@Katers87, you’re right, beer can have a lot of carbs. A typical craft beer (or homebrew 
) can have 10-15 grams of carbs per 12oz beer. A pint has 12-20 grams, unless a really light beer. Like a slice or two of bread with every pint.
@Michel:. Great summary! A couple minor quibbles:. 1. It is possible to cut basal on MDI, when dosing 2x daily, as I do with Levemir. 2. Doesn’t glucose (dextrose) get absorbed without the liver’s involvement?
Ah, sorry I missed it! I don’t usually drink light beers. Ew! Gross! 
I plan to pass on my wisdom to my own children…if you’re going for a buzz…do it right. Go for hard liquor. 
Beer bloats and takes forever to reach the goal. Ditch the beer and go for the liquor. Save the beer and wine for the connoisseurs of those things.
Liquor = 0 carbs (unless you get a mixed drink).
I drink maybe once every three years or so but it’s usually Long island iced tea when I do drink. Two and done.
You are totally right—I will edit!
You are right! But many other types of carbs, such as, for instance, fructose, do need liver processing to be transformed into glucose. The sites I trust most on diabetes treatment often mention the slow-down effect in getting your BG up. I figure the reason is that (a) some carbs will be much slower if they require liver mediation and (b) the effect of carb ingestion is in addition to regular liver glucose release, so the net effect of carbs, even pure glucose, is slower?
That said, I should more precise in my post. I’ll edit as well.
Okay, here we go, I’ve got a keyboard ready now
Do you bolus for alcohol? How much? I’m guessing it depends on what you’re drinking …
Yes, but only for my sugary drinks When going out to bars I typically do 1-2 sweet drinks (cosmo, lemon drop, margarita) at the beginning of the night when my bolus capability is high, and switch to diet drinks (rum & diet coke is my go-to) as the night progresses. I don’t like beer so I can’t comment on that, and ciders are classified under “sweet drinks”. Wine is more of a “casual drink at home or with dinner” type thing for me so I rarely get enough in to have serious effects, though I have noted that whites typically need a bit of a bolus whereas reds don’t.
So do you do different types of boluses/carb counting for different kinds of alcohol?
Not really - I just make a carb estimate for the drink and dial it in. Although my night out carb estimates for drinks are a little lower than a carb estimate would be with just 1 or 2 drinks.
What’s the timing on prebolusing/bolusing for alcohol?
Really honest here, I don’t prebolus for alcohol because I don’t plan ahead that well. I bolus right as I get the drink handed to me, and a prebolus probably would work better but I’m unwilling to have my night out revolve around waiting for insulin to kick in. I get spikes with the sugary drinks but I just keep an eye on it, and usually by the time I have transitioned to diet drinks they’re headed down.
Do you use different “protocols”/diabetes management when you’re having just a couple drinks vs a big drinking night? I think I’ve noticed that just a few drinks won’t fry my liver from releasing glucose later on
As previously mentioned, 2 drinks is where I draw the line on needing to treat things differently. This number was actually originally mentioned to me by my endo and I’ve found it to be pretty accurate.
Do you adjust how you bolus for food when you’ve been drinking? I’m guessing this may only apply if you’ve drank a lot?
Slightly, but it’s more of a nervous move than a planned out one. I tend to go a little more conservative on my carb estimates for food, which of course results in smaller food boluses than might absolutely be ideal.
This was not a question on your list, but I also shoot a little low if I’m doing correction boluses- for a night out I am far more comfortable sitting at 150 than sitting at 80. BUT, I still generally make a gentle attempt to bring down a high over 200. My pump profile for drinking also has a different ISF and target BG to make this easier, it’s set at 1:60 instead of my usual 1:50, and target of 120 instead of my normal 100. I think this would be more annoying to set up on pumps organized differently than the t:slim however
Two sips?? Because Long Island iced teas are 5+ shots each. whooza
No, two iced teas.
Even two does nothing immediately but I know to stop there because I know I’m about to be hit in 30 minutes or so.
It puts me at that perfect sweet spot. But I’m 210 lb. Maybe that’s why.
Well for only drinking once in a while, you sure get the job done when you do. The spirits manufacturer’s salute you.
I still have all the required liquors in my freezer purchased 5 years ago.
Reading this thread reminds me of New Year’s Eve 2000. This was pre-CGM and pre-pump and I was never a drinker. I had a margarita type drink and bolused, but I did not know at the time how it might affect my BGs later. Needless to say that I was lying on the floor dealing with the worst low that I ever had in 45 years of T1D. My BG would just not go up at all and I felt deathly. I haven’t drank alcohol since then (except for a sip here and there). I guess it’s like getting really sick after eating something and not wanting to eat that thing again. I am really glad that this post is here to help educate people about the possible effects of alcohol on your BG and how to best manage it to avoid issues.
OK wow. 1st off I want to say I feel like there’s si much information in this thread that I didn’t know before and that’s pretty awesome. Thank you everyone for your posts!
That being said, @Michel, I’d love to help put together a wiki on this. Like @Katers87 said, I think that a lot of young adult diabetics couldn’t greatly benefit from it 
I learned a lot in your post @Katers87. For some reason I’d assumed all beers would be carbs and all wines meant carbs, but I’m seeing now that there’s a huge range on them.
Agreed! And beer has always been my go to when drinking, but it sounds like mixed drinks actually may be easier with D management… for some reason I thought they had lots of carbs but boy was I wrong!
love this idea. Just pulling it aside for a reminder for myself 
This is one of my favorite beers 
I know others mentioned it somewhere in this thread, but craft beer for me always sends me spiking a lot more, and it feels good to have that validated with others saying it and I think some science was thrown around.
I completely agree, and this is what I really meant when I’d said I love drinking! You hit it spot on for me
Super scary. Do you mind sending the link if you can find this study?
I checked out this site, and for those interested it’s really great. The reference chart that Michel referred to is under the " How much is considered one drink?" category.
@Katers87 mentioned switching over the types of drinks after two as well, and I’m officially adding it to my list of things to try 
I’m not sure this applies to blood sugar effects; at least it doesn’t for me. I find that despite sobering up more quickly than most people and having my blood alcohol level return to zero (I used to hang out with alcohol researchers with breathalyzers on hand, so I know this for a fact), the effects of say, 3 drinks, last overnight and into the next early morning. Not sure why that’s the case, but I find the effects on liver glycogen suppression much longer lasting (and take longer to kick in) than the direct effects of alcohol.
That is fascinating. And unfortunate too in terms of practical consequences for us:-)
At one time I listed a link to it on FUD, maybe a year ago? I will look, I am pretty sure I can find it again.
Very interesting, this puts even more emphasis on why we will be testing on my son to figure all of this out prior to him leaving for college.
This is technically true, and I know what you meant, but the wording could be a bit misleading. I find a lot of people consider “liquor” to be anything that comes from a liquor store, and “mixers” limited to sodas, tonic, fruit juices, and those horrible little envelopes of sour mix powders. But if you’re having mixed drinks/cocktails, the carbs can add up: sweet vermouth (4 g/oz), Dubonnet (4 g/oz), bitters such as Campari (7 g/oz) or Aperol (11 g/oz), or liqueurs like Triple Sec (11 g/oz) or Cointreau (8 g/oz). And of course plenty of cocktails contain sugar or simple syrup (both 4 g/tsp), which the bar menu may not list as an ingredient or your host may not mention.
I always bolus for the carbs in such drinks (and I always have them with food, so I’m bolusing anyway). I bolus for beer but not for wine, and I don’t make any basal adjustments for later on, primarily because if I’m having more than one cocktail, or one or two glasses of wine, I’m likely not at home and in that case carb counts, fat/protein effects and meal timings are often a guess anyway. And with moderate amounts of alcohol and a quantifiable dinner at home, I’ve never seen more than negligible effects on BG later in the night. I can’t really speak to drinking to excess, because after about four glasses of wine my stomach rebels (fortunately or unfortunately – depends on the wine).
@Beacher, nice catch!!! I totally missed that point. I thought the champ in that category might be Kahlua with 15 carbs/oz–but now I have a feeling there may be more contenders… I’ll edit my post too (for the 5th or 6th time…?).