ALCOHOL CAUSES CANCER - why is nobody talking about this??

We all know smoking is linked to cancer, but did you know alcohol is too?

In this episode, we’re breaking down the connection between alcohol and cancer -including how alcohol creates toxic byproducts like acetaldehyde, increases inflammation, and can contribute to DNA damage. We’ll cover the cancers most strongly linked to drinking and share the facts many of us were never taught.

This isn’t about fear or judgment -it’s about making informed choices.

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Transcript

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Alrighty, Scoop Troop, the time has come for another depressing episode, or should I say, eye-opening episode about alcohol's connection with cancer risk. Because why isn't this talked about more? And as I've been sober longer and longer, this is one of the things that keeps me sober. Like we all get sober for different reasons. I mean, just going down the laundry list, for me, it's like I was sick of hiding and lying about my drinking. I was unhappy with the way my body looked. My liver started to have some pain. There are so many reasons that I wanted to get sober. But one of the things that keeps me sober this deep into the game is the health aspect. Like alcohol is so, so bad for us. And that wasn't even a thought in my mind. First of all, when I was drinking, I didn't care at all, or I didn't even like realize. I thought that the joy alcohol brought me was worth the inherent risks. And once I got sober, I also didn't really care about the health benefits. It was something that came over time. I think as I started to focus on my fitness, focus on my nutrition, and just get interested in my overall well-being, that's when I learned the awful things that alcohol does to our body. Also, when you get sober, you are so in tune with your body. It's actually freaky. Like I feel that now I can recognize in my body when I need a carb, when I need a vegetable, when I could use some more fiber, when I'm thirsty. Like my signals in my body are so strong. I feel a really strong connection with my body. And so I think just my interest in health has gone up. And when I learned, or what I'm still learning, as I'm learning all these crazy things that alcohol does to our body, it makes me want to stay sober even more. It's like I'm doubling down. I am now staying sober for all those reasons I mentioned before, but also because it's not good for us and I don't want to die. And unfortunately, alcohol causes so many diseases, diseases, and it takes so many people at a way younger age than I think we realize, like, you know, mid-30s, early 40s from heavy alcohol use. And that is so sad. That's actually one of the revelations that I had towards the end of my drinking, is I was like, this is not my destiny. Like my identity on this earth is not somebody who loved to drink and dies young. You know, that's not that wasn't my story. There was more to write. And I didn't want to leave this earth as that being my life, as like I like to drink. No. There was so much more. I wanted to meet my partner, my forever person. I wanted to be a parent. I wanted to be a grandparent and be active and healthy into old age. So the longevity and health aspect started playing a part in my sober journey. And I actually had somebody DM me this interesting uh way to look at alcohol compared to cigarettes. I I don't know the exact stat. We'll get into it later in this episode. But she said that basically your one glass of wine or whatever is equal to like um a half a cigarette or something like that. And I think that just puts into perspective that alcohol is actually just as bad and people don't even realize. So, anyways, I don't know if that's exactly right. I have it in my notes here for the episode, which we will get into. But with that said, buckle up. We're gonna be getting a little dark today. Um, but I think that talking about this stuff, first of all, motivates people to quit drinking, but also if you're already sober, it motivates you, it motivates us to stay sober because these things are shocking. And once you've been sober, you're like, why would I go back to drinking something that is literally killing me? So if this gets you fired up to stay sober, then great. I have done my job for the day. That is the goal of this episode. So let's get right into it. First of all, this episode isn't meant to scare anyone. Like I said, it's meant to encourage us to stay sober. Because I think, well, actually, I don't know for sure. Do people not know how bad alcohol is for us, or do we know it but blindly continue to drink because in our minds the benefits outweigh the risks? Like I've heard even on one of my favorite podcasts, The Skinny Confidential, I love those guys, he said that enjoying the odd margarita is like worth it for him because it keeps him sane, it lets him blow off some steam every once in a while, and it's like worth it even though he knows it's bad for him. But of course, I mean, he's the guy on that podcast is barely drinking at all. It's just the odd margarita here and there. But he explains that that the joy the drink brings is like worth the inherent risk. So it's like he knows that it's bad for him, but he continues to do it. Anyway, to each their own. Um, but what I'm saying is like, do most people know how bad alcohol is and make the active decision to continue to still have that drink? Like the guy on the show, he he has his margarita, even though he knows it's bad. Or do people not even know how bad alcohol is and we just keep drinking without any knowledge of how bad it is for us? I don't actually know which one it is, but alas, here we are. Okay, so let's start with the facts. Alcohol is classified as a group one carcinogen. We know this by now. It's the same category as tobacco and asbestos, which is crazy to think about. That classification reflects the strength of the evidence that it causes cancer. Not that all carcinogens carry the same level of risk, but it shows that, like, there is enough proof that alcohol is cancer-causing, same as those other things. And the really interesting thing, back to that guy who's having the odd margarita here and there, there is no known completely safe amount of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk. And this is where the luck or lack of comes into play, because you can still get any alcohol-related cancers, even if you're drinking a small amount of alcohol. And in the same light, somebody who has been an alcoholic their entire life and drinking massive amounts of alcohol can somehow slip through the cracks and make it through unscathed. Um, so it's like there is an element of unluckiness with cancer risk. We all know that with any type of cancer. I mean, a smoker, somebody who's been smoking their whole lives can somehow not get lung cancer. But somebody who doesn't smoke at all can still get lung cancer. So, yeah, it's not like drinking causes cancer, but there's no known amount of alcohol that is safe. Any amount of alcohol is increasing your risk of cancer. Okay, so we talk about, okay, alcohol causes cancer a lot, but what about alcohol actually produces the cancer? You know what I mean? I was curious, so I did some deep research. I was like, what is it about the alcohol that causes the cancer? So here's what I have learned alcohol becomes acetaldehyde. When your body breaks down alcohol, it creates acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde damages DNA, prevents cells from repairing themselves, and increases mutations. Think of DNA like the instruction manual for your body. Alcohol damages the manual. Okay, what is this acetaldehyde thing? When you take a sip of alcohol, your body immediately starts trying to get rid of it. The first thing it does is convert the alcohol into a toxic chemical called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde can damage your DNA and make it harder for your cells to repair themselves. Over time, that damage can increase the risk of several types of cancer. So that's what's actually happening when we take a sip of alcohol. Our body is like, what is this thing? We gotta get it out of here. And it produces that chemical, which uh ruins your DNA apparently and can increase your risk of cancer. And here's the thing: your liver can normally convert acetaldehyde into a much less harmful substance called acetate, which your body can eventually break down into water and carbon dioxide. But if you drink heavily or frequently, acetaldehyde can build up faster than your body can clear it, which increases the amount of time your tissues are exposed to it. Acetaldehyde is a carcinogen, but it's not the only cancer risk that alcohol causes, it's just one element of all this. Another way that alcohol causes cancer is it increases inflammation. Chronic inflammation means more cell turnover, more mistakes during cell growth, more opportunity for cancer to develop. One thing that I didn't realize is that inflammation is not just something you see visually on the outside. I used to, well, I still do, describe my drinking self as being so inflamed, like my face was this big round ball, my stomach was very squishy, it was red, it was cellulite-y, and I call that inflammation. But there is inflammation that actually goes on within the body. Inflammation inside the body is your immune system's natural response to injury or something it sees as a threat. Imagine your body has its own emergency response team. If you cut your finger, that team rushes to heal it. That's inflammation. And it's actually a good thing, but the problem is when that emergency response never fully turns off. So when we drink alcohol, our body is like in emergency response mode more often and it doesn't come back down. And since we know alcohol stays in the body for, I think it's 72 hours, it's like, okay, we have one drink on a Wednesday night and then we don't drink again until Saturday. That's not very frequent drinking, but that entire time alcohol is in our body. So the inflammation is there. Our body is still processing that alcohol and it's in emergency response mode that entire time, even though you're barely drinking. So that's another way alcohol causes cancer is the inflammation. Let's talk about the third thing. Alcohol changes your hormones, especially estrogen. And this is something I did not realize until this session of research is that alcohol is actually related to breast cancer. I just thought alcohol was related to like the obvious things: liver cancer, because liver processes alcohol, throat cancer, mouth cancer, because it's going down your throat and in your mouth, and esophagal, esophagus, whatever, cancer. Um, those were the only things I thought alcohol caused because they're in direct contact with the alcohol, if that makes sense. But alcohol impacts estrogen a lot. And this is just my personal theory. Maybe I need to quick do a Google search, but I think that's why my body was so out of whack when I was drinking and like why my boobs were huge and stuff, is because of the increased estrogen. I don't know, maybe that's just in my head, but uh I felt that alcohol made me bigger overall, but it also like made my bum and boobs bigger. Anyway, that's just my own personal side theory. But alcohol increases estrogen, and higher estrogen is directly linked with increased breast cancer risk. I just did not realize that. Especially, I mean, breast cancer doesn't really have any known causes. It is genetic a lot of the times, or most of the time, and I've been hearing some things about how putting deodorant on your armpit, on those open glands, increases breast cancer risk. You know, I've heard all sorts of things, but I have not heard that drinking a lot of booze increases your risk of breast cancer. I just did not see that one coming. But apparently, alcohol impacts your hormones so much that it does become an increased risk for breast cancer. Alright, so back to our list: different ways that alcohol causes cancer. Alcohol becomes acetaldehyde, alcohol increases inflammation, alcohol changes hormones. The fourth thing: alcohol makes it easier for other carcinogens to enter the cells, especially in the mouth and throat. It basically acts like a solvent. So we all hear about the drunk sig, right? Everybody loves a drunk sig. Uh, but the reason that is not good is because alcohol basically coats your throat and mouth and whatever and makes those tissues more permeable. Like the bad things can get in easier because alcohol has like lubed them up and made them ready for other carcinogens to seep right in. Tobacco smoke contains dozens of carcinogens, and alcohol makes it easier for those carcinogens to penetrate the cells lining uh the cells that line your mouth and throat, which is why the combination raises the risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus much more than either habit alone. I mean, think about when you're sick or something. It's easier to get other things because your immune system is already down. If you're somebody who gets cold sores, have you ever noticed that cold sores arise when you're sick? I think that's because our immune system is already working overtime. We're like putting stress on the body, and a cold sore comes due to stress and an impacted immune system. So it's kind of like when you're damaging your body with alcohol, it opens the door for other things to come right in. Another interesting thing, and I don't know if this is directly correlated, um, but I have not been as sick in sobriety. Like I just don't get as many colds. And I have had certain moments where I felt a cold coming on, and I'm like able to battle it quicker. Well, first of all, probably because I'm in tune with my body and I can sense that it's coming and take my vitamin C and like try to rest and recoup even before it gets here. But also, I think that alcohol just causes your body so much stress that you're more susceptible to uh, well, having carcinogens leak into your tissues, but also just simple things like a cold, uh, you might be more susceptible to because your body's having to work overtime to process all the alcohol. In a similar light, I think that's why it's so hard to lose weight while drinking, because the alcohol in your body is your body's first priority. It's not going to work on like breaking down fat and like uh, you know, metabolizing your food and stuff like that. Is that the right phrase? You know what I mean? Like improving your metabolism. It's focused on the alcohol and it can't really do anything else until that alcohol is taken care of. That's why they say that if you drink within a certain time frame after a workout, you may as well have not worked out because that alcohol becomes your body's priority and it doesn't do all the good things that it's supposed to do. And the crazy thing with increasing your risk for other carcinogens when drinking is that you don't have to be drunk for these processes to happen. They begin every single time alcohol is metabolized. So that excuse of like, oh, it's just one drink, or oh, I don't drink that often, like, yeah, of course, your risk is going to be higher if you're a really heavy drinker, but drinking a small amount doesn't eliminate your risk. That goes back to what we were talking about towards the beginning, with like there's no known safe amount of alcohol. Any amount of alcohol can contribute to these bad things happening in our body. All right, let's list out the seven cancers alcohol can cause. Most people, like myself, assume liver cancer is the only one, or like mouth cancer, but there are more. So let's just let's go down the list of all the different cancers that alcohol can cause. It's linked to at least seven. First, breast cancer. We talked about that before. It's largely because of the increased estrogen. Even low levels of drinking can increase your risk of breast cancer. And shockingly, breast cancer has one of the strongest links with alcohol. I just did not know that. Do people know that? Maybe if you've been so unfortunate to experience breast cancer in your family, you might know that. But I had no idea. Why is that not talked about more? I don't know. Number two, mouth cancer. Alcohol directly contacts mouth tissue. Risk rises dramatically when combined with smoking. Like we were talking about before. If you're a heavy drinker and you smoke, not a great combo. Number three, throat cancer. Alcohol repeatedly damages throat tissue. If that makes sense. Number four, your voice box, otherwise known as your larynx larynx. I can't say that word. Larynx. Larynx? Larynx. Less talked about, but strongly associated. Number five, I think. One, two, three, four. Number five, esophagal cancer. One of the strongest alcohol cancer links. Alcohol literally bathes the esophagus every drink. That's scary. You're putting poison down your throat, and every time it's increasing your risk of esophagal cancer. Cancer of the esophagus. And number six, sorry, two more. Number six, liver cancer. Expected because the liver processes alcohol. Years of inflammation can eventually lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Yeah, not to mention it's not just cancer. You also got cirrhosis of the liver, fatty liver. Ugh. There are so many bad things that can happen. It's so scary. And like I said, it's not going to happen to everybody who drinks. But I'd rather just not even put myself as a candidate for who's going to get the cancer. I'd rather not. And I know I've already done quite a bit of damage to my liver, but the liver is an amazing organ that can repair itself to a certain extent. So quitting, stopping completely cutting out alcohol out of your life completely is the only way to reduce your risk after you've been a heavy drinker in the past. And number seven, colorectal cancer. Alcohol changes the gut microbiome, also affects nutrient absorption and inflammation. Okay, so cancer of the gut, basically. But colorectal, let me look into what that actually is. Okay, okay, I see. Colorectal cancer is it combines colon cancer, colon cancer and rectal cancer. And colorectal cancer is the term for cancers that develop in the colon, which is the large intestine, or the rectum, the last several inches of the large intestine before the anus. Sorry to get graphic. This is a health episode, okay? Um, so like I said, colon cancer and rectal cancer are grouped together as colorectal cancer. The interesting part is that it's not simply because alcohol passes through your bowels. It's a little more complicated, okay? Let's see. Here's how alcohol is thought to increase colorectal cancer, cancer risk. Acetaldehyde exposure, your gut bacteria can also convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, the same toxic chemical we talked about earlier. That means the lining of your colon can be exposed to. It. Okay, so that can cause cancer. Also, back to the inflammation. Alcohol can contribute to chronic inflammation in the digestive tract tract. Changes to the gut microbiome. Drinking can alter the balance of bacteria in your intestines, which may affect inflammation and other processes linked to cancer. And lastly, nutrient absorption. Heavy alcohol use can interfere with the absorption of nutrients like folate, which is important for making and repairing DNA. So all that's going on in your gut, and eventually your colon and rectal tract, whatever tract. So, yeah, lots of ways that colorectal cancers can exist. And that is the seven different types of cancer that can happen. There's a lot, more than I thought for sure. Especially breast cancer, I just didn't realize that link. So that's sad, that's crazy, and it's shocking. I would not have, you know, seen somebody getting breast cancer and thought, what's their alcohol use like? I just don't see those two as being related. So maybe it's something like if breast cancer runs in your family, maybe you are hyper aware of your alcohol use. Maybe that's something that should be talked about. It's like they say if you're at high risk of breast cancer to do your self-exams, do your annual mammograms, whatever, but they don't talk about like don't drink alcohol if you're at risk for breast cancer. Why isn't that a conversation that's being had? Another thing I'd like to touch on is that there's this myth that wine is healthy. Here's the thing: red wine has some antioxidants. All right, cool. You get some antioxidants when you're drinking red wine. But it's not like those antioxidants eliminate the carcinogens of alcohol. Like you might get a little bit of antioxidants, cool, but it doesn't eliminate any of the negative effects. People literally say red wine is healthy. Now that word is, you know, a bit extreme. I would say there's one health benefit in red wine, but I would never say that red wine is healthy by any means. The reality is the antioxidants don't erase the cancer risk from ethanol. Alcohol is alcohol. Wine, beer, cocktails, your body converts them all into acetaldehyde, that substance we talked about earlier, and having a little antioxidants from the red wine ain't gonna reverse that. Okay. Another myth. Oh, I only drink on the weekends, oh, I only drink, you know, a couple glasses in the evening or whatever. Heavy weekend drinking still exposes your body to high doses of alcohol. Having a daily drink, it adds up over time. The amount that you're drinking, like justifying, oh, it's only this, oh, it's only that, it doesn't eliminate your risk. Yes, if you drink higher amounts of alcohol, you're at more risk. If you smoke and drink, you're at higher risk. But having that nightly drink or going crazy on the weekend and been drinking, those are both increasing your risk and justifying your drinking with, oh, it's just this, it's just that, it doesn't decrease your chance, and you could be one of the unlucky ones. Sadly. Another myth, how about organic alcohol LOL? I don't know if people actually think that that's like better for you, or if they think it just has better ingredients or whatever. Here's the thing ethanol is ethanol. Alcohol is alcohol. That poison in there is still in there. Even if all the other things are organic, alcohol itself is alcohol. It makes me laugh when people say, oh, tequila is the best alcohol for you. Your body can like process it the best. Here's the thing: it's still alcohol. People think beer is not as bad as hard alcohol. I used to think that. People think wine's not as bad as hard alcohol. People think if you're gonna get a cocktail, get tequila soda, it's the cleanest alcohol. There's ethanol in all of those. The actual alcohol part is alcohol, and it doesn't matter in what form you're having it, if that makes sense. This is something I didn't know before I got sober either. I thought there's like not that there's less alcohol, because there is less alcohol uh per ounce, you know, in beer than hard hard alcohol. Um, but the alcohol is still the same type of alcohol. That ethanol in there, that poison, is the same poison in tequila. It doesn't matter if you're having beer, wine, tequila, vodka, it doesn't matter. It's still the ethanol of alcohol. Does that make sense? Okay, and then a lot of people say, I only have one drink, which, wow, imagine that. If you drank in the same way I did, having one drink would be torturous. I'd rather just not. Like, I don't want to have one drink. It I got to a point where one drink, I wouldn't even feel that at all. I would need three drinks just to be able to recognize that I've had any alcohol. So, first of all, don't understand how that is possible, but anyways, people say, Does one drink really matter? And this is nuanced, okay? Cancer risk increases gradually. It's not one drink equals cancer. It's each additional drink increases lifetime risk. And I really like this analogy. Think of it like sun exposure. You go out to the sun, or you go out and lay in the sun and you get sunburned. One day at the beach doesn't guarantee skin cancer, but years of exposure increase the odds. It's not going to be that one sunburn that you got in Mexico. It's going to be every day that you're outside walking in a tank top or walking in shorts. Or even if you're wearing a long sleeve and pants, your hands are exposed every day. Your face is exposed every day because you're not wearing a hat. It's the years and years of light exposure that really do it. Side note, that's why I wear sunscreen on my face every single day, whether it's cloudy, whether I'm going outside, whatever, because you will be in the sun. You will be in contact with the sun. And I want to keep my face out of the sun for mostly anti-aging, you know, vanity reasons, if I'm being honest. But also, exposing your body to the sun increases your risk of skin cancer. So, anyway, alcohol contributes to hundreds of thousands of cancer cases worldwide every year. Many occur in people who consider themselves moderate drinkers. But my question is, do we even realize that it's the alcohol that caused those? Because I think people, the patient, the doctors, even, I think everyone in society wants to blame anything else but alcohol. Because alcohol is so normalized, and this could be a whole separate conversation, but alcohol runs the world. Like, I don't even think we realize how much alcohol runs the world. Most restaurants don't even make money on the food, they make money on alcohol sales. The bougiest restaurants are literally losing money on the food, but they'll make their money back in alcohol sales. Isn't that crazy? And you look at like the Super Bowl, the number of alcohol commercials is astonishing. Alcohol, I mean, you look at bars and and brands of alcohol and bottle service and clubs, and alcohol is just such a pivotal part of our society. It's so central to human life in a crazy way. Like it's got its fingers in just everything in our society, which is crazy. But yet, people don't, I think that's why people don't correlate drinking with causing all these bad things. Like it must have been something else, or you're just unlucky, or whatever. Again, I could go on a whole tangent about this, but I'm starting to believe in life that a lot of cancers are caused by preventative things. And of course, there's some things that can't be prevented. I mean, gosh, you look at like Nara Smith, if you guys know her, she's a model slash influencer. Like, she got really famous on TikTok for making things from scratch. And her daughter, who's like three years old, got cancer. And this woman is feeding her kids the healthiest things on planet Earth, literally making everything from scratch, never eating processed things, and her kid gets cancer. So, like, obviously, there are some cancers that are, I mean, you're just unlucky. And I don't think there's anything they could have done to prevent that. Some cancer just happens, a lot of those blood cancers and stuff, which is just so sad. Um, so, so sad. But on the other hand, there are so many things in our world that can cause cancers or contribute to our risk of cancer. I mean, there's the conversation around microplastics, then there's the sun exposure, which gives you skin cancer, which can seep into the blood and give you blood cancer. There's the alcohol, there's um processed foods and dyes in our in our food and seed oils and oh my god, you know, you can't avoid it all, okay? We also have to freaking live. But I do think that so many cancers are related to something. We just don't have those answers yet. And I think we will eventually. And I wish alcohol was a little bit more talked about as being one of those reasons. I don't think people jump to that. Somebody gets breast cancer, and I don't think the question is like, how much do you drink? I think it's like that's unfortunate, and does it run in your family, and all that type of stuff. But maybe we need to look at alcohol a little closer for mouth cancers. People say, Oh, you're just uh that was unlucky. Maybe alcohol increased your risk for that. Okay, I have a crazy comparison to translate the impact of alcohol to our cancer risk, and I'm gonna relate it to smoking because smoking in our society has become unacceptable. I mean, people are like disgusted by smokers, but it used to be so normal and so celebrated, and you could smoke anywhere and everybody smoked. It was societally so accepted, and now it is you're like shamed if you're a smoker. It is just so accepted that smoking is bad for you and drinking hasn't quite gotten there yet, and I wonder if it will, or if alcohol runs the world a little too much and it'll never get there. Who knows? But, anyways, this is just one way to like correlate, or I guess, um compare alcohol to smoking to understand how bad it is. Okay, here's this here's the situation. Researchers have well, let me restart. Researchers have estimated that drinking one bottle of wine per week over a year is associated with an increase in lifetime cancer risk, roughly comparable to smoking about 10 cigarettes per week for women and about five cigarettes per week for men. So I'm gonna look at the female one, 10 cigarettes per week. I think if you're a heavy smoker, that's gonna be on the low end, but you know what else is on the low end? One wine, one bottle of wine per week. I mean, I would do a bottle of wine per day, which would probably be like drinking a pack a day of cigar or sorry, smoking a pack a day of cigarettes. There is a huge impact on cancer risk, and we don't realize it, so I'm hoping that analogy kind of paints the picture for us. One bottle of wine per week over a year has the same lifetime cancer risk as 10 cigarettes per week. I mean, I'm thinking 10 cigarettes, that's a lot. As somebody who doesn't smoke, I'm like, 10 cigarettes, you're having one a day, sometimes two a day. And I'm like, that's bad. Like I would never smoke 10 cigarettes a week. That's that's a huge risk. You are risking your life by having 10 cigarettes per week. But that's the exact same risk of cancer as having a bottle of wine per week, which in my opinion is like nothing. So I hope this comparison is making sense. Like 10 cigarettes per week, that's crazy. I would never ever do that. That's way too risky. But a bottle of wine per week is barely cracking in. That's that's a healthy amount of alcohol right there. That's just fine. But it's the same risk as having 10 cigarettes in a week. How crazy, right? So let's go back to the conversation of why isn't this discussed more? Why don't we hear about this? Alcohol is deeply embedded in our culture. People associate it with celebrations, vacations, romance, sports, stress relief. Compare this with cigarettes. Smoking became socially unacceptable after decades of public education. Alcohol hasn't experienced the same cultural shift yet. In fact, you're the weird one if you're not drinking alcohol, whereas you're the weird one if you're smoking cigarettes. Like let's say you're going out with a group of friends, one person might smoke, but everybody will drink, and maybe one person doesn't drink, and they're the outcast. You know what I mean? There was a cultural shift with cigarettes, and there's like almost the opposite cultural situation with alcohol, where it is so accepted that you're weird if you don't do it. How bizarre. What kind of marketing did that take? For you to be the weird one if you don't drink the poison. How bizarre. How bizarre. Alright, and to wrap things up, here's the good news. We're ending on hope. The body is amazing. Benefits begin quickly after reducing or stopping alcohol. Inflammation decreases, sleep improves, the liver can regenerate to a remarkable degree if damage isn't too advanced, of course. Cancer risk declines over time after quitting, though it may not return completely to that of someone who never drank. Weren't weren't but the cancer risk declines when you get sober. Moral of the story. We can't fix what we've already done. Or we can a little bit, actually, the liver can heal itself to an impressive degree. But stopping is the best option. That's all we can do, right? Quitting alcohol is the best choice we can make for ourselves. That is a great way to reduce so many different risks of cancer and even beyond the cancers that alcohol causes, because like we talked about, alcohol like lubricates the body for other cancers to seep in. So alcohol is not a good move. And getting sober is the way to decrease your risk of cancer. I mean, let's be honest, if you get cancer, you're very unlucky. In life, you're very unlucky if you get cancer. It's very unfortunate, it's very sad. But if they're gonna pick a random candidate out of the lineup, I would rather not even make myself a candidate, if that makes sense. I would rather not even consume a little bit of the thing that might cause cancer. I want to take myself out of the lineup so I can't even be selected for those types of cancers. And I'm not telling anybody what to do. I just believe that people deserve informed consent. We see warning labels on cigarettes because we know the risks. Alcohol deserves the same honest conversation. People should know how bad it is and then get to make the choice to partake or not. But I think so many people don't actually know how bad it is, and we just blindly consume it because of marketing or social norms or whatever. If you choose to drink after knowing the facts, that's your choice. But for many years, we made that choice without ever hearing this information. So now you have the information. I hope you enjoyed this episode. As dark and sad as it is, it actually gets me so hyped on sobriety. It makes me, it gives me a little ego boost when I'm out at a party and I see everyone drinking and I feel like an outcast. And then I think about this. And I'm like, I'm making that good choice for my body. And it it hyped me up. Anything that can hype us up in sobriety, I'm a fan of. And if this gets us stoked to be sober, then I'm all for it. So I hope you enjoyed the episode for whatever it is, how dark it is. Um, and I'm wishing you all the best. If you have been affected by cancer, I'm I'm so sorry. If someone in your family has been, I'm so sorry. It's a horrible thing that happens in life, and I'm not saying alcohol is always the cause. Sometimes you're unlucky and life throws you curveballs, and it's just earth-shattering and a horrible thing to go through. We all have someone in our lives who has been affected by cancer, and it's just it's so awful. And I hope beyond just alcohol, more things will be exposed as cancer-causing so that we're informed and can reduce our risk as much as possible. Because, like I said, it's a game of chance, and sometimes you'll get cancer even if you've done everything right. But I do feel like we should be able to make the choice to avoid the things that are known to cause cancer. And we learn more all the time, more things are coming out. Um but yeah, I feel like we should know everything that can be avoided that's associated with cancer risk. And then again, sometimes you just get unlucky, and that's that's so sad. Cancer is a crazy thing. I hate it. F cancer. And yeah, sending love. All right, goodbye, guys. See you for the next episode.