Member-only story
The Fraught Relationship Between Alcohol and Eating Disorders
How drinking helped me starve myself — and learn to eat again
On a trip to the library during my senior year of college, when I was at a nadir in my anorexia — three months before entering rehab — I collapsed on a staircase, faint from food deprivation and overexertion. I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to my dorm. There was an apple in my bag that could’ve helped, but I’d already carefully allotted the day’s calories, and the apple wasn’t included. Eating the apple now would mean not having a beer later, and that was unthinkable. In a way I couldn’t have articulated in the moment, that drink was as essential to my anorexia as maintaining my calorie count. I braced myself on the railing and continued up the stairs.
Alcohol may seem an unlikely friend for someone with an eating disorder, but booze has been my accomplice for much of my two-decade struggle with anorexia, and I’m not alone. Up to 50 percent of people with eating disorders abuse alcohol or illicit drugs, a rate five times higher than the general population, while up to 35 percent of those with substance abuse issues also have eating disorders, a rate 11 times higher than the general population. It’s important to take these numbers with a grain of salt, as they’re usually based on the most severe cases — but still…
