Drunkorexia - It May be a Funny Name but it's a Serious Problem

Even if drunkorexia is not a term that is officially medically recognized, it’s still pretty real and quite tangible. What is drunkorexia? Well, it means a combination of eating disorder and alcoholism, or binge drinking. Both of these illnesses are quite dangerous, so put them together and you have a recipe for disaster! Eating disorders, for instance, make you more prone to dangerous consequences, and alcoholism makes you more susceptible to eating disorders.

The types of Drunkorexia

1. Compensating for the calories of alcohol – sometimes alcohol can be quite high in calories, and those who have eating disorders usually know this. So bulimic people, for instance, will be tempted to get rid of these alcohol calories.

2. Using alcohol to replace food – Alcohol, despite being high in calories, is lighter than food. So the anorexic or bulimic people compensate for not eating or under-eating by drinking alcohol, which tends to kill the hunger pangs.

3. Binging the morning after – The morning after a session of heavy drinking, people with eating disorders binge to fight the effects of the hangover. This leads to guilty feelings in some cases, and this in turn leads to purging.

4. Double binging – Drunkorexic people, food binges and alcohol binges tend to go hand in hand. A particular stressed person who is feeling emotionally down may find himself binging on alcohol and food just to forget his troubles.

College problems

Drunkorexia is quite common on campus colleges – where eating disorders and binge drinking prevail. Even though we understand that drinking is a normal experience of college life, it’s also important to remember that some people cannot limit the levels of alcohol consumption. So while some people can drink once a week and be fine the rest of the time, those prone to alcoholism might not be able to control themselves.

However, college is also a part when people find themselves and discover who they want to be. That is the major reason for the frequent occurrence of eating disorders. Since some people want to be as beautiful as possible, self-destructive behavior like binge drinking and eating disorders are what they resort to.

Multi-front treatment

If a person is getting treatment for drunkorexia – it’s important to get treated for both disorders that make it up. This is because both of them are intertwined, so if one side of the problem is neglected, it may resurface later and cause even more major problems. So the sufferer needs to be honest about both problems, and come clean to the doctor. This is why family involvement plays such a big role – that way complete care can be received.