I get the opportunity to babysit for a family in Winston Salem and it has been the biggest blessing. I’ll tell you more about this family later, but their little girl got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just a few days after I babysat for them for the first time. I started to babysit more frequently after her diagnosis and one day while I was there the oldest child asked me, “Ms. Hannah, can you drink wine with diabetes?” Oh sweet child. Yes.
I’ll emphasize again that there’s more to diabetes than glucose and insulin. There are multiple factors outside of eating sugar and carbs that impacts your blood sugar. We were told about this lightly going through the diagnosis in the hospital but not in depth.
Before I went to the beach for my senior trip, my mom had me call one of the babysitters I had as a child (yes, babysitters do seem to be a theme in my diabetes journey for some reason) to ask her about how she handles alcohol with her diabetes. And it was a great conversation!
All alcohol is different. It’s important to know what you’re putting in your body so you can account for what fluctuations will be happening. Of note, alcohol is a depressant and brings your blood sugar down itself. So that’s relevant to any alcoholic beverage, but especially for cocktails or anything where liquor is involved with a mix. Beer is also made with wheat which is a carbohydrate. Wine is made from grapes which is a carbohydrate.
All of this combined, in the majority of alcoholic drinks, there is a component that brings blood sugar up but there’s also a component that brings blood sugar down. For this reason, and the fact that each person responds differently in respect to their blood sugar with everything they put in their body, you should try different alcohols in a safe environment where you can see how your body reacts and adjust accordingly. This way you aren’t out or at a bar and trying something new and you go high or drop super low because you didn’t know what was in the drink or how your body would react to it.
Personally, I have found that I’m more likely to have a delayed drop in my blood sugar if I drink cocktails or have any type of mixed drink or wine. My hypothesis is that I’m so anxious about being high that I tend to bolus for more carbs than necessary. Every one in a while I’ll wake up and be a little elevated, closer to 150-180 after I go to a brewery or drink a couple of beers, but it’s happened so rarely that I’m not sure it’s the beer or something else.
When drinking a beer that’s not a cider, my typical go-to carb entry is 12g. It is typically a little lower than the average amount of carbs in a standard beer so it gives me wiggle room for the alcohol to bring my blood sugar down. For ciders, I typically enter in about 18g because ciders typically have more sugar in them. However, if I get a beer with a nutrition label so that I can see the amount of carbs in the drink, I will bolus for 5 less carbs than listed.
Cocktails are a little trickier to me. It really depends on what is in them and how big the drink is. If I’m having a mixed drink with liquor and my typical mixer that is sugar-free, then I only put like 5g of carbs in or none at all. If I get a specialty cocktail when I’m at a restaurant or bar, then my bolus is usually for 20-30g of carbs. If it is listed as having more syrups, then I definitely go for closer to 30g. If the drink is bigger, I go on the higher side of carbs and if the drink is smaller, I go on the lower side of carbs.
Honestly though, I’m more of a wine girl. I love wineries and vineyards and trying new wines. I always sip my wine before my bolus because you can almost taste the amount of carbs in a glass of wine. For a Moscato or Riesling, something with significantly more sugar, I bolus for 25g of carbs typically. When I drink a chardonnay or pinot grigio, I typically bolus for closer to 18-20g of carbs. When I’m drinking a dry wine, for some reason especially a dry red wine, I bolus for about 15g of carbs.
Again, this is all based on me and how I know that I react to different types of drinks. Ultimately, each person with type 1 diabetes should figure out for themselves what their bolus should be because how they respond to each drink individually will probably be different than how I react. Plus you have to account for what you’re doing. If I know my friends and I are going dancing, I reduce my bolus because I LOVE to dance. If we are just watching a game or hanging out, then it’s my normal amount I listed above. It’s up to each individual to figure this out and in a safe and supportive environment.
The biggest thing with diabetes and alcohol is you HAVE to, HAVE TO, be careful. You cannot allow for yourself to be in a situation where you cannot take care of yourself. You have to be okay enough to handle your diabetes. And ALSO have a friend with you that knows how to take care of you in case something crazy happens. You need to know your limits with alcohol and drink around people who you trust to help you in the worst-case scenario.
But overall, yes, diabetics can drink with the best of them.