I was sober for four years – now I’m on Mounjaro I’m drinking more than ever

I’ve been taking Mounjaro for 10 weeks. Overall, I’ve had no side effects and have lost two stone. I needed to lose this weight after years of growing heavier and heavier. My plan is to keep going until I’m back to a healthy weight. Mounjaro means the constant food noise has gone – my weakness was unhealthy snacking – and I’m prioritising protein and vegetables in my meals. It doesn’t feel like a drag like dieting has in the past. So far so good! However, there is one hitch: I’m drinking more alcohol. In the last few months, my drinking has crept up. This wasn’t something I expected. Anecdotally, I’d heard from friends on jabs that their desire to drink had lessened, not improved. However, there was one friend, also on Mounjaro, who shared a different experience that chimed with me. “I need to reward myself with something at the end of the day, so when it’s not chocolate it’s likely to be a glass of wine or a beer,” she told me. I agree. Initially, I didn’t fancy drinking much of anything. I had to remind myself to stay hydrated. But then I suddenly really really fancied a drink. A glass of wine or two. A cocktail in a tin on a Tuesday night. It was hardly hardcore hedonism, but I could feel it creeping up nonetheless. Shorts What makes this even more remarkable is that until a few months ago, I’d been sober for four years. This was something I chose to do because I couldn’t deal with the frankly gut-churning hangovers that I experienced if I had more than two drinks. If you talk to any woman in her late forties or early fifties, she’ll tell you how bad hangovers become as you age. So I’d given up drinking. I felt virtuous. A bit smug. I joined a couple of Sober Community forums. I listened to podcasts about being sober. I felt great. Clear headed. I could get lots of s**t done. I didn’t feel the cringing paranoia the next day – the fear that I’d shared too much. I was also less snappy with my kids. I noticed the health benefits. But social occasions became tedious. I found it impossible to switch off, and would often count down the minutes until I could head home. I left parties early. I wasn’t fun to be around. Life took on a treadmill quality. I know many people enjoy sobriety, so this was a personal thing. I told myself I was doing a great thing, that I was looking after my long-term health, but as I got into my fourth year… I was really bored. I was either working, parenting, tidying or asleep. I found conversations difficult without the assistance that comes with a glass of wine. And I reasoned that I’d never had a problem with alcohol so it was more of an experiment, and I decided I’d had enough. I started drinking again. On Mounjaro, my drinking pattern has definitely changed, however. During the day, I feel fine; I have healthy meals. Drink water. I exercise. I have to remind myself to eat as often I’m not hungry. I’m on the lowest dose – 2.5mg – and don’t plan to increase it. Then it gets to the evening and I feel empty. Bored. I’m 53 and my life is pretty routine at times with work, two kids and four cats. So I feel like I need some sort of reward, a treat that isn’t a cream cake. This has been especially true as the kids are at home for summer. Over the past couple of weeks, this has become alcohol. “We’ll end up skinny but addicted to booze,” my friend joked on the phone when I told her I was drinking more, definitely more than before weight loss jabs. She was having this experience, too – “I think I’ve forgotten that it’s calories and I crave, like really crave a beer,” she said. I was in this mood, too – forgetting that alcohol has calories and that when you’re on jabs, you should be aiming for good nutrition. I spoke to Dr Ginny Ponsford, a hormone specialist at The Women’s Hormone Clinic and King’s College London. “GLP-1 receptor agonists have been found to reduce alcohol cravings and consumption for many people, likely because they influence the brain’s reward and motivation pathways. Anecdotally, however, I’ve had a couple of patients who report the opposite effect and have found themselves craving alcohol and enjoying it more,” she says. Ponsford says that it isn’t a side effect of the medication itself, but may be because we have a tendency to seek rewards and pleasure. “Theoretically, if food becomes less rewarding, a person who previously relied on eating for comfort or stress relief might seek reward from other activities, including alcohol. This may reflect a change in coping behaviour rather than a direct effect of the medication itself.” So in the absence of food rewards, we may turn to booze rewards. And this seems to be what I’ve been experiencing and a couple of my friends, too. The problem is that the epic anxiety and hangovers remain the same. So I’ve been feeling worried, more tired, and overthinking which negates the positive benefits of losing weight. I’m trying not to beat myself up about it, as it’s not out of control drinking, but it’s also making me think about my past sobriety and whether I need to return. Ponsford says it’s not a common experience on these jabs. “Overall, the evidence suggests that GLP-1 medications are more likely to reduce, rather than increase, alcohol cravings, though individual experiences can vary.” After waking up this morning with another low-grade hangover, waking up feeling not too pumped up about the day ahead and like I have to shake off my anxiety somehow, I’m starting to believe that sobriety actually felt quite good? And that maybe, like my mum used to say to me when I complained about feeling listless: “Only boring people get bored.”