Hey guys - I’m doing some research for Amy Tenderich’s blog on drinking and alcohol, and I was wondering if you could share with me your tips and suggestions for handling alcohol with your diabetes. Do you drink certain kinds of beverages? Skip it entirely? Eat pretzels? Test a million times?
Whether you’re type 1 or type 2 I want to hear from you! Please respond by tomorrow a.m.!
Yes, I drink alcohol, dry red wine ONLY( how I enjoyed liquors prior to being diagnosed in 1983 
) , yes I test regularly
( wear a sensor most of the time ) , and have my regular meal , including some nuts prior to meal , excluding pretzels , put driving on hold .I do not bolus for the dry wine .So enjoy my glass of wine…or 2 , while prepping supper .My Health Team is aware I enjoy my red dry wine .My weight stable at 137 pounds , 5 feet 61/2 inches .Would not have wine tonight , if I were to do a Half Marathon tomorrow !
Is this helpful for your research ?
I am so happy you posted this!
I was thinking about doing so myself over the past few days. Information seems very hard to come by. Dr.'s and diabetic educators seem cautious to talk about this subject as they guidelines for drinking in people without diabetes is only a couple of drinks per day. In my opinion, if I am going to have drinks, I want about six to make it worth my while. Again, anything over five is considered binge drinking in non diabetics, so that is another reason health care professionals don’t want to discuss this openly.
I am very interested in how others handle this.
I haven’t had any alcohol since diagnosis almost a year ago. But this is what I have accumulated.
While drinking, eat snacks to prevent your blood sugars from going low. Fatty foods like pizza would be best as it takes carbs are released into the blood stream over an extended period of time. You need to eat because as your body metabolizes alcohol your liver does not put out glucose as it normally does.
Bolus for what you do eat. (Think like a pancreas, by Gary Scheiner)
If pumping, turn off basal insulin for two hours for every drink you consume (Think like a pancreas, by Gary Scheiner) Obviously this would be a problem if you are on multiple daily injections. The presence of long acting insulin in your system makes drinking even more risky.
Test, Test, Test, then test some more.
A couple other things. Drinking heavily while being a diabetic can be very dangerous. From what I understand, if you go low and are unable to eat (for example if you are in a heavy sleep) the only course of action would be an ambulance call to get some glucose via I.V.
Please understand that the information above is not medical advice, I have no experience in this matter. But I would also like to hear others input.
I drink and sometimes I get drunk (although never to the point I loose control). I mostly drink dry wine (tastes great, has little sugar and least effect on my bg) and beer and avoid anything too sugary. I just make sure to eat a lot of protein before I start drinking and then I test every two or three hours, especially during the night. And if I notice that my bg starts to drop, I eat some carbs and never let it drop below a certain point.
I realize that drinking alcohol is not the smartest thing for someone on insulin (T1) but I’m careful about it and I simply refuse to give it up entirely. It would make me feel as if the D had somehow won, if that makes sense.
Cheers,
Kat
How come I didn’t know about this group? wanders off to join
I am type I and I have only drank dry red wine since getting on a pump. As I get more comfy with the pump I will add mixed drinks back in. I always drink it with a meal as I do notice it makes my sugars drop somewhat. I will drink 2 glasses of wine with a moderate carb load meal (50-60g) and then test at least once every hour. I do find that my 3am sugar reading will either be low or moderately high (150 to 180) after drinking. Not sure why it does this as I often eat the same foods for dinner and snack when I have wine.
My doc has been really cool about discussing drinking with me. I just let her know it was something I was not willing to give up forever and I wanted her input to be smart about it. I drink about 2 times a month, 2 glasses each time, when I can drink. I am on steroids right now so I can’t drink till I am off them. Been on them for 3+ months now and I can’t wait to be off so I can enjoy a nice glass of Kendal Jackson Cabernet.
I’m Type 1. I drink mostly dry red wine & never more than two glasses (usually just one). Every now & then I may have distilled liquor (zero carbs), but only one drink. No fruity stuff, no beer.
Only drink wine with meals & it lowers my BG. Yep, I test when I drink.
Jack Daniels + Coke Zero is my drink of choice. Jack & Diet when I’m out, every bar can make one.
Little to no effect on my BS but I only have one or two per night. Maybe more on some nights. Someone take my keys.
Wow,
I feel out of place - as the comments here are VERY cautious!
I’m 25 and was diagnosed when I was 7, so I’ve gone through the stages of growing up and rebellion, so I’ve learned my lessons.
The doctors and Nurse educators shied away from the booze issue with young teens (I see this as a somewhat negligent healthcare tactic). I was lucky enough to have a social worker who made sure I was well equipped to understand what booze does to the system.
Long story short is - if I drink to excess, I run my sugars high before bed. I am comfortable going to bed with sugars around 10 (180) or slightly higher.
Like all beverages, I lean toward the sugar free like my standard Rye and Diet, but Amaretto is just so delicious, haha!
As eating is inevitable while drinking, I generally do half-bolusing - I count carbs (ish) in both food and liquor and I take half what I would normally take. That works for me, but everyone is different. The more liquor you have in your system, the more sugar lowering effect there is, so I don’t do the same thing if I simply have a glass of wine with dinner.
As with everyone else here, I always keep my tester nearby and do it fairly compulsively!
To those parents who might be reading this - diabetes or not, kids will be kids. Assume that your kids will rebel against you and make sure they understand what effect that rebellion will have on their sugars!
If I came home drunk, my mom would simply throw me a granola bar and say goodnight - the lecturing and grounding would come the next day.
You had a smart mom!
If only there was sugar-free Amaretto.
Scary thing to me about drinking too much is going too low, or having lowered inhibitions to pig out on something I shouldn’t eat.
As a type 1, I was taught - Alcohol with meals.
I do what Dino does, Jack and Diet.
Any time I drink, I test every 2 hours, every hour if I am not wearing a CGM.
I used to drink and I found that I had the lows about 2am or so. I couldn’t be bothered now, much rather have some choclate,
Interesting, I don’t drink. I have only had an apple martini once in my life, not a fan of alcohol.
I do drink alcohol, I just try to be careful about it. My endo and CDE have always been comfortable talking to me about it. When I was in the hospital last summer and my Mom and I asked about it, the CDE I saw at the time basically said to take less insulin (based on my ratios at the time, which of course have drastically changed, she said that if I had 2 glasses of wine with dinner, to take one unit less insulin, but for one to take the same (I was on 1-unit increment pens at the time)). She made sure I understood that it lowers your bg b/c you stop making your own glucose while you process the alcohol and so to always have food when drinking.
For non-diabetic reasons, the only drinks I skip are gluten-based (because of celiac), as well as at times red wine (because of migraines). Other than that, I’ll have most things. If getting a mixed drink, I’ll have a diet coke rather than regular, but I’ll still have other mixers like juices. I talked to another T1 who’s in college and she said she deliberately has drinks with very sweet mixers, since hard alcohol drops bg so much. No matter what I have, I’ll think about the carb content–if there’s no carbs, I’ll take less insulin (if it’s with a meal) or have a snack, if there are carbs, then I consider that my snack.
On the diet note, the one frustrating thing is making sure that it actually is diet, since at most bars even if they press the diet button, there may be regular left in the line from the previous drink. One night out last summer I had a rum and diet coke, and checked with the bartender several times to make sure it was diet (which I always feel bad about, they probably think I’m crazy for being so insistent!), but like an hour later I was in the 300s, so it obviously wasn’t. My CDE told me that I could just use my meter to test the drink–that if it’s diet, the reading should be under 40, and of course regular would be sky-high. I did this with my old meter (OneTouch Ultra2), and it worked well, but for some reason on my ping meter it comes up with error messages whenever I try.
Whether it’s one drink or three, I always make sure to test and test often! If my bg starts to slide down I’ll have a snack, especially before bed. If I’ve had more than one drink, I’ll usually have a good carb snack before bed and make sure to keep my meter and juice box close by. As I currently live alone, I don’t usually have more than two drinks unless my boyfriend is visiting and can keep an eye on me to make sure I don’t go low overnight. My CDE also suggested setting a temp basal for more than one drink–in my case turning it off for perhaps 4+ hours, depending on how much alcohol and how carb-heavy the drinks are. I’ve only tried this a few times so far, but it has seemed to work well. I’ll have to experiment a bit more to see if it’s a better option than snacking–so far I just usually forget to set the temp basal, and it’s always nice to have an excuse to have a carb-heavy treat!
Look forward to reading your post on Amy’s blog!
my mother was an alcoholic and a diabetic, she eventually died from that combination. i have not had a drink in over 20 years. i have never had a problem with it, just know that the potential is there…
Ut Ohhh…I guess i’m not a very compliant metformin user,the only thing I don’t do while taking it is having an MRI or any test using contrast while im taking it,
Heh. Not according to my docs. They all told me moderate drinking was fine with metformin.
Im type 1 for 9 years, 5 years on pump. My diabetes is a little different compared to standard behavior - drinking no-sugar or a very low-sugar alcohol (dry red wine) increases my bg a little, never decreases. When I drink a few glasses of wine in evening, I have to increase night basal for a few hours, with or without snack durink drinking. I also drink beer sometimes. Before the 1st beer I take 1.5 IU bolus, before other beers 1 IU.
I have had serious hypos because of drinking. I have had hypos where I have passed out and started convulsing. It happened a few times in my early 20s and as I realised what was happening I became more careful, reducing bolus etc. But a few weeks after I got back from my honeymoon last Sept I went for a few drinks (now when i say few I mean a good few I’m Irish!) with my husband. The next morning I passed out in my sleep and started convulsing - fell off the bed hit my head etc. He had to give my the glucogyen to bring me around. The poor guy, was worse for him than for me as I was blissfully unaware. He knew he would see me like that some day, just not weeks aftter the wedding! Anyway, it was alcohol related. I love going out, I love dancing with a few drinks but if I am really careful with alcohol it means by sugers are high all the next day.