There are many reasons for wanting to reduce or eliminate the use of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and Mounjaro. The most frequent complaints involve nausea and intestinal distress, and the cost is also commonly cited as a reason for stopping use.

However, stopping using GLP-1 drugs almost always results in significant weight rebound. A recent review article in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism put it this way:

Abrupt discontinuation may result in a transient mismatch between increased biological drive for weight regain and the sudden loss of pharmacological appetite suppression.

Stop taking GLP-1s, and the appetite suddenly goes into overdrive while the pharmaceutically-induced signal to stop eating is gone. It’s like a spring unsprung. The review continues: 

Weight regain after GLP-1RA discontinuation is substantial and follows a characteristic trajectory, with a large proportion occurring during the early post-cessation period. This front-loaded pattern suggests that the initial months after treatment cessation represent a critical window influencing long-term outcomes.

The first month off GLP-1 drugs is crazy; the weight gain is “front-loaded.” Is there a way to reduce the impacts of tapering off or eliminating the use of GLP-1 drugs?

Yes!

The solution comes from recognizing that GLP-1s are only half the story of beating eating addiction and obesity. The other half is treating the issues that drive people to overeat. These issues are almost all stress-related, and they’re behind not only eating addiction but also drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and many compulsive behaviors such as gambling addiction and shopping addiction.

What is the source of the stress that is driving these compulsive behaviors? The stress comes from every direction. Poverty is a significant cause of chronic stress. So is parenting. When the two combine, the results for childhood development can be disastrous. That’s why the most successful intervention, Parent-Child Interactive Therapy (PCIT), occurs prior to birth, teaching parents how to cope with the stress of raising an infant.

The stress starts in childhood with the inability to control your environment and experiencing outcomes that are not optimal. This results in a buildup of stress-related energy that is displaced into inappropriate behavior. In adolescence, this often results in experiments with risky behaviors, including substance abuse.

More than half the people in addiction treatment in the United States report being abused as children. Furthermore, this abuse is directly tied to their motivation to overindulge. You can’t go back and fix people’s childhoods with PCIT. What you can do, however, is help them learn to deal with stress without overconsuming.

In a recent article interviewing psychiatrists specializing in addiction treatment, the journal Mad In America addresses the issue of using GLP-1 drugs to treat addiction: “If a medication reduces the biological urge to use a substance, does that necessarily mean it has treated the addiction?”

The psychiatrists suggest that the use of GLP-1 drugs to suppress cravings creates “an opportunity for the person to begin addressing the deeper psychological and social factors underlying the behavior.”

One of the experts interviewed is Brooke McKenzie, a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor, author, and CEO of a long-term treatment program dedicated exclusively to chronic relapse. “Recovery isn’t simply the absence of an urge. It’s the presence of new ways to live.” Fundamentally, new ways to manage chronic stress and stressful situations.

One way of learning to manage stressful situations while tapering off GLP-1 drugs is using an app called BrainWeighve, developed by eHealth International, publishers of AddictionNews. The app is currently in clinical trials for obesity treatment at UCLA. The trial has been expanded to people using GLP-1 drugs as well as those who are not.

BrainWeighve employs many interesting psychological features to help people stop stress eating. The patient inputs a Dread List of situations that produce overflow brain stress energy and make them want to eat, and then a list of Action Plans they can deploy to address the stresses. Also, they input rechanneling techniques used for stress energy urges in the moment, such as breath holding and hand squeezing.

As BrainWeighve patients withdraw from one problem food after another and curtail between-meal snacking, their weight loss is tracked, and they have access to a medical team through the app. One of the patients in the study who is taking a GLP-1 drug told the medical team:

Although Wegovy suppressed hunger, it didn’t really tackle the root problems. Wegovy would make me not hungry, but the app would make me realize I didn’t need the snack to begin with.

You can find several studies calling for more research into withdrawal from GLP-1 drugs and “sustainable obesity care,” but there is very little evidence so far for discontinuation strategies. The article in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism recommends avoiding abrupt discontinuation and tapering to low-dose management. They conclude:

In general, behavioural adaptation, dietary quality, physical activity, resistance training and long-term adherence are likely to contribute to interindividual variability in post-cessation outcomes and should therefore be incorporated into future maintenance, discontinuation and de-escalation studies.

It is possible that GLP-1 drugs plus a behavior modification app could be the one-two punch that knocks out addiction, starting with urge suppression and ending with lifestyle modification. We look forward to more research into this blended intervention for compulsive behaviors.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published October 23, 2026.

Sources:

“Early Weight Regain After GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Discontinuation: Mechanisms and Implications for Treatment De-Escalation Strategies,” Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, July 3, 2026.

“Marketing GLP-1 Drugs for Addiction: Why Critics Are Skeptical,” Mad In America, October 10, 2026.

“Pathways to Sustainable GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Off-Ramping,” JAMA Internal Medicine, January 27, 2025.

“GLP-1 Receptor Agonists and the Path to Sustainable Obesity Care,” JAMA Internal Medicine, October 14, 2024.

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