I was consuming thousands of empty calories. Then bar food then dinner. Then cook bacon at midnight. I was a selfish b stard. Only when I was able to get a few weeks sober did I start to lose that puffy face. Then after awhile the pounds started to fall.

I will say that in early sobriety I would indulge in a coke it chocolate shake. They saved me in tough times.
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Congrats on your adventure. The main thing I found was self respect, and with that is a desire to eat better. It gets better!

1is2many

I agree 1is...but for the next few days my figure is the least of my worries...if I find pleasure in junk food for a week I'll be good.

I am only 7 days sober, but I can already see a change in my face, and the way my rings fit. Every day I am looking for the motivating factors in this battle, and that certainly doesn't hurt! I also did the financial math...I could have made a nice deposit into my children's college fund, made a substantial donation to my favorite charity, completed a sweet home improvement, or taken a lovely family vacation on the money I have wasted on alcohol.

At the beginning I was talking to an old timer about the cokes and shakes I was downing. He said, we're saving your life here, not your as... I got such a chuckle out of that.

1-2

I battle with food addiction and struggled with that before I ever became an alcoholic. I always ate and drank.....chips, pizza, always unhealthy. So adding on the even more empty calories from drinking up to 12 beers? I know for me I don't know if I can do both at once. I might be able too. It's crazy how many calories we drink with booze.

I'm hoping I lose some weight too.... I have gained 25 lbs in about 2 years... mainly booze and then the junk that followed. Day 10... still going strong.

The eating correctly will come...Enjoy yourself.
Anything is better than consuming alcohol for you at this point.

I wonder though...
I keep reading about strong connections between sugar cravings and alcohol cravings. I can attest to this: I gave up sugar in all it's forms for 3 weeks before quitting the hootch.
Yesterday I had a maddening urge to drink, but instead indulged in a DQ Buster Bar - and lo & behold, drink craving was dashed.
The Buster Bar clocked in at slightly more than my normal 3 to 1 dirty martini. I'm in no way suggesting to drink would be better than to eat junk, but I wonder how strong the sugar/alcohol connection is?
Back on point though - I've been having a hard time eating enough healthy calories to make it to 1200 a day. Before quitting, I was easily socking away 2000 cals in wine, spirits and healthy food. Not to mention crashing on the couch with no motivation to exercise. And when I did go on diets, which was pretty much all the time... the food calories were first to be eliminated, no doubt!

i totally agree with Missy and 1-2. Much better to have a sweet tooth or junk food than put alchohol in your body. There is definitely an alcohol/ sugar connection. I heard that Gaba can help with that. It helps to restore neurotransmitter activity in your brain that was damaged by alcohol. I used it for awhile and it really helped. Just seemed to run out of money to buy it. and thus the choclate n ice cream came back into my life!

I strongly things there in a suger /alcoholic/ relationship. I was craving milk at night as a kid. INEEDED to go in the fridge and drink. Like 3-4 times a night. Then at school I would buy two or three milks. I likes to drink. I could drink fast.

Now I still like milk, after ceasing alcohol. And the ice cream bars will fly out of my freezer. It's a lot like booze. I will eat two a night until they re gone. Suger teases that part of my brain that I find I have trouble with, the ism part. Oh and don't even try to keep cookies for more than a day or two. Ginger snaps beat all

It's all basically a trigger for endorphins. Sugar triggers happy feelings. It's a fact. Sugar is a lot like coke ane. The alcohol is basically sugar. It's strait calories and triggered my brain. I wanted more and more while the effect was diminishing. So it took more and more until at the end I was drinking 24 a day

The sober life beats the pants off that boozing.

1-2

I'll have to give GABA a try. I'm big on nutritional self-experimentation anyway - right now I use L-glutamine powder to fight sugar/alcohol cravings, which some of my research suggested was useful. Jury is still out on it though - I still get powerful alcohol cravings but not sugar cravings.
Also taking milk thistle to support my abused liver, magnesium and thiamine supplements to support my abused brain.

1is2 - I had an alcoholic friend who was also a huge milk junkie, which I always thought very strange. It makes sense now that you've equated it with sugar!