Thoughts on drinking alcohol

[CoolBreeze]

Studies are showing a correlation. I drank heavy in my 20s. I was a bartender and both my parents are alcoholics, my mother died from alcoholic cirhossis of the liver and my dad is still drunk from morning to night. They hated non-drinkers and it never occurred to me, the way I was raised, that you could live your life without booze. I spent maybe ten years getting wasted every night.

When I got knocked up at age 28 and became a mother, that changed instantly. I didn't want to raise my child the way I'd been raised. I pretty much quit. I drank but very rarely, only socially, and very little. When I married my husband, we would have a couple beers at night and then I'd decide drinking every day was too much and we'd just have them on the weekend. I stopped even that when I got pregnant again, but as the child grew, we'd start our weekend habit again.

Then I got cancer and stopped. I have mets to my liver now. I'll never know if I did this to myself with all that partying in my 20s, although I don't believe I did. I do fall more into the crapshoot idea, after all my mother drank ten times more than I did and lived 78 years cancer-free, and my dad is going strong and falling down drunk at 83.

But, I believe that alcohol is unnecessary to life's enjoyment, it is a poison that the body has to metabolize out, with the chemos I take and the drugs I take I don't want to give my liver one more thing to do.

I might have a drink on my birthday, if I have the energy to go out somewhere. But once or twice a year is enough for me.

I don't care what anybody else does, but if you believe you can't stop that you have a problem that needs to be examined.

[Kellennea]

I go back and forth with it. I was never a heavy drinker, more of a social drinker, or a "Ive had a rough day at the office, I need a couple glasses of wine" drinker.

I asked my oncologist and she, like many, believes in the "all things in moderation" vibe... we're actually both members of the same local winery. I asked her if I should give up my membership and she said no... love her

I don't see anything wrong with enjoying a glass or two of wine with dinner or a night out with the girls. On a really stressful night, I might even indulge in an extra dirty martini with blue cheese olives

[caya]

I was never a heavy drinker - a few beers in the college years, more wine though - but never more than a couple of glasses/week. Once or twice I did imbibe a bit more than that -
After I got married, I would only have the occasional glass of wine at a wedding, Bar Mitzvah, dinner out with friends. I'm talking maybe 2-4 glasses/month - if that. I did not drink at all during chemo/Herceptin. I still occasionally will have a glass of red wine - if it's one glass/month, that would be it.

I was in the best shape of my adult life before diagnosis - I had lost about 20 lbs. going to a Curves-type ladies only circuit gym 4-5x/week, was eating well etc. Low blood pressure, cholesterol etc. When I got diagnosed, my GP just shook her head and said - "You're as healthy as a horse, except for the breast cancer..." My husband had a brain aneurysm 9 months before my diagnosis (we were very lucky, he is okay). I'm sure the stress of his surgery, recovery, and me taking over our business completely may have contributed to it. I think it's a bit of a crapshoot, and a bit of what we do. I tell my girls to watch the booze, because they are now at double the risk.

all the best
caya