EP 154: Reader Question - Why am I having sugar cravings during a break from alcohol? Annie Grace answers

This Naked Mind Podcast

Annie Grace

Mental Health, Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is it odd to miss something we never really had? When sugar isn’t something that we really had a lot of BEFORE quitting alcohol, then why the insane craving AFTER quitting? Annie leads us to an understanding of the physiological reason we actually do experience that need for something sweet.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,
0:16.0	pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.
0:20.2	This is Annie Grace. I'm the author of this naked mind and I'm answering
0:31.4	Reader's questions. I have a great question from Carly. She says, Hi Annie, I'm on day 24
0:37.2	being alcohol free and I'm having insane sugar cravings since quitting. I've never touched
0:42.6	the stuff sugar apart from mixers and alcohol when I drink and I've never even liked sweet
0:47.9	things but now I'm worried this might be replacing my previous alcohol addiction. Could you
0:52.2	please do a video on this or give me some advice? Carly and everybody who's having sugar cravings,
0:58.6	this is something that absolutely can happen and so I wanted to look into the science because
1:03.7	it always helps us to understand why this can happen. There's a couple of reasons this can happen.
1:09.3	Of course most alcoholic drinks contain more than alcohol. In fact, they contain quite a bit of
1:14.2	sugar. There's actually a common myth that alcohol itself is sugar that came from the fact that
1:19.3	alcohol can be metabolized very quickly in the body and stored as fat very quickly. So it,
1:25.7	I think that's where that originated but if you look at like the nutritional label of a bottle of
1:29.8	vodka, there's no sugar in alcohol but everything we add to the alcohol obviously has lots of sugar.
1:35.4	So your brain is accustomed to the sugar rush a little bit and that will create an intense
1:39.8	craving for sugar. Now Carly, I don't think this is true in your case. I think you probably
1:43.8	haven't had a lot of sugar in your drinks. You're probably drinking things that didn't have a
1:47.0	lot of sugar but here's the other reason that alcohol creates such intense sugar cravings and that's
1:53.0	because of the dopamine response in the brain. So when the brain perceives something as important
1:59.0	to survival, it produces a chemical response called dopamine and dopamine is also called the
2:04.5	learning molecule because it's signaled when the brain wants us to repeat a behavior or learn.
	...

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