Remember the lockdowns? I wish I didn’t, but I do. Especially that insanely grim third lockdown, the winter one, which went on and on and on and which bottomed out, for me, as I did my one allotted weekly walk along the Richmond riverside, in freezing horizontal drizzle. I made sure I had a thermos cup of mulled wine in my hand as I debated with my one permitted friend whether we were legally allowed to sit on a bench together. In the end, we decided best not and trudged further into the sleet.
They may give you an extra chance of thyroid cancer – or not (though for me the much more proximate likelihood of liver failure makes that fairly irrelevant)
I’ve learned many things from lockdowns, one of them is: that I am never locking down again. If they try it on, I am tooling up and the plod will have to prise that park bench from under my cold dead coccyx. Also, like many, I’ve learned that lockdowns make you fat.
This last point seems to be near universal. Lockdown lard is a definite Thing, some studies indicate that people gained, on average, about ten to fifteen pounds, as we mastered sourdough starters or spent hours realising that fish cookery is quite easy (sole meuniere, who knew?).
I thereafter learned that this extra lockdown poundage was hard to shift. Even as the pandemic drifted into the past, the chunk did not. During previous blob-outs, I’ve always been able to drop extra weight through a combination of manic fasting, gym, neat vodka, and going to places with boring food (Portugal). This time nothing worked. I fasted, I treadmilled, I knocked back shots instead of dinner, I ate sardines in Sagres. Nope. Still chubby.
And then I discovered Ozempic. I can’t remember when I first heard about it, possibly reading some hey-I’m-thin-again celeb column, possibly when I looked at Donald Trump climbing out of a helicopter and I thought, wait, he might be mad but he looks a stone lighter and ten years younger, Go Donald, and I did some googling and learned of Ozempic, a new wonder drug for weight loss. So I got online and I ordered my special epipen of slenderness and I jacked it in my abdomen – and waited.
And lo, it worked. In the early summer of 2023, I finally began to lose the pandemic pounds. The progress was slow but continuous. I stopped avoiding full-length mirrors. I noticed a hint of cheekbone. Even better, I didn’t have to try, my appetite was simply curtailed.
But of course, you know all this. You’ve already read a trillion articles about how Ozempic stops you wanting that second helping. I am here, like the Christmas angel, to bring you different but equally encouraging news. Ozempic also stops you boozing.
To understand how significant this is to me, I must first admit that I am a functional alcoholic. Totally functional but an alcoholic, nonetheless. Earlier this year, I proved this to my own satisfaction when my GP asked me about my alcohol intake and I decided, unlike every other drinker in history (including me, to that point) to be honest with the doc.
So I told her the truth. I drink between 100 and 150 units a week, i.e. a bottle of red a day, a few G&Ts, maybe move into the second bottle (it’s actually quite easily done if you are fiercely committed to pointless intoxication). And my doctor’s reaction? It is the first time I have genuinely seen someone nearly fall off a chair in surprise.
And now, on Ozempic, I am drinking less than half that. This still puts me about five trillion units over the government’s recommended alcohol intake of a tiny antique egg cup full of weakish Chardonnay per month, but hey. Baby steps. And it’s not like I’m even trying to rein in the booze (though I accept that I need to). As with eating, on these semaglutides I no longer have the desire to wolf down the Wolf Blass Shiraz. I still drink, but I have a pleasant glass, I have another glass, and then, miraculously, I stop. Entire hours can pass when I take a few sips. Entire half bottles can go undrunk and be left for the next day.
For me, this is unprecedented. It also means I am saving a lot of money (I like pricey wine, I only cited Wolf Blass for the repetition and alliteration): indeed I might be saving so much money on excellent Malbec the Ozempic is paying for itself. Which is no mean feat, as these drugs are so expensive they have practically doubled the GDP of Denmark (home of the highly profitable makers of Ozempic: Novo Nordisk Inc).
Nor am I alone in noticing a major decline in my boozing. There are now multiple anecdotal reports, and a few scientific studies, pointing to this phenomenon. Here’s an American article from August this year:
Doctors and patients have begun to notice a striking side effect of these drugs. They appear to reduce people’s craving for alcohol, nicotine and opioids. They may also reduce some types of compulsive behaviour, such as gambling and online shopping.
Clearly this is huge – if true. Something in these drugs seems to interrupt the dopamine reward cycle which leads to addictive behaviour, of any kind. And given that almost the entire world is addicted to something, from fatty food to smartphones to online poker to fentanyl, this could be a miracle from medical heaven. It will make the advent of semaglutides as significant and positive as the discovery of antibiotics. Maybe bigger.
At this point, it is traditional for Ozempic columns to introduce a word of warning. So: here’s a word of warning. These drugs are so new we don’t know the long-term consequences. They may give you an extra chance of thyroid cancer – or not (though for me the much more proximate likelihood of liver failure makes that fairly irrelevant).
There are also side effects. You occasionally burp, you get hints of nausea. I’ve noticed a small but definite diminishment in my libido. However, given that in these august pages I once admitted ‘to wanking myself into hospital’ due to habitual overuse of internet porn, that may again be the wonder drug interrupting the feedback loop of addiction.
So that’s the downside and it is a downside. Therefore I don’t intend to stay on semaglutides forever. But I am fervently hoping that I can carry on the better Ozempic habits, folding them into my life permanently. And in the meantime, I’m celebrating the fact that humanity might just have happened on one of the greatest pharmacological discoveries in history. And I’m celebrating it with a double espresso, no sugar.
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