I know it is quite common for anorexics to substitute alcohol for calories from food (many of us on here, me included, have done or are doing that). I wonder how many of the women surveyed in this are actually suffering from an eating disorder?

Article on Drunkorexia

This term irks me "drunkorexia".... why not "chocorexia"? where calories are set aside so one can live on chocolate alone?

To me it is EDNOS with binge drinking/alcoholism....

Pop-psychology

I don't quite see why this needs a fancy and fashionable "o-rexia"- name, either and I don't know if it's a growing problem or just growing awareness.

I think it's a case in point of the common psychological wisdom than one problem hardly ever comes alone, so someone who has an eating disorder and knows that alcohol contains energys, is likely to calculate in this way.
Someone whith an ED is likely to be psychologically vulnerable to slide into other kinds of problems as well.

But I think it's good to acknowledge this particular type of behaviour as disordered. (Because they are likely to be an even bigger health hazzard when used in conjunction)

When I was still a teenager (and a good deal on the restrictive side), I did this myself on occassion and I suppose it was rather a consequence of my ED than another disorder - though I didn't really look at it this way.
Also, I'm quite certain that many girls my age did this, too, people without a full-blown eating disorder. Simply because they didn't think much of it.
Because, firstly, the risks of drinking are chronically understated and secondly, because, according to popular knowledege, EDs are "this thing young girls get when they lose a lot of weight or vomit on purpose"

Coming from the other side, alcohol abusers often neglect their nutrition, not feeling hungry, because they get a good deal of energy from their drinking. E.g., Korsakoff Syndrom is thought to be not a direct consequence of the toxic effects of alcohol but rather of a vitamin defiency due to malnourishment.

I'll be honest. I do this literally every time I drink.

I have heard a lot of people say, "Oh shit, this is going to go right to my head, I only ate X today," which makes me think that they do it on purpose to save money and get drunk easier. I've heard this from both boys and girls... And I've had a few friends say, "I should have eaten dinner, this was a bad idea," but I don't know if it was intentional or not. I don't think it's an ED behaviour in and of itself, though. People my age especially like to drink... and they can often be very cheap and think that they're being smart. If I didn't have an eating disorder I wonder if I would do the same thing.

Ooh, but that also reminds me of my friends who make sure they eat a carb heavy meal before they go out so they can drink more and not get sick. I have a few people who call that their "pre-gaming" rather than drinking actual alcohol. They're definitely the smart ones, I think.

i remember the dietican telling me i shouldnt restrict my food, that id lose a pile of weight if i didnt drink so much. i literally drank myself to overweight from underweight and when i did then get sober, you can guess what happened... my ed did however play a major part in keeping me sober for that very reason

This reminds me of a conversation I had with Becky, about working on a Saturday night, lots of guys came in and bought a load of alcohol. One of the blokes bought a sausage roll and the rest of them were really taking the piss, saying things like "eating is cheating" and you know, other stuff about how he shouldn't be eating anything because it means he'll have a head start on the others because he'll have something in his stomach and the others won't...like drinking is a competition...

But yeah this whole [blank]orexia thing is pathetic, the papers just can't resist coming up with something, some sort of buzzword that people will remember. It's not "drunkorexia", it's drinking alcohol without eating so they get pissed quicker...then the next morning, if they haven't got their heads in a toilet because of the amount they drank last night, they'll be eating themselves out of house and home to try and get rid of the hangover...with loads of coffee and Irn Bru. It doesn't get anyone anywhere- I don't think it's replacing food with alcohol, and although that does happen, it's not called "drunkorexia" or any other stupid buzzword.

Okay, so I subscribe to my favourite radio station on Twitter, and this is what one of the radio show hosts tweeted:

"New Trend: Drunkorexia! College kids buying booze instead of meals. You get all 4 food groups: Bailey's, Beer, Caesars and Bacon Vodka."

and in reply to this:

"You nailed it matt! Plus if you don't eat then you get drunker faster! Not sure if this is "new" tho lol."

and

"the secret is you donate blood & then go heavy drinking. Economical & u get drunk faster! Its student budget approved "

Both from men, I might add.

Maybe this is inappropriate but I couldn't help laughing at that.

Hah hah, no worries, I did too.

Semantics aside, I went to the kind of uni which was a breeding ground for drunkorexia. I attended a large, rural, highly competitive state school in New England. For many, that translates to party school with an emphasis on academic achievement and perfectionism.

I also think that it was particularly common in my social circles as I was a member of a Greek life where there is undoubtedly pressure to fit a certain type, although at least at my school, there was more pressure in some chapters than others. Another behavior I saw that I don't believe was mentioned in the article was exercising to compensate for the calories consumed in a good night of binge drinking/drunk eating. I had a lot of friends showing up to the gym, hungover as all hell because spring break or formal or whatever event they needed to look good for was coming up.

I think to some extent it's one of those fashionable -orexia things, like 'tanorexia' (wtf? I hear you ask- it's tanning yourself excessively in order to look thinner, apparently...) but on the other hand, I think when it bypasses the boundaries of what anorexics do e.g. replacing certain amounts of food with alcohol, it possibly deserves its own name. But no 'drunkorexia'. That makes it sound like something from the Daily Mail.