REMEMBER WHEN SMOKING USED TO BE COOL?!
We are at the beginning stages of a cultural revolution when it comes to alcohol. There is more information available now than there ever was about how bad alcohol is for our health. I’m not here to scare you into quitting your wine, I am here to EMPOWER you to make your own personal decision based on science.
What Alcohol And Cancer
For example, did you know that alcohol is a GROUP 1 carcinogen and is linked to at least 7 different types of cancer?!
Breastcancer.org says- “Compared to women who don’t drink at all, women who have three alcoholic drinks per week have a 15% higher risk of breast cancer. Experts estimate that the risk of breast cancer goes up another 10% for each additional drink women regularly have each day.”
Three drinks a week?!?!??! 
I was having three glasses of wine most nights.
What Alcohol Does To Your Heart
In January 2022 the World Heart Federation came out with the following statement, “In 2019, more than 2.4 million people died because of alcohol, accounting for 4.3% of all deaths globally.
Alcohol is a psychoactive and harmful substance that can cause significant damage to the human body. Its consumption is a major avoidable risk factor for noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, digestive diseases, and intentional and unintentional injuries, and for several infectious diseases.
The evidence is clear: ANY level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life. Studies have shown that even small amounts of alcohol can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease, including coronary disease, stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and aneurysm.”
Annie Grace writes, “Binge drinking raises your likelihood of having a stroke by 39 percent.”
What Alcohol Does To Your Liver
In the U.S., more than 44,000 people died of alcoholic liver disease in 2019. And although liver diseases still affect more men, younger women are driving the increase in deaths, a trend that began several years ago and is now supercharged by the pandemic, says Dr Jessica Mellinger. “We’re seeing kids in their late 20s and early 30s with a disease that we previously thought was kind of exclusive to middle age,” she says.
Annie Grace writes “When your liver metabolises alcohol it creates toxins, which are actually more dangerous than alcohol itself. Alcohol damages liver cells by causing inflammation, and it’s weakens your body’s natural defences. Liver inflammation disrupts your metabolism, which impact the function of other organs.
The Double Standard
This is the kind of information that came out and made smoking go from the cool thing to do, to totally taboo.
And yet, we don’t give our friends a hard time if they want to quit smoking, but if they want to take a break from alcohol we ask them – “why are you being so boring?” How crazy is that?!
It’s a double standard, but the good news is that the tide is turning. There is more and more research coming out about how alcohol is horrible for your sleep, your heart, your cholesterol, your gut, your insulin levels, and your brain. In the US alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable death.
Big alcohol and the alcohol lobby is a force to be reckoned with and holds TONS of power, but I encourage you that if you sober curious or just decided to give up for good- that you have made one of the best decisions for your health.
More and more people are waking up to these risks, and the younger generations, like Gen Z are drinking far far less than us millennials. The tide is turning, although it may seem slow.
So what are you waiting for? For the warning levels to get slapped on the actual bottles of wine? (and the US and UK are working on it!)?
Let’s do our research ladies and figure out if the risks are worth the wine!
