One piece of harm reduction knowledge that never gets brought up and I wish was talked about more, because it's relevant to my own ED experiences, is that restricting and/or purging while drinking heavily puts you at a much higher risk of developing something called Korsakoff's Syndrome. It's a type of dementia almost exclusively caused by a combination of alcoholism and lack of nutrition.
As well as all the usual symptoms of dementia it can also cause you to replace memories with fabricated ones and to hallucinate. Depending on how much you're drinking and how much you're restricting, you can develop it quite young. Because I was drinking heavily at the height of my ED, I am now at an increased risk of Korsakoff's Syndrome. And this scares me.
This was in part thanks to a fatphobic doctor who prioritised me "losing my beer belly" over tackling my alcoholism and praised weight loss regardless of how I achieved it. But if you're an alcoholic with a beer belly, that beer belly could be saving you from cognitive decline.
So if you have problems with alcohol dependence, like I did, you should prioritise eating when you drink. It doesn't matter what it is you eat, it doesn't matter if alcohol is causing weight gain (as it often does). You are at a much higher risk of developing early onset dementia if you drink a lot and don't eat enough.
Diet culture will shame people for craving greasy, carb heavy "junk" food when drunk, but a big burger or a juicy kebab after you drink is so so much better for you and your mind than drinking without eating.
If you aren't at the point where ED recovery feels possible, or you're just starting recovery, try to limit your restriction and/or purging to days that you don't drink. And the more you drink, the more you should eat.
