Can You Drink Alcohol As Part of Your Cancer Recovery Lifestyle?

Alcohol is one of the biggest stumbling blocks I see so many women struggle with, not just cancer survivors.

I totally get it! You can read about my journey at the end of this blog.

We all know the obvious side effects of alcohol:

• It contains calories and they slide down way to easily!

• It slows down your metabolism making weight loss difficult.

• Your willpower fades and you eat food you hadn’t planned on.

• You feel like crap the next day and eat more food you hadn’t planned on!

• You fall asleep easily but then wake up around 2 am and can’t go back to sleep.

What you REALLY need to know is that as soon as you start drinking, your liver stops breaking down estrogen.

In fact, your liver shuts its door, so your blood levels of estrogen immediately start to rise. This is because alcohol is toxic to your body, and your liver knows that if too much alcohol builds up in your body you can go into a coma and die.

PLUS it dumps any half-processed estrogen back into the bloodstream to deal with later.

It is this half-processed estrogen that is 400x higher in women with estrogen-sensitive cancers.

There is also a link between acetaldehyde, a by-product of alcohol metabolism, and cancer. Click here for more information.

Think about including more AFD’s (Alcohol Free Days) and swapping your wine with some sparkling mineral water and a slice of lemon.

Before I got cancer I drank alcohol regularly, usually wine or champagne. I tried to only drink on the weekends, but my husband’s roster often meant that his days off were during the week, so I would usually succumb.

I can in NO way blame my husband for my drinking BUT it was difficult that his life revolved around drinking. It also meant that my few glasses seemed insignificant compared to the large volumes he consumed.

When I got cancer in 2013, I didn’t drink for about 6 months…then ‘organic’ red wine crept back in!

Even though I knew the link between breast cancer and alcohol, it was such an intrinsic part of our ‘lifestyle’ that not drinking was hard!

Alcohol is such an enjoyable way to unwind at the end of the day OR in my case avoid what was going on in my life. In fact, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that I subconsciously used alcohol to stay in denial.

But on 1st January 2015, I decided enough was enough and put my glass down for good.

I didn’t tell a soul, but knew in my heart this was something I needed to do for me.

I put strategies in place, and made deals with myself, but I did it and after a few months it was no longer difficult.

In fact, after a few months of being sober I had totally woken up to what was going on in my marriage and sadly I left.

Today, I still revel in the freedom of not drinking AND being free from the guilt of knowing that this substance is linked to cancer.

If you are able to have half a glass of champagne or wine a couple of times a year – go for it!

BUT if you feel you ‘have’ to have alcohol in your life and you are consuming more than you should, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate.

It’s about understanding the impact of alcohol on your health and just how much you want it to be a part of your life.

You can read more about my breast cancer journey here.