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Comment by trollied | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. I’ve not seen that mentioned before.

I took Semaglutide for 6 months. Before Semaglutide I'd want to have a beer just about every day, but I'd only drink a few times a week. Once I started Semaglutide I completely lost the desire to drink alcohol.

The same was true for food. I thought about food all the time. But once Semaglutide started I just didn't think of food. I had to remember to eat.

Semaglutide in my experience really helps to eliminate addictive behavior in general, I believe. At least oral addictions (I'm not sure if it would help with e.g. gambling addiction).

I never understood why skinny people believed that fat people have no impulse control until I took the medication. Once I had that impulse control it was so much easier to make long-term decisions.

Yes. It turns out that food is addictive, like breathing.

(More practical note: alcohol contains a surprising amount of calories, especially in beers and sweet wines and ciders. Cutting alcohol consumption also helps weight loss.)

it's interesting to think though that a significant portion of alcoholics are just over-eaters in disguise.

I have a hunch that what it's really doing is regulating impulse control.

I'm not sure if that's what's really going on, but in my experience it's definitely one of the things going on.

It would explain all the effects people are getting out of it.

Basically suddenly being able to drop every problematic impulsive behavior on the list.

I would be very interested in what happens with all their other impulsive behaviors, the ones that they might want to keep, that make them human.

Did the cravings reoccur after you went off it?

It took about a year for the food cravings to come back. It has been almost 2 years since I stopped taking the medication and I still have no desire to drink.

glp-1 inhibitors turn out to be better for alcohol and smoking cessation than any other drug we have. Truly a miracle drug.

But they aren't actually prescribed for these things (yet?), right?

Some people say it's an "off-label" use -- but that's up to the doctor and patient ultimately.

But I think that's okay -- because the main purpose is weight loss and reduction of caloric cravings. Alcohol is a caloric craving. So it should be fine.

That wasn't their main purpose as they were brought to market. Even the anti obesity is an off label use.

I don't think it would get me off alcohol though. I only drink to relax and be more social. Not because I enjoy it or the taste. But it means I drink rarely anyway.

I can tell you that being on it, food to me just tastes different.

So even if you didn't enjoy it, what typically happens to me anyway, is the off flavors get magnified.

Like the easiest one is Costco Chili. It tasted vastly different when I was off of it than on it. I taste more of the bitter notes. The complexity is more off putting to me.

I inject on say Sunday nights, and on Monday an IPA tastes terrible. But on Friday it tastes tolerable again. And this is a pretty consistent pattern I've noticed.

> Even the anti obesity is an off label use.

Off-label for Ozempic - the whole point of Wegovy is the “weight management” indication.

Reports from friends in the EU is that doctors are prescribing it for all sorts of things off label. Autoimmune, ADHD, OCD etc. I take it for ME/CFS and it works well for me, but I get grey market supply. I’ve been on a low dose of it for a few years now, I was already researching it when it became a craze, the mass adoption really helped dial in dose safety. A small percentage of people like myself are super sensitive to it and need much lower doses

Very similar here - have autoimmune issue that it basically fixes, but am also super sensitive - never went above 2.5 which feels strong, often do half or less that.

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