I realize now that alcohol is one of the triggers that allows me to gain weight precipitously.  I've gained 10 pounds in the course of 8 days as a result of 2 drinking binges. 

I think it's a two fold problem, in that first the alcohol is packed with empty calories, and any mixer I may drink sky rockets my blood sugar.  At the same time the lowering of ones personal inhibitions makes life fun, but also makes it easier to gorge yourself on food.  Good food, bad food it's all the same when your drunk, and when you really get drunk you want something warm and greasy to coat your stomach. 

I found that if it was just he food eaten during a drinking binge it wouldn't be bad, studies have also shown that alcohol temporarily lowers your metabolic rate and inhibits your liver from metabolizing fat.  Which I have noticed that much of the weight gain occurs the next day.  It doesn't matter what I eat the next day it always ends up packing pounds to the scale. 

I need to make sure I keep my drinking to an absolute minimum and when I do I can't afford to drink more than once in a ten day period.  When drinking occurs twice in the same week there just isn't' enough time to recover from the temporary lapse, and what should be a temporary gain becomes a permanent one.