Sobriety and… SUGAR CRAVINGS!?

Life in Recovery
#1

So @Gmac126 made a post about 100 Days Sober- My Review in which they mention having sugar cravings… a lovely post by the way, y’all should check it out.

Anyways I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!!!

I have a sweet tooth to begin with so it’s not uncommon for me to want a piece of chocolate or something as dessert after a meal, or any time really :joy: but I noticed lately that my cravings are INTENSE and all the time!!! And I’m weak when it comes to sweets :sob: I even started drinking soda more often, which is really rare for me to do. I quit drinking soda in 2012 and would only drink it a couple of times a year after that.

I’m wondering who else has experienced these extreme sugar cravings, and did you do anything to help curb them at all? It’s really hard for me to keep to my healthy eating habits lately and I’m worried that I’ll just fuel my sugar addiction in lieu of my alcohol addiction. For real, it’s getting to the point where if it’s not sweet, I don’t even want it. Because of this (and a recent heat wave), I’ve been skipping meals.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :pleading_face:

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#2

I don’t necessarily have advice, but I will agree that my sweet tooth seems to have a louder voice now that I’m not drinking!

I personally try to find things that curb the craving but aren’t “terrible” for me. (Ei chocolate sunbutter on a banana vs a cupcake) it helps me/my brain feel like I’m eating sugar but it’s waaaay less

I did decide that my sober treat each milestone i hit would be a dessert of my choice. Maybe that’s incentive? Idk … all of our brains work so differently!

If you crack the code lemme know :crazy_face::sweat_smile:

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#3

Aw thank you for the kind mention! But YESSS the sugar cravings were insane for me. My bestie got me a mini cake for hitting 30 days and I ate it all in one setting on my lunch break :upside_down_face: i stopped at the store atleast once a week to get my fave candy whenever I was stressed or stopped to get a milkshake haha weirdly it helped me get through! Now im not craving it as much, i did start drinking a low calorie energy drink called Alani Nu that has been a treat for me :slight_smile:

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#4

I feel that. I bought two boxes of brownies last week and they’re both gone :innocent: i have been drinking more seltzer water stuff in order to curb cravings for soda and alcohol, which has been helping in the fizzy beverage department but I’m having a hard time finding replacements for the baked goods lol

A milkshake sounds sooooo good right now!

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#5

It’s very common in both addicts and alcoholics. Here is an interesting article I read about it.

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#6

Yeah thats how I feel about the Alani Nu! The fizziness and fruity flavor makes me feel like im drinking a boozy seltzer haha yess cookies and cream milkshake or just plain vanilla was my go-to :slight_smile:

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#7

I noticed every time I dry out, I end up eating peanut butter, fruit cocktail, and lately I’ve been getting at least a pint of ice cream every day. A few years ago I came up with a theory. I went to the hospital (voluntarily) for possible alcohol poisoning. My bloodwork showed an excess of Candida Glabrata, a yeast normally present in small amounts in the digestive tract.
The theory I came up with is: what if we crave sugar because that yeast is converting it to alcohol and feeding it into our bloodstream? Unfortunately, I never dived really deep into this because I started drinking again shortly after leaving the hospital. :roll_eyes:
Although, I did find one case of a woman who was excreting alcohol in her urine.

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#8

Totally common and normal! In early days I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted if I wasn’t drinking. For me, since I don’t usually have much of a sweet tooth at all, the craving seemed to wane on its own. I did start to feel bloated and uncomfortable with all the sugar I consumed (I also went to town on fried foods) so I started switching to natural sources of sugar. Fruit with peanut butter or even Nutella mmmmm! Fruit smoothies with Greek yogurt. Started measuring/metering my candy intake because I could put away some mini sized candy bars for real :open_mouth:. That helped me feel satisfied without the bloat and binge behavior.

Good luck!

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#9

@SassyBoomer thank you for sharing! I’ll have to read that after work today

@DryIn785 :scream::scream::scream: I wonder if that’s really the case! Sounds almost like body snatchers :joy::joy: the yeast is taking over and making me eat sugar just so it can turn it into alcohol. I was a big beer drinker so either way I can see it playing a huge role in the cravings.

@RosaCanDo i am definitely trying to get back to more natural forms of sugar! I let it go for a while, because I believe that when you experience cravings your body is lacking whatever that food has. (I don’t take this approach with alcohol lmao screw those cravings) so anyways I ate whatever I was craving. But now it’s time to pull back and get back into my usual diet.

Thanks everyone for the advice! I really appreciate it :two_hearts:

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#10

I replaced my alcohol abuse with many things, first my other addictions got even worse. (Gaming & PMO) Then I started drinking alot of energydrinks and smoking. It’s very common to try and find the next thing to fulfill that emptiness now you’ve cut alcohol out. Trying to get that same kick another way. It took me about 20 times of telling others about my ways to cope, and telling myself to stop about another 100 times before I actually stopped buying energy/cigarettes/unhealthy snacks. I’m not sure what to tell you but you’re definitely not alone in this.

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#11

I definitely binge eat and crave sugar so much more now since I stopped drinking. My big treat is ice cream! I also drink a lot of club soda mixed with juice to keep myself from drinking soda all the time because I crave that as well. I try to just let myself eat what makes me happy when I’m hungry. After all, I’m not drinking! :blush:

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#12

I can totally see that happening in my life, too. My screen time lately has been out of control. Even last night I went to bed with an ocular migraine and woke up with it too! I also smoke, but I actually started smoking before I started drinking a whole lot. Either way, the two addictions are definitely correlated. Something I found interesting was when I quit drinking I saw that my smoking went down too. Mostly because I would crave a cig after a drink or two, and at bars people go out for smoke breaks like every other drink or more. Now that I’ve removed myself from that situation, the amount of times I smoke has reduced drastically. I can see myself quitting smoking as well before the end of the year.

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#13

Me too! I bought an ice cream maker last month and having a blast coming up with different flavor combinations. It’s really exciting because I can make ice cream out of fruit! I love ice cream so much :sob: now I don’t have to feel so bad about eating an entire pint of it 🥲 and I totally agree with you on the ‘eat what makes you happy’ mantra. Soul food I like to call it :heart_eyes:

#14

Took some time to read the article! Thank you again for sharing it, it really took some of the mystery out of it and gave some great advice. I’m glad they touched on the science of sugar cravings during sobriety and referred to studies as their evidence. An interesting read for sure!

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#15

Sugar addiction is real wow I definitely have a sugar addiction. Harder to quit then oxy/heroin and fentanyl put to together! So that should tell you just how damn addicting sugar really is. I think I know how it is for alcohols walking down the alcohol isle at the store because that’s how I am in the ice cream isle. I know it sounds funny and like a stupid joke but I could seriously kill myself with sugar. I crave it and have to resist walking down the ice cream isle because I will start looking at all the different flavors and start drooling how bad I want it.

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#16

It’s a serious problem! Honestly I believe 90% of Americans have a sugar addiction. When I was in high school, they had (still do) vending machines with soda and by 2nd period some of those kids would be on their 3rd or 4th Mountain Dew :skull_and_crossbones::skull_and_crossbones: By 9/10 in the morning!!! It’s crazy.

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#17

Yeah same here. We had a candy table to buy all candy and from 1st to 3rd period you could buy these hot warm baked Otis spunkmeyer cookie’s I ate allota junk as a teen and early 20s but definitely making up for it now. Been drinking my coffee black for 2 years now and sugar/creme in my coffee is absolutely disgusting! I still do eat sugar but I use to be real bad especially when I was dating my ex gf she got food stamps and we would just ball out at tht grocery store getting all junk lol I turned her into a sugar addict.