed myself to it. I am now 6 weeks in. I have lost about 24 net pounds but need to track inches (stop it!) as I know that the workouts are changing my body more than the scale is reflecting. I am, for the first time in my life, planning my life around my workouts. I will drop a note when I have something really cool to report but for right now I am stoked about that exercise change. The diet side will lead to the weight loss most directly but the exercise will start to compound it. For those interested, I work out with a trainer on Monday and Wednesday for 1:15 minutes. We do a combination of cardio, weights and circuit training with a pretty significant focus on core. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I do his Bootcamp which is: Tuesday: Sparticus Circuit. 10 exercises. 45 sec to 1 min on then move. Three sets followed by an ad circuit. Thursday: Sand day. Conditioning, sprinting and footwork all in a sand pit. Wrap with abdominal circuit and arms (Push Ups and Dips) Saturday: Mixed bag. This day can be running, ladder drills, circuits. It really depends on the weather. All the exercises can be modified for different levels of ability. It has been truly amazing to start to MISS workouts and try and plan work and vacation around them. If you can contact someone locally and work out a plan to start you really should. It took about 3 weeks for me to convert over to wanting to do it instead of having to but now that I have, I don't really want to stop. Anyway, wanted to get back into the swing of writing. Hope you are all well.

Hi CantBelieve_IdidIit! Dont really know where to start, but I was always a big kid. Used to play rugby and was a school swimmer (high school) was always big and muscular, till I went to the Army. I had an operation on both my feet, due to injury, thus unable to walk for almost 8 mths in 2003. Since den I've just been eating and eating and eating. No exercise.... loads of alcohol and serious binge eating especially at night after 11pm. I've put on heaps of weight and decided to have a VST this year because I felt I couldnt keep to dieting and exercise. And the VST went well on the 1st May 2012. Since then I've lost alot of weight and am continuing to lose even more. I've noticed my shoulders getting smaller... kinda like an "A" body shape, and decided to head to the gym last night, hoping to bulk up my shoulders before even more weight loss occurs.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/weight-loss-surgery-increasing-alcoholism-risk-16602025

I've had wine 2 or three times after maybe ....the three month mark? All three times it was delicious, but the next day, I swelled up like a butterball turkey and felt like the poo. I have determined that it is not worth the week and a half of playing catch up with my weight to even bother dabbling in it. And YES, it hit my senses right away and pretty hard! I didn't even have that much. Maybe 4 oz the third time. (less the other two times) BLEH. I'm done with alcohol.

I believe Carnie drank those 10 drinks spread out over an entire day but she felt she had a serious problem with alcohol. (I think her Dad had a problem with alcohol & drugs.) My doctor says some people transfer addictions to sex, alcohol, shopping & even working out. I enjoy working out a lot & the more weight I lose, the greater the pull at the gym is. So, I see now that I could easily become addicted to one thing or another. Lol @ choosing sex addiction. Sign me up too!!

Well alcoholism is a disease that is usually genetic. Wasn't Carnie Wilson's dad Brian Wilson? Doesn't he have a history of excessive drinking? Or was it just drug use? I can't remember.... From what I remember though on Carnie, they had a 'new' show coming out on Lifetime or something like that and she was having another surgery because after her divorce, she fell apart. IDK what surgery she was having, but ... yeah we can all transfer our addiciton to something else regardless if 85% of our stomach is gone. Our drug of choice may not be alcohol... could be sex, shopping, online gaming... but the addict predisposition, I believe, rests in all of us. For so long, our drug of choice was food. But just like 2bsmallagain states, she's transferred her addiction over to something constructive - cooking healthy for her family. Kudos to those of us that can do that, kudos to those of us that are trying to work on it and kudos to those who at least recognize the problems we might still have whether that be food or something else.

I really use to like a glass of red wine with a good meal maybe twice a week. Post sleeve I find that if I dont eat before I even take the tiniest little sip of wine it hits me right between the eyes for a few minutes and then I am dog tired. I tried diluting the wine (stupid to spoil good wine like that IMO) it still does the same. When I have had the meal first and then take a sip it doesnt do the same and I can at least take a sip or 2 before I start feeling tired. I have given it up as a bad job and have quit trying to drink wine at all. I can understand how people can get dependant on alcohol post surgery but you dont need 10 of anything,I would pass out looooong before finishing number 2. People that needs a crutch will find a new one post surgery,being it biting nails,drinking,smoking whatever.

I think you would have to had a prior problem with alcohol or on your way there before surgery. I have drank some in my life but I am not wanting to transfer my food addiction to alcohol. I have transferred it to cooking new high protein healthier dishes for me and my family. I am having a blast looking up recipes tweaking them and cooking for my family. I also am excited about working out where that was never a thing I was excited about before. I think it is a conscious choice where to transfer your unspent energy from not being able to eat like you could before.

I think most addicts will trade one addiction for another. I have two (well three) examples. The first, a friend of mine moved to San Diego and got addicted to snorting Crystal Meth. When she came back to the east coast, she wasn't able to access it as easily as she did when she lived out west (it was so bad she was fedexing money to her dealer and of course no drugs would come back) so she started drinking a lot. It was so bad, her husband almost put her into rehab for alcoholism. Another friend of mine was addicted to cocaine, had to give it up because it was costing her her life and her family (her daughter was taken away from her by her ex-husband) she cleaned up her act and then got addicted to smoking angel dust, which she is still doing to this day. I think if someone has an innate addictive personality you do end up "switching" for me (the third example) the itch will always be there to eat crappy food, but I feel like my new addiction now is buying clothes. I'm an online shopping fool! It's such a great rush, but after you feel bad. The other day i went to Victoria's Secret was fitted for bras and bought about $500 worth, the minute I left the mall I thought to myself "wtf I'm just going to have to get new ones in six months!" but then the other side of me goes "hey it's $500 you can't take that money with you when you're dead"

While some addicts trade one addiction for another, it is not true in all cases. It is likely that people who have had WLS are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol. I used to abuse alcohol as well as food prior to gastric band. Now I have had to reduce my alcohol intake as well as food and I'm managing fine with laying off the drinks. I still do want a glass of wine now and then, but I don't drink a bottle of wine every night - thank God!

Carnie Wilson said she was drinking up to 10 mimosas a day. That's what she told Oprah. And then they were showing all the videos from bloggers talking about becoming alcoholics.

It's mostly an RnY thing, in terms of physical differences that cause alcohol to hit your system faster and be processed differently, which wouldn't happen with VSG. That said, transfer addictions (ie, psychological addictions transferring from food to shopping, drinking, etc.) are still a risk of course.

Did anyone else watch nightline last night, 6-18-12? It was "Weigh Less, Drink More?" about transferring your food addiction to alcohol. They talk about Carnie Wilson & Beth Sheldon-Badore, AKA: Melting Mama of Bariatric Bad Girls Club. I'm only 1 month out, so I haven't had alcohol yet. Does it really affect you quicker & sober up quickly? What do y'all think about this phenomenon? Have you experienced it? I've never had a problem with alcohol, so it makes me nervous to drink anything.

Hi Steven, and welcome to VST. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I wish people understood more just how difficult it is to lose weight. Smokers can quit smoking, alcoholics can quit drinking, but we cannot quit eating. We have to eat to live, so in my opinion, we have one of the most difficult of addictions to conquer. I wish you much success with your surgery and look forward to following your progress.

Hello everyone my name is Steven and I am 52 originally from NY and now living here in Northern Virginia since 2001. My weight-loss journey is similar to many of yours as well. In my youth I was "Stocky" and I have progressed to obese by definition though I hide much of my weight and people never guess I am over 200 pounds. Like most here I have tried with limited success every type of diet and fad, skipped over a few like the growth hormone and starvation diet. Slim Fast for sure, Weight Watchers, Nutri System (several times) and always stayed with it for a short while, once I lost 26 pounds and kept it off about a year and a half. In the past 11 years I have gained just shy of fifty pounds and have every co-morbidity you can have although I am only pre-diabetic but just a matter of time before I have that too. In 2008 I went for a consultation with a bariatric surgeon to discuss the latest in techniques which at the time was the band. I didn't commit since I would had to jump through many hoops to get the band. Back then I didn't hear too much bad about the band. Now I hear plenty which leads me to the LGS procedure. I went for a consult with Dr. Denis Halmi of the Bluepoint surgical group here in Northern VA where I reside. We discussed the sleeve and the changes to my insurance which now has very few restrictions and hoops to jump through. No longer need a medically supervised diet for six months. Just some nutrition counseling, tests to ensure your healthy enough for the surgery and a psych eval to make sure you know what you are getting into. My surgery group required 2 weeks of opti-fast pre-surgery which I understand is to shrink the liver but that is usually for folks with BMI greater than 40 and I am 37. My surgery date was June 12, 2012 or more commonly known as my re-birth! I really felt like somewhat of a failure for not being able to manage my weight non-surgically but at the same time I feel like who am I kidding? I obviously can't/wont do it myself and I am slowly dying albeit not that slowly. I come from a long line of fat people with all the diseases of obesity minus heart trouble. I NEEDED THIS PROCEDURE! Every time someone tries to tell me I don't need that surgery, I can do this on my own, I politely ask them, if you were chemically dependent or an alcoholic (Which many of the people I know are either alcoholic or just about to become one) and you were given an opportunity to have a relatively simple procedure to cure you of your illness, would you do it? The answer is invariably, yes. I say that I am addicted to food and I needed this to save my life. Shuts em up every time! If you want to read a real easy to read and understand book about the gastric sleeve before, during and after surgery, I highly recommend the book "Successful Weight Loss with the Gastric Sleeve" It is written by Guillermo Alvarez the Doctor from Mexico. Great information. Thanks for reading about me! Steven

I love the Oh Yeah, and I absolutely love Power Crunch. Both are the lowest carb I have found and taste really good. I can't have sugar alcohol because it gives me extreme gas and those have no sugar alcohol. Most of the ones that taste good have a lot of sugar alcohol.

Or they tell you about people who die. Now, Nightline just ran a segment on WLS makes people more likely to be alcoholic. When my friend started in on me today, I just told her to go ahead and let her do it, knowing this is going to happen. I reminded her that I need to do this to regain my health. She then went on to talk about her struggles with weight, being on a fast and being short of breath when walking. Great. It just seems to be part of the territory.

I do, but it's not because I'm replacing a food addiction with an alcohol addiction (food addiction is definitely still there!). It's because of a few reasons - now I live alone & a couple of nights a week I like to have some wine; sometimes if I've been having a stuck day I find it helps ease my band a bit. Those are the main ones. I do think I feel the effects a bit sooner than before, but probably only because I've probably been stuck most of the day so haven't eaten much & want to be able to eat at dinner (granted, it can lead to over-eating sadly).

the article specifically talks about how it is not just changing of addictions (although my therapist has mentioned this to me before as a word of caution towards my drinking and other "addictive" habits). It says that it is due to alcohol processing in bypass patients that isn't the same in lapbanders since we still have our whole stomach. however as banders, our decreased food intake does allow alcohol to be more potent in the blood stream and thus have more effects on us than pre-surgery. i would suggest trying medatation when you feel like drinking alone. i know it sounds corny but sometimes you just need to have some reflecitve time to clear your head instead of using alcohol to do it. there are lots of guided tapes and i bet you could find something on youtube to help you medatate. i usually meditate about exercise. i know it is dumb but actually it has been said it helps you release endorphins. maybe those endorphins will be the "bump" you need to get past the alcohol craving. even if you can just stop yourself from drinking a couple times a week you are on a better track. i have lots of trouble with using alcohol and food as a crutch. if you find something else that works please share!!

Not just alcoholism, but drugs and other addictions as well. The reason is people are simply trading addictions. They can no longer feed their food addiction so they turn to booze or drugs instead.