Why do I overeat so much when I drink alcohol?

When I was micromanaging my food, I found that drinking alcohol would bring on extreme overeating, binge eating, and generally feeling out of control with food. I no longer experience this because my body no longer needs to "sneak in" food when I'm uninhibited.

Think of it like this:

Imagine that you were expected to sit still for an indefinite period of time. No crossing or uncrossing your legs, no weight shifting, no expanding or contracting your spine. Just stillness, more or less, no matter what.

You're not quite sure why you're expected to do this. You just know that this is the rule.

People are watching, someone is watching.

And then, the controlman leaves the room.

You're alone.

No one is watching. No one is policing your movement.

I don't know about you, but I wanted to MOVE. I wanted to stretch, twist, release the stiffness. I know that when the controlman comes back, it's back to straight, rigid, inflexible.

This is what it's like when we manage our food on a regular basis, and then have a few drinks. The controlman leaves the room.

It's not a sign that something is wrong with you -- it's a sign that there is too much rigidity outside of that experience, and it's grabbing the chance to move while it can.

When you allow yourself more flexibility in general, the urgency to break the rules when no one is looking diminishes; we know we're allowed to move without having to sneak it.

What are your experiences with this?

**NOTE: There is a “normal” amount of overeating that may take place due to alcohol’s impact on blood sugar levels. This blog post speaks to the excessive, out of control eating that can be a chronic pattern of uninhibited eating when drinking.