Weight-loss drugs show unexpected effect on alcohol consumption and cravings

Lisa Rees started taking a weight-loss medication in April expecting to shed a few kilograms. What arrived instead was something she had not anticipated: the drugs seemed to have switched off her desire to drink. Before the medication, she would polish off two bottles of wine on a night out. Now, after a couple of glasses, her body simply refuses more. She cannot physically continue.

This is not an isolated experience. Across the United Kingdom and beyond, people taking weight-loss drugs—Wegovy, Mounjaro, Ozempic—are reporting a similar phenomenon. The medications contain either semaglutide or tirzepatide, compounds that mimic a natural hormone called GLP-1. They work by suppressing appetite and prolonging fullness, which is why they help people lose weight. But emerging research suggests they do something else too: they dampen the brain's reward response, which appears to reduce cravings not just for food, but for alcohol and nicotine as well.

Dr Christian Hendershot at the University of South Carolina published a small study in 2025 showing that people with alcohol use disorder craved alcohol less while taking Ozempic. Last week, researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz released findings indicating that GLP-1 medications in pill form led to fewer days of heavy drinking among people with mild to moderate alcohol use disorder. The data is accumulating quickly, Hendershot notes, and some American facilities are already prescribing these drugs off-label to treat addiction.

For Lisa, the change has been dramatic. Before starting medication, she drank between six and eight bottles of wine weekly with friends—well above the NHS guidance of 14 units per week. She had worried about the health consequences. Now, at a recent day festival, she drank three glasses of wine over nine hours. Previously, she would have consumed two bottles plus vodka mixers. She still enjoys wine and still feels socially included, but her body has simply stopped wanting more. "I still feel involved in things because I'm still drinking but drinking a lot less," she says.

Warren Thomas, 45, from Colchester, noticed the effect within 24 hours of his first Mounjaro dose in mid-June. He had enjoyed occasional beers with family and monthly drinking sessions with friends. Now he has no appetite for alcohol at all. When he went out for a friend's birthday, two beers left him light-headed and giddy. His tolerance has collapsed to zero. He describes the shift as refreshing, something that happened without him really trying.

But the experience is not uniformly positive. Faye Goodwin, 20, a recent graduate, has been taking Mounjaro since she was 18. For her, the medication has created a barrier to social life. Alcohol makes her nauseous almost immediately; she sometimes vomits or suffers acid reflux. She has never known what drinking feels like without the medication's interference. When she took a month off the injections, she could drink normally. At university in Cambridge, where social events revolved around alcohol, this became a genuine hardship. She has turned down plans with friends on injection days and often sits through nights out drinking far less than her peers, unable to finish even a single glass of wine. The medication has affected her ability to form and maintain friendships.

People taking these drugs report wildly different experiences. Some say cravings have vanished entirely. Others feel nauseous or uncomfortably full when they drink. Some get drunk faster. Some notice no change at all. Prof Russell Hearn, a GP and professor of medicine at King's College London, notes there is no formal guidance in the British National Formulary about whether patients on weight-loss drugs should avoid alcohol. He advises his own patients carefully: alcohol contains significant calories, and if weight loss is the goal, drinking less will help alongside dietary changes.

Larger clinical trials are needed before regulators will approve these medications specifically for alcohol use disorder treatment. Dr Joseph Schacht, who conducted the pill study, and Dr Darren Quelch, who researches addiction at the University of South Wales, both emphasize that critical questions remain unanswered. Is it safe to give these drugs to people without obesity or diabetes purely for addiction treatment? Will they be affordable? The medications can cause rare but serious side effects, including pancreatitis. Researchers are also exploring whether GLP-1 drugs could treat other addictions—smoking, opioids—but that work is still in early stages. For now, the phenomenon remains largely a side effect: unexpected, powerful, and experienced very differently depending on who is taking the drug.