Diabetes and Drinking - Part I: If You Choose to Drink

NO! It isn't that simple!

In fact, there's really no perfect solution to this-the whole thing is a big guessing game and is totally different from person to person. And after about two years of drinking (one underage, one legal) I can't say I ever actually figured out how to maintain perfect blood sugars while doing it. And I can tell you, once or twice I definitely risked having a really bad high or low because I had so much to drink I wasn't able to keep an eye on my diabetes. Here comes the dangerous part.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS? (Ginger)

1. If you drink too much, to the point where you're drunk to any degree, you are not going to keep a close eye on your blood sugars. This becomes even more complicated when you think about the impact of your drink on your blood sugar. If you're drunk, can you really think logically about how much insulin you should take based on the carbs in the drink and the alcohol that will lower it later on? Are you going to remember to take your insulin at all? Or test yoru blood sugar an hour later to see how you're doing?
   
2. Let's say you forget to take your insulin-which is very possible considering you've been drinking or maybe at a party surrounded by friends. You may be eating pizza or other junk food along with it (which adds another complication to how much insulin you need to take). So now, you've forgotten to take your insulin or you've taken a miscalculated amount; who is watching your blood sugar? Your friends? Is that their responsibility? Is it fair to expect them to save you when you start seizing due to low blood sugar resulting from drinking?
3. Dr. C: What if you have not given yourself enough time to sober up and decide to drive home? Not a good idea. Why? First, you may have impaired judgment due to being drunk or from low blood sugar. You are at high risk of a traffic accident or driving erratically. Second, if stopped by the police, they may assume you are driving under the influence. However, the same symptoms associated with alcohol excess may be the same as having low blood sugar. And, if they don't know you have diabetes (another reason why you need wear some form of ID), they will not know to give you carbs to treat your low. This places you at risk for a severe low or hypoglycemic seizure and a visit to the police station.
4. And of course, don't think the effects of alcohol really stop affecting your body the next day. You may have a hang-over. You might classically crave junk food to soothe a nauseous stomach. You might not want to get out of bed until three in the afternoon. It all sounds like a recipe for really high blood sugars, if you ask me!
5. Other risks of drinking regularly:

• Weight gain: there are lots of empty calories in alcohol!
• Liver damage: your liver works really hard to flush it out of your system as quickly as it can because it sees alcohol as toxic
• Very out of control blood sugars: it is hard to maintain healthy blood sugars if you're drinking regularly because you are, quite simply, harming your body, stressing your body, adding a lot of unneeded sugars and poisons that your body has to work really hard to get rid of (and it definitely can't always do this, which will lead you and even people without diabetes forced to go to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped-free of the alcohol).

IF YOU ARE GOING TO DRINK (keeping in mind all that you have just learned)