HN Reader

Much has been said about the GLP drugs and their interactions with all kinds of addictive disorders. Alcohol, drugs, even gambling... Anecdotally, I "struggled" at times with gaming (not joking). I would find myself skipping meetings at times or ducking away to play online sometimes. It never became a real issue but I knew I did it and it was embarrassing.

Once I started on tirzepatide, and then with retatrutide, the "urge" to swap over to my PC between meetings and load up a game is pretty much zeroed out.

Is this an "addiction" or a form of "abuse" similar to alcohol or other drugs? I would have said no some time ago, but now I'm not sure. I definitely feel like, looking back, I was more or less "addicted" to video games. I don't want to romanticize it as some sort of "escape", it just is what it was.

This was an unintended side effect (benefit?) of the drug for sure, in addition to acute weight loss of course.

Unlike many others, even after titrating down and coming off the GLP's, I have not felt the urge to binge food, video games, or anything else. I maintain a healthy, active lifestyle and have kept my weight exactly where I prefer it. My relationship with my body and my time has massively improved. I feel like I am at risk of sounding like a complete shill, obviously, but in my mind these drugs can be something that absolutely has the potential to turn life around for many, many people.

Just a single datapoint here. About 8 months after starting on semaglutide I took a month off alcohol and by the time the month was over had lost all interest for alcohol.

Almost 2 years now. I'm not religious about it and will occasionally drink the celebratory glass of bubbles or a beer (alcohol free if available) when it's hot outside.

Very interesting how it has worked.

> A more recent RCT showed that low-dose semaglutide reduced laboratory alcohol self-administration, as well as drinks per drinking days and craving, in people with AUD [72].

I think this quote is... wrong? Or at least extremely misleading? Here, citation 72 refers to a paper by Henderson et al. That paper did (sorta) reduced laboratory alcohol self-administration, but did not find any reduction in the amount that people drank. https://dynomight.net/glp-1/

All I will say, is if/when you start noticing digestive issues, it's probably the GLP-1 even if it's after a year of taking the stuff... and woah boy, coming off the stuff is anything but fun.

Been on Mounjaro/Zepbound for the past 2 years. Lost around 80lbs, and my brain feels like I’m 25 again. Almost no urge for alcohol and have an opened bag of Halloween candy in the closet which isn’t calling my name. But the most surprising part hasn’t been that… it’s that my no limit poker game has gotten really quite good. I’ve played for 20 years, and been well above average, but after the glp-1, something just clicked. Maybe I no longer go on tilt or something? Played in the World Series of poker for the first time last year and placed in the money, in the top 10% after having not played since before Covid. I just started playing in a house game that I’d previously played in 10 years ago. Same people, and before I’d never placed in the money. I’ve now won in 3 of the last 5 games. Something’s different. Is playing poker pleasurable? Not in the least, but a good friend invited me, and played for the social aspect, but now I’m just stunned at how good I’ve suddenly become. Disliked the World Series so much last year, that I opted against playing again, even though I expected to place again. Maybe other poker players will adopt it.

Just to counter some anecdata here - doing glp-1 for quite some time for weight loss. It works for me for that specific purpose. But I noticed no effect on mood or addictive aspects. But it appears to lower my alcohol tolerance, so I drink less of it. Ymmv

My 24yo is on Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes and has said it’s also eradicated her interest in alcohol. She’s been a typical social drinker but now she’s doing mocktails.

It’d be interesting if these meds help with weight and addiction or just even overdoing it regularly.

As an alcohol enthusiast on 12.5mg of Zepbound for the last several months, my ethanol consumption hasn’t diminished much

It's interesting how many people in the HN comments are on this stuff - here in the UK you can't get it unless your BMI is pretty high. Is it easier to get prescribed in the US or are people just buying the chemicals online?

One thing i noticed being on ozempic at first and then mounjaro after, while mounjaro is better for weight loss in general, ozempic was better at tampering my desire to drink throughout the week (although i wouldn't say i had AUD on either). I think the reason for this is the half life: ozempic is 7 days, (enough to get you until the next once a week dose), while mounjaro is only 5 days (which means by day 6/7 less than half the dose your took at the beginning of the week is still in your system). This also applies to food as well: my craving were less for sweets etc by the end of the week before the next dose on ozempic vs now on mounjaro. Although I think because mounjaro has 2 mechanisms of action vs just 1 for ozempic, I still end up losing more weight. But this is subjective based on my experience.

However, Ozempic will be generic early 2026 in Canada, and there's no way in hell I would pay 4-5x the difference (I'm guessing) for mounjaro as the benefit is relatively minor already given the half life difference (right now the price is almost the same).

I’m not diabetic, so my insurance doesn’t cover it, meaning I have to pay full price, which only went up after Eli Lilly switched from vials to pens in Canada. I genuinely hate Eli Lilly for : 1) their pricing, 2) for eliminating vials in favor of pens, and 3) for how they handled my situation. I reached out to their customer service honestly, admitting I wouldn’t qualify for a discount (even though I’d seen countless Reddit posts from people lying on the form and getting approved anyway and told them this). I reached out and requested in good faith and was flat-out denied, basically brushed off by their support team. This destroyed a lot of goodwill i had initially towards them because of better results and any future brand loyalty I might have had.

Is there any anecdata about emotional well-being for people without any conditions these medications are usually prescribed?

So how does this work? Does it somehow boost "willpower" so we can rationally decide which substances we want to consume? Does it somehow smooth out the negative moods that lead us to snack/drink/sleep around/inhale/..? Does it mess with "desire" in general?

Why would a GLP-1 be used to dampen reward over an anti-psychotic?

What if work is the addiction? Or Solving Puzzles?

Does GPL-1 also dampen those? How much does it dampen just any fixed behavior?

I've noticed that when I'm on Zepbound 2.5mg, I don't have the strong urge to play video games and can focus on my projects. Even if I do play video games while on it, I lose interest after a maximum of half an hour.

GLP1s seem like the closest thing we’ve had to miracle drugs in years if not decades.

Maybe this explains why another company just entered into a bidding war with Pfizer to acquire Metsera (MTSR).

Thank God, because my $60 strike call options just turned from a $55k loss to a $180k gain overnight. I shoulda read the CVRs BEFORE buying calls, but I was so blinded by the prospect of easy M&A arbitrage gains I couldn't risk missing out by taking 30 minutes to read the terms of the acquisition.

Glad I have the chance to quit while I'm ahead! Last time I ever fuck around with options trading!

It also affects mood - basically removing desire for anything.

I hate these articles so much. The title should be: “Speculation on how GLP-1a drugs could theoretically reduce alcoholism while waiting for any real evidence”.

99% of promising mice studies does not result in clinical practical application in humans. And theoretical associations and mechanisms of action should not be promoted without huge asterisk to contextualize how often such speculation are wrong.

If you complain about AI slop and don’t see how this is just as bad science slop, please go listen to Sabine Hossenfelder. This is just as bad, and create just as much useless noise as AI content does on the nett.

Technology and discovery are so cool.

One breakthrough and then a WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW STUFF happens all at once now that this new idea or new pathway is created.

mRNA vaccines break away and now they're testing them in everything. GLP-1 showing signs of use in obesity and now it's being tested for a whole gamut of other things. All very exciting!

We've finally invented Soma. Perhaps finally something the Republicans can agree to fund Medicare for?