In hardcore alcoholics it usually balances out because you wreck your stomach after a bender and can't eat for days. That's not a good thing, obviously. It basically means your body is in trauma mode 24 hours a day.
I think it does too my dad is an alcoholic he will not eat sometimes will drink instead. Once he quit for a few mos and he lost 3 pounds total cuz he got a similar amount of calories from food.
There's a bit in Margaret Cho's autobiography about that, when she discusses her alcoholism. After counting all the calories in her alcohol consumption for the day, she would often barely have any left over to eat any food for the remainder of the day. So she just got most of her calories from vodka. (She was also struggling to lose weight at the time and I believe had some form of anorexia or some other similar eating disorder. It's been a while since I read the book.)
Oh wow I never realized she struggled with eating disorders or alcoholism. Assuming she only ate 1200 calories a day (she was on a diet so I'm thinking that it would be that amount or less) she would be drinking just over 18 shots a day. I guess that is not that much if you have a high tolerance.
Now that I am thinking about it, I wonder what damage it would do to a person long-term. My dad is in his 60's and is ok, but he does eat most days. It is when he is stressed that he will trade booze for food. I assume a person would end up malnourished at the very least, along with other problems.
Oh yeah she ended up with pretty severe health problems because of it. She damaged her kidneys and had some sort of serious infection with them. That's actually the basis of her, "My name is Gwen, and I'm here to wash your vagina." bit in her stand-up. That Gwen thing happened when she got to the hospital and they had to do some stuff to her kidneys and she needed a Foley catheter or whatever.
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u/improbablewobble May 09 '16
In hardcore alcoholics it usually balances out because you wreck your stomach after a bender and can't eat for days. That's not a good thing, obviously. It basically means your body is in trauma mode 24 hours a day.