Alcohol is such a tricky subject to tackle. I really wanted to address the subject of alcohol and at the same time I thought maybe it would be smarter to just ignore it.
If you have IBS, you may have heard already that alcohol may trigger your symptoms or could be contributing to your IBS.
Maybe you have also thought that you don’t care if it’s contributing to your IBS, or you don’t want to know whether it is or not.
Whether you don’t drink, drink in moderation or drink a lot of alcohol, it’s always good to have more information that could lead to you feeling better.
That way you can make decisions consciously– knowing the potential rewards and consequences for your body and health regardless of what decision you make
Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/16.
Is Alcohol Contributing to My IBS?
The scientific data around how alcohol may affect our IBS is inconclusive in general, though there have been studies that have shown that alcohol consumption can inflame and irritate the gut, and we know that alcohol can trigger IBS symptoms in some.
When I started to get more curious about my own alcohol consumption, it was around the time that I was healing from my IBS. As I started needing to be much more aware of what I was putting into my body and how it was affecting me, I started to wonder why I drank the way I did and if limiting or quitting alcohol altogether could help me heal quicker.
Alcohol that we find in beer, liquor and wine is the ingredient that gives you that buzzed or drunk feeling. If you have ever had too much alcohol, you know from experience it’s toxic effects as your body desperately tries to get rid of it. Too much alcohol can cause alcohol poisoning.
Alcohol is a drug, and it can be addictive for some. Some people even suggest that alcohol is addictive for everyone, though how we all process that addiction varies greatly. Some develop severe alcoholism, while others are happy to only drink once or twice a month, if at all.
Because alcohol is a drug, it can have certain effects on your body that may have a not-so-great effect on your body’s ability to work properly. Alcohol is a depressant drug as well, meaning that that it slows down the communication system between your brain and your body.
The brain and the gut are in constant communication and the slowing down of that process could be making your IBS worse rather than better. The physical effects that alcohol can have on our gut could also be having that negative effect.
Alcohol and Your Gut Health
As we have talked about in previous episodes, the gut microbiome is a unique and complicated ecosystem.
Your gut is your GI tract starting at your mouth and esophagus and traveling down to your stomach, small and large intestines, and anus. The liver, pancreas and gallbladder are part of this digestive system as well, they are the solid organs of our digestive system.
You have a mucus layer around the intestinal lining of your gut as well that plays a pivotal role in your gut health.
What we take into our bodies affects greatly the health of our guts. Taking in too much alcohol can affect the bacteria in your microbiome and create an imbalance in the bacteria that could contribute to your IBS symptoms. Alcohol can literally change the compositions of our guts.
Alcohol could also contribute to leaky gut, which is an issue where this gut mucus lining is eaten away by bacteria that has gotten out of balance. This gut lining separates your intestines from the rest of our bodies and your blood stream. If you have leaky gut, the toxins from alcohol can enter your bloodstream with more ease, causing havoc and increased risk for disease.
I think intuitively you know that too much alcohol isn’t good for you and can upset your stomach, leading you to throw up or have diarrhea the following day. What is more unknown is if smaller amounts of alcohol are also affecting our bodies and potentially making your IBS worse.
IBS & Alcohol Self Experimentation
What I would recommend if you really wanted to know how alcohol may or may not be affecting you, or if could be triggering your symptoms- experiment with alcohol with curiosity.
Just as you might experiment with certain foods or try the Low FodMap diet or other elimination diets, alcohol can be a good thing to remove from your system for a time and then be gradually reintroduced to see how it affects you.
You could make an agreement with yourself to abstain from alcohol for 4 to 6 weeks and see how you feel on a daily or weekly basis. You could keep track of your symptoms and see if removing alcohol has a positive effect on your stomach pain or not.
Have you ever tried to quit alcohol for a short period of time? How did it feel for you?
Personally, I have had times where I tried to quit alcohol even for a short period of time and it didn’t work so well for me because there were social events or anxieties and stresses that came up for me, and I didn’t feel I could keep up with not drinking.
Even though I know I’m not an alcoholic in that very strict sense of the word, it did concern me that I couldn’t quit even for a short period of time. This led me down a long winding path of stopping drinking for shorter and longer periods of time with greater or less success.
I still don’t have the answer 100% for me. I do know that for me drinking more than two drinks in one evening can cause me to bloat and have stomach pain sometimes. But alcohol is a part of happy social experiences in my life and I at times I get lost in the happiness of a celebration or overindulge and feel the consequences the following day.
I know too that alcohol can give me bad headaches and can also cause me to sleep really badly, which makes me feel exhausted and stressed out the following day, and just those feelings can start to bring back some of my IBS symptoms.
Where I am at now is a continued experimentation process where I am constantly checking in with myself around what role I do and don’t want alcohol to play in my life. Though I don’t have a definitive answer for you or even for myself, I feel more at peace knowing that I can choose to not drink if I don’t want to, and instead can choose a greater likelihood of feeling physically good that night or the following day. If I do choose to drink, I do so with the awareness of what may be happening in my body and mind.
I also know that if I choose to drink or drink too much and it does have a negative effect in my life that day, I can try my best to forgive myself, move on and try to learn from the experience. I don’t have to have it all figured out right now and the more I can bring calm and love to myself, the better I feel. In that in between place of not having the definitive answer and being okay anyway.
IBS is such a complex and mind-body syndrome. Sometimes I have felt so frustrated around how many different aspects of my life are affected by this problem in my life. Other times I can honestly feel grateful that in a weird way my IBS forces me to really take care of myself in a profound way.
IBS puts a spotlight on every aspect of my life that I may have otherwise easily ignored. It can show me where I am out of alignment, or where I may need to focus more attention on.
It forces me to research and experiment with myself and get real about what’s best for me and my life, and for what life I want to lead. With alcohol, with food, with stress and work and relationships.
I hope with time and with healing, IBS could start to take on this kind of role in your life, like an alarm system where your body pleads with you to listen.