Hey aunt/o! Let’s go have a few drinks or grab a bottle tonight, right? Come on let’s go! I’m in! This dialogue could perfectly represent any typical night between friends and in which apparently there is nothing strange.
If we added to these nights not eating, not having dinner or compulsively restricting certain foods, added to a more abusive consumption of alcohol, we could talk about this “fashionable” practice among some young people and adolescents. If you want to know more about drunkorexia, keep reading! In this Psychology-online article, we tell you about What is drunkorexia, what are its symptoms and causes and its treatment.
What is drunkorexia?
Drunkorexia is the term commonly used to refer to a alteration in eating behavior and alcohol consumption. A high-risk behavior that combines a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption, together with a tendency to disordered eating and/or physical activity.
On the one hand, excessive alcohol consumption in itself can lead us to develop several medical problems, due to the damage it causes to the kidneys and other organs. In addition, it can also affect a psychological level, either because generates a dependency on this substancewhich leads to suffering from the famous withdrawal syndrome, or because its consumption induces other disorders such as amnesia, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, sexual disorders, sleep disorders or anxiety disorders, among others.
On the other hand, the decrease in food consumption or the restriction in its interference on a continuous basis is associated with eating disorders, characterized by serious alterations in eating behavior, whether bulimia or anorexia. In this article, we show you the . In short, drunkorexia is considered a weight control technique to offset the calorie consumption of alcohol.
Symptoms of drunkorexia
To know what drunkorexia is, it is necessary to pay attention to the symptoms of this eating disorder that manifests itself in different ways. Next, we show you what the symptoms of drunkorexia are:
- Skipping meals or restrict food intake to “save” calories when consuming alcohol.
- purging behaviorssuch as excessive exercise, to compensate for alcohol consumption.
- Consume large quantities of alcohol to make you sick and thus purge the calories from the alcohol consumed.
It must be taken into account that restriction behaviors are not associated with a specific time interval, but they usually occur before, during and after alcohol consumption. To better understand the symptoms of drunkorexia, we recommend reading this article about the symptoms.
Causes of drunkorexia
What causes drunkorexia? The motivations that lead to the practice of drunkorexia have not yet been evaluated, but there seem to be some reasons that lead to the interaction in alcohol consumption. So, let’s see what the causes of drunkorexia are:
- Improved social interactions: Drinking facilitates social interaction and relationships, as it promotes a favorable social environment
- Development of coping strategies: Promotes coping impulses, since it reduces negative emotions such as loneliness, boredom and anxiety.
- Reasons that enhance conformity: Drinking exercises improvement motives, through increased pleasure, and conformity motives by meeting social expectations.
- Need for thinness.
- Body dissatisfaction.
- Low self-esteem bodily.
- Ascetic tendencies.
- Difficulties regulating emotions. If this is your case, we recommend this article about .
Furthermore, some studies have shown the presence of anxious and depressive symptoms in individuals with drunkorexia, alcohol consumption being, in this case, a distractor from negative emotional states.
Treatment of drunkorexia
The treatment to follow in cases of drunkorexia is the same that we would use to cure eating disorders (ED), since it is these behaviors that are altered. In case of great dependence on alcohol, we should also follow the proper treatment for it. In this article, we show you.
Thus, the treatment of drunkorexia can be different in each case, which is why we show you the most well-known and effective ones:
- Cognitive therapy: On a psychological level, it is the therapy that has shown greater effectiveness so far. In it, cognitive restructuring is prioritized due to negative thoughts associated with body image.
- Fast food intake: Another technique that has proven effective in the treatment of EDs is eating quickly, and keeping patients in a warm room after eating. This helps reduce your anxiety and activity level.
- Psychotropic drugs: They are usually used to increase appetite.
In any case, always It is important to know the specific causes of each case in order to apply the best treatment.
Prevention of drunkorexia
79.1% of young people at university present a pattern of drunkorexia, according to a study by Malaeb, D., et al (2021). Therefore, it is important to prevent these behaviors, since they cause a significant increase in the population’s alcohol consumption.
In terms of prevention, the most important thing is always the informationn. The fact that young people, and the population in general, are aware of these behavioral patterns can significantly reduce risk behaviors. An example of a preventive campaign could be inform through spots or flyers about what drunkorexia is, how it affects health and what its consequences are.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Drunkorexia: what it is, symptoms, causes and treatmentwe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- American psychiatric association, (2014). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM – 5. Madrid, Spain. Pan-American medical publishing house.
- Carlson, N. R. (2014). Physiology of behavior. Madrid. Pearson Education, S.A.
- Malaeb, D., et al. (2021). Drunkorexia behaviors and motivations, eating attitudes and mental health in Lebanese alcohol drinkers: a path analysis model. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 1-11.