Why Alcohol Causes Cancer And How To Quit It

Alcohol causes cancer, even light drinking. If you stop drinking alcohol, you can lower your risk of at least ten types of cancer.

In this blog post, you will learn the brief history of alcohol and its harmful effects on society.

Then you will discover why alcohol causes cancer and has no health benefits. And lastly, you will find out how to stop your alcohol addiction without guilt, shame, or will power.

The History Of Alcohol

The history of alcohol and humans is at least 30 000 to 100 000 years long. Alcohol is a liquid produced by the natural fermentation of sugars. It is currently the most used human psychoactive agent around the world.

Alcohol is ahead of nicotine, caffeine, and betel nut. Prehistoric societies in six of the seven continents consumed it in various forms. At some point, they recognized that fruits or berries fermented if you left them in a container.

Fermented grain, fruit juice, and honey have been part of the alcohol process for thousands of years. Alcohol existed in early Egyptian civilization. There is also evidence of an alcoholic drink in China around 7000 B.C.

In India, an alcoholic beverage called sura, distilled from rice, was in use between 3000 and 2000 B.C. The Babylonians worshiped a wine goddess as early as 2700 B.C. 

In Greece, one of the first alcoholic beverages to gain popularity was mead. It's a fermented drink made from honey and water.

Since alcohol became popular, it has caused problems in our society even today.

The Impact Of Alcoholism On Society

Today, about 15 million Americans suffer from alcoholism. Of them, less than 8% of those receive treatment. Alcoholism is one of the biggest public health crises in the United States today. 

Alcohol has wide-ranging effects on the body. It triggers physiological changes in the brain, heart, and liver, among other organs.

According to the CDC, six people die every day from alcohol poisoning. About 76% of the people who die are men. Research has found that alcoholism is behind 30% of poisoning deaths.

Alcohol poisoning can cause vomiting, disorientation, difficulty breathing, rapid heartbeat, loss of consciousness, severe seizures and cardiac arrest. Dangerous drinking can cause many other health issues.

Over time, these changes can lead to long-term health complications. Alcohol is also a hazard for people that are not drinking. One hundred thousand people die every year as a result of drinking and driving.

Alcohol accounts for more than 30% of all driving fatalities each year. Drunk driving costs the United States more than $199 billion every year. Alcohol use can also lead to other accidents, falls, fires, suicides, and homicides.

If a person vomits while unconscious, the vomit can cause suffocation and be lethal.

Alcohol can also increase your cancer risk.

Alcohol Causes Cancer In Ten Types Of Body Parts

We've known about the cancer risk of alcohol for more than a hundred years. The World Health Organization concluded that all alcoholic beverages are carcinogenic to humans. Alcohol drinking may cause the risk of:

Alcohol causes about 5.8% of all cancer deaths in these organs worldwide. Most recent research has focused on acetaldehyde. 

It's the most toxic carcinogenic alcohol metabolite. Bacteria in our mouths oxidize alcohol into this carcinogen, which we then swallow.

Some breast cancer deaths are due to alcohol.

The Alcohol Breast Cancer Link

There is convincing evidence that alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer. Most of the data derived from studies focused on the effect of moderate/high alcohol intakes.

But one meta-analysis of studies compared light drinkers to non-drinkers. They, too, found a moderate risk with breast cancer, based on the results of more than 100 studies.

They estimated that about 5000 breast cancer deaths a year are due to light drinking. That means that 5000 women that died of breast cancer could have avoided it if they stayed away from alcohol.

The Harvard Nurses' Study found that less than a single drink per day may lead to a modest increase in risk.

Another study found that even a teaspoon of hard liquor in your mouth for five seconds can cause cancer. And that is even if you spit the alcohol out without swallowing it.

Acetaldehyde can form for about ten minutes, even if you only swish alcohol in your mouth. Even alcohol-containing mouthwash can give you a carcinogenic spike.

Any level of alcohol consumption increases the risk of developing cancer. So, there is no safe threshold.

You have probably heard that alcohol can lower the risk of heart disease. But is that true?

Does Wine Stop Heart Disease In French People?

One of the most popular episodes shown on 60 Minutes was about The French Paradox. It reported that wine products protected French people against heart disease. The more animal foods populations eat, the higher their death rates appear to be.

But two countries fell outside the line. Finland seemed to be doing worse than expected, and France appeared to be doing better. France ate the same amount of saturated fat and cholesterol as Finland.

But the shocking thing was that they had five times fewer heart attacks. The 60 Minutes program believed that resveratrol in wine caused the effect. That has caused some doctors to advocate for moderate drinking.

Alcohol consumption raises HDL, the "good" cholesterol. But, HDL is no longer considered protective against heart disease. Having a high HDL your whole life doesn't appear to help.

Higher amounts of alcohol do not give you more HDL in your blood. Heavy drinking over time can damage the liver so much that it can no longer synthesize HDL. That can increase the risk of atherosclerosis or heart failure.

Why There Was Never A French Paradox

It turned out there was no French paradox. French people had lower heart disease because they ate more vegetables years before.

They then switched to a more meat-heavy diet. Because the switch was quite recent, the effect didn't show in the statistics.

It's like comparing a heavy smoker to a new smoker. The heavy smoker has years of accumulation while the new smoker hasn't caught up yet. So, of course, the heavy smoker will have more severe side effects.

In the end, the French had as much heart disease as other countries. This fact became evident when scientists corrected for the French Paradox. 

The scientists forgot to include statistics about ischaemic heart disease. When they added it, the French had as much heart disease as other countries.

So, the boost in HDL from alcohol may not matter. Whereas a permanent reduction of bad cholesterol, LDL, decrease heart disease risk.

Those who abstain from alcohol seem to be at the lowest risk of atherosclerosis. You also have a lower risk of coronary calcium scores, the less you drink. 

Alcohol bumps our blood pressure up a bit as well, which can raise, not lower, our cardiac risk. There are better ways to prevent heart attacks, such as diet and exercise.

Thousands of studies also show that resveratrol doesn't prevent heart disease.

Resveratrol Doesn't Stop Heart Disease

After more than 20 years of well-funded research, resveratrol has no real benefit. The hype in the mass media on resveratrol may be nothing more than a marketing scheme. Many of the studies on resveratrol test on animals. 

These animals receive massive doses of resveratrol in tens of milligrams per pound. For humans to reach those levels, we need to consume either:

So why are do we still hear that wine stops heart disease? To understand that you need to learn about the alcohol lobby.

The Alcohol Lobby Manipulates Scientific Studies

Wine may only be useful for those who sell it.The alcohol lobby and advertisers try everything to manipulate the scientific evidence. They do this by denying the evidence or distorting it.

The alcohol industry uses the same strategies as Big Tobacco. Big Tobacco made studies where non-smokers sometimes had higher death rates than smokers.

But the problem was that the non-smokers were former smokers.They had higher death rates because smoking made them sick, so they quit. When you classify someone as a non-smoker or drinker, you have to make sure they're lifelong abstainers.

Yet, that's not what they do in most alcohol studies. Instead, they misclassify former drinkers as if they were lifelong abstainers. People with poorer health are more likely to cut down or stop drinking altogether.

That makes current drinkers look good in comparison to those who drink nothing. Once you stop misclassifying former drinkers as lifelong abstainers, the positive effect disappears.

Alcohol Campaigns Try To Hide The Cancer Link

The alcohol industry has used successful campaigns to downplay the harm of alcohol. Alcohol industries profit hugely from this disconnect.

The industry sees the alcohol-causes-cancer message as a considerable threat. They have a vested interest in keeping people ignorant. 

Alcohol is nothing more than a toxic, addictive, carcinogenic drug. It's not a great choice as a therapeutic agent. If you want to avoid cancer, you need to stop drinking now.

How To Stop Drinking Alcohol

Alcohol has no health benefits, only risks. Even light drinking can be damaging. If you enjoy the taste of alcoholic beverages, why not try an alcohol-free variant instead?

Do you need alcohol to enjoy the drink? You may drink alcohol because of the emotional effect. Alcohol, like drugs, only works as a bandaid solution to suppress your emotional problems.

It won't make you feel better forever. You will end drinking every day to reach that positive emotional state. At the same time, you will increase your cancer risk.

If you want to break your addiction to alcohol, you need to look at your emotional problems. Why are you drinking? Is it because you feel lonely or the stress from work or your financial obligations?

Do you feel empty inside when you try to seek happiness from external results? Whatever reason you have, you can never find the solution in alcohol. Instead, you need to look at your emotional struggles.

Going to Alcohol anonymous meetings won't break your addiction.

A.A Meetings Won't Stop Your Addiction

Many people recommend that you go to A.A. meetings if you have an alcohol addiction. But the problem with A.A. is that they make you believe that your alcohol addiction is your identity.

Admitting to yourself that you have a dependence on alcohol is a great start. But making it part of your identity will not break the addiction. As with smoking and other substances, alcohol can't make you addicted.

It's our thoughts that do that. Addictions can't survive when we don't suffer emotionally. So if you want to get rid of your habit, you need to stop blaming or punishing yourself.

Negative Thoughts Are Behind Our Addictions Not Alcohol

The solution to breaking the addiction is to find love and acceptance from within. You also need to look at your motives behind drinking alcohol.

Often our addiction to alcohol is because of our beliefs about it. You may think that:

When you look at your motives objectively, your desire to drink lessens. You will learn that you can enjoy life without alcohol and feel better without it.

The secret to becoming alcohol-free is to break the bondage to your subconscious mind. Once you do that, the addiction vanishes instantly even if you have been an alcoholic most of your life.