Speaker 1: Hey bessies, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright side, the Surgeon General just released
Speaker 2: an advisory that links alcohol to seven different types of cancer.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean for all of us?
Speaker 2: Substance abuse expert doctor Rachel Saco Adams is here with
Speaker 2: everything we need to know before taking our next sip.
Speaker 3: Ooh, and we can't wait to break it all down
Speaker 3: for y'all. It is Wednesday, February fifth. I'm Simone Voice.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright side from
Speaker 2: Hello Sunshine, Simone. It's a new month, which means it's
Speaker 2: time for a new pick for Reese's Book Club.
Speaker 3: Yes, and February's RBC pick is Isola by Allegra Goodman.
Speaker 3: So Isla has been described as an epic of love,
Speaker 3: faith and defiance, and it tells the story of Marguerite,
Speaker 3: who is an heir to a fortune and she becomes
Speaker 3: orphaned and soon finds herself on this expedition with her guardian.
Speaker 3: But things take a turn when Marguerite is accused of
Speaker 3: betrayal and winds up punished and abandoned on any island.
Speaker 3: We will be speaking with author Alegra Goodman about this
Speaker 3: book later this month. So be sure to stay tuned
Speaker 3: for that conversation.
Speaker 2: I just saw Reese Witherspoon post that this is one
Speaker 2: of her favorite historical fiction reads yet, and you can
Speaker 2: imagine how much Reese reads, so for her to say this,
Speaker 2: I just really want.
Speaker 1: To read this book. Yeah that's high praise. Yeah, high praise.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Okay, Simon, are you a dry January girl?
Speaker 3: You know I have done dry January in the past.
Speaker 3: I found it to be so transformative. I actually stopped
Speaker 3: drinking for about two years because of Dry January. Wow,
Speaker 3: I felt so good. I was like, I don't really
Speaker 3: need this in my life anymore. Eventually I worked it
Speaker 3: back in in moderation, and that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 3: I've been on vacation for a few days and I've
Speaker 3: had some drinks with friends, and yeah, just moderation.
Speaker 1: How about you? One month turned into twenty four that's wild. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I kind of go in phases sometimes.
Speaker 2: I if I'm like going out more, I like to
Speaker 2: to have a glass. But I've been working a lot lately,
Speaker 2: so so alcohol has not been on my mind. But
Speaker 2: the idea of drinking and how it affects us has
Speaker 2: been on my mind because the Surgeon General's Office released
Speaker 2: a pretty shocking advisory about alcohol consumption and cancer risk
Speaker 2: on January third, and a lot of us understand that
Speaker 2: there are risks associated with drinking. I certainly never thought
Speaker 2: of alcohol as a superfood, but I was really surprised
Speaker 2: to learn about the direct link that they found between
Speaker 2: alcohol and seven different types of cancer mouth, throat, breast, liver,
Speaker 2: and colon cancers. And this warning got everybody talking because
Speaker 2: I think we all don't know exactly what the true
Speaker 2: risks are, what we should be worried about, how to
Speaker 2: manage the risk when we do drink. There's just like
Speaker 2: a lot of questions left up in the air.
Speaker 4: For sure.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, so many social, professional, even romantic
Speaker 3: situations revolve around drinking. I was just talking about this
Speaker 3: with my friend because I was just at a conference
Speaker 3: and we went to one of those conference mixers and
Speaker 3: just impulsively, instinctually, I just needed to have a drink
Speaker 3: in my hand because it made me feel, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe like I was a part of something or kind
Speaker 3: of assuage some like it kind of helped me with
Speaker 3: my social anxiety a bit. So I think this is
Speaker 3: really an opportunity to rethink our relationship with alcohol, particularly
Speaker 3: if you're in the thirty five to forty year old
Speaker 3: age group as a woman, because that age group is
Speaker 3: at the highest risk for binge drinking and alcohol use disorder,
Speaker 3: which is actually something that I just learned. So today
Speaker 3: we're bringing it all down with doctor Rachel Saco Adams.
Speaker 3: She is a substance abuse researcher with a focus on
Speaker 3: alcohol and she's also a professor at Boston University School
Speaker 3: of Public Health.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so curious to see what she has to say.
Speaker 2: We have so many questions, so let's bring her in,
Speaker 2: Doctor Rachel Seico Adams.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Rachel. We are so glad that you are here.
Speaker 3: You are an essential voice on the podcast today because
Speaker 3: we've been wanting to get a deeper understanding of the
Speaker 3: Surgeon General's advisory about alcohol consumption and the link to cancer.
Speaker 3: Everyone is freaking out about this. What is the top
Speaker 3: line takeaway that we should be paying attention to.
Speaker 5: I think the Surgeon General's guidance essentially sums up something
Speaker 5: that we've known for a while, but I think is
Speaker 5: not common knowledge in the United states is that alcohol
Speaker 5: is a carcinogen. There's a causal link between alcohol consumption
Speaker 5: and seven different types of cancers. And I think that information, unfortunately,
Speaker 5: is new for a lot of people, and it's also
Speaker 5: feels scary.
Speaker 3: This feels like a real turning point, or it feels
Speaker 3: like we've reached a critical mass in awareness around this,
Speaker 3: because obviously we all know that alcohol is not good
Speaker 3: for us. You know, we drink it for various different reasons,
Speaker 3: to help with social awkwardness, to celebrate. It's become this
Speaker 3: huge celebratory aspect of our culture. And so I'm I'm
Speaker 3: sitting here listening to you share these findings, and I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking about how this could really reshape society if
Speaker 3: people actually start to pay attention to this, right.
Speaker 5: I think for a long time, most people when they
Speaker 5: think about risks from alcohol, they think about the more
Speaker 5: immediate risks of like I'm not going to feel well,
Speaker 5: I'm going to feel sick the next day, i might
Speaker 5: have a hangover. You know, we all think of the
Speaker 5: obvious risk of developing addiction. But I think a lot
Speaker 5: of us think if we can just control the way
Speaker 5: we drink, or we can handle our liquor we drink reasonably,
Speaker 5: that's not going to happen to me. So those are
Speaker 5: the things that people have been very focused on. Even
Speaker 5: in the addiction research world, we've been focused on, you know,
Speaker 5: preventing injuries, preventing you know, reducing harm from sexual assaults
Speaker 5: or car accidents. There hasn't been as much attention on
Speaker 5: risk for developing cancer, which I think a lot of
Speaker 5: people might think is like a downstream risk, but I
Speaker 5: think most people actually didn't even know that it's a
Speaker 5: potential risk associated with alcohol use.
Speaker 2: The advisory outlines a number of ways alcohol causes cancer.
Speaker 2: For example, I read that it can alter levels of
Speaker 2: hormones in the body, and that change in hormone levels
Speaker 2: can cause cancer. Is that correct?
Speaker 5: Yes, So specifically for breast cancer, what they think is
Speaker 5: one of the contributing risk factors is that alcohol consumption
Speaker 5: can alter your hormone levels, specifically estrogen, and that is
Speaker 5: known to increase risk for breast cancer. So specifically that
Speaker 5: I think is playing a role in development of breast cancer.
Speaker 3: Is there any amount that is tolerable for the human body?
Speaker 3: Is there any amount that is like if you stay
Speaker 3: within this range, you're going to significantly reduce your risk
Speaker 3: of cancer.
Speaker 5: So this gets at the Surgeon General's report, so I
Speaker 5: think we should talk more about this specifically. The US
Speaker 5: dietary guidelines right now for the past years have recommended
Speaker 5: did no more than one drink per day for women
Speaker 5: and no more than two drinks per day for men,
Speaker 5: and they have essentially there's been a reason to believe
Speaker 5: that if you stay within these limits that your risk
Speaker 5: for developing adverse health problems will be you know, that's
Speaker 5: sort of the safe level. I think what we're learning
Speaker 5: now and what supported the development of this report, is
Speaker 5: that there is no actual safe level of alcohol use.
Speaker 5: So any level of alcohol use is associated with an
Speaker 5: increased risk for cancer, specifically three kinds breast cancer, throat
Speaker 5: and mouth cancer. However, what I think is the good
Speaker 5: news is that the less alcohol you have, your risk
Speaker 5: is lowered for those types of cancer. So it's not
Speaker 5: like any or none. Essentially that the more alcohol you
Speaker 5: consume your risk for these types of cancers may increase.
Speaker 5: I could talk in numbers which might illuminate the risk.
Speaker 5: So for women over their life, the absolute risk developing
Speaker 5: breast cancer is eleven and one hundred, so eleven and
Speaker 5: one hundred women will develop breast cancer.
Speaker 4: For women who are.
Speaker 5: Drinking two or more drinks per day, that increases for
Speaker 5: fifteen women out of one hundred would be diagnosed with
Speaker 5: breast cancer. So the risk is increasing slightly. However, I
Speaker 5: think any woman who's evaluating how they want to take
Speaker 5: this information and use it to make choices about their
Speaker 5: alcohol use also would want to consider family history and
Speaker 5: other factors that might affect the risk for breast cancer,
Speaker 5: such as density of breast age, family history.
Speaker 1: Again, why are we just talking about this now?
Speaker 5: I have some different ideas on that. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think that from what I've learned that the data supporting
Speaker 5: alcohol being associated with increased risk for breast cancer has
Speaker 5: been known since the nineteen eighties. I think since then
Speaker 5: there's been mounting evidence to support this information. However, it's
Speaker 5: first of all, it's not information that's welcomed. People don't
Speaker 5: really want to know this. This is a story that
Speaker 5: is upsetting, and it's in relation to a substance that's
Speaker 5: legal and that is part of our culture and all
Speaker 5: sorts of happy and sad rituals and customs. And I
Speaker 5: think that being able to share information like this in
Speaker 5: a way that is believable requires decades of really strong
Speaker 5: research to support it. So I think the evidence has
Speaker 5: been coming out over the past several decades, and now
Speaker 5: it's strong enough that the Surgeon General would make this
Speaker 5: recommendation to add these warning labels to alcoholic beverages.
Speaker 3: You said something earlier, Rachel, that I think we have
Speaker 3: to just we have to drive home this point. Up
Speaker 3: until now, up until the findings of this study, we
Speaker 3: were under the assumption that, you know, maybe about one
Speaker 3: drink a day was acceptable. But now after this, any
Speaker 3: amount of alcohol is carcinogenic.
Speaker 5: I think that within the five past five or ten years,
Speaker 5: we've known this information and it has been discussed, but
Speaker 5: I think it's not been talked about so definitively. And
Speaker 5: I think the fact that this report came out making
Speaker 5: this recommendation for warning labels really sort of changes the game.
Speaker 5: And it's drawing a lot of attention to the issue.
Speaker 5: And part of it is that perhaps the information was there,
Speaker 5: but it just wasn't being focused on enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was interested to learn about the difference between
Speaker 2: men and women developing a risk in cancer. Women who
Speaker 2: have one drink a day have a nineteen percent risk
Speaker 2: of developing cancer, whereas men who have one drink per
Speaker 2: day have an eleven percent risk of cancer. What is
Speaker 2: the difference. Where's the disparity.
Speaker 4: It's the link to breast cancer.
Speaker 5: So, because breast cancer is one of the types of
Speaker 5: cancers that's known to be causally associated with alcohol use
Speaker 5: breast answer just affects women predominantly, so that therein lies
Speaker 5: why this is probably more serious for women, the stakes
Speaker 5: are higher.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So, Rachel, when we talk about how alcohol affects us
Speaker 3: at different ages, what does this study tell us about
Speaker 3: the relationship between alcohol and aging for women?
Speaker 5: We know that your risk for developing breast cancer increases
Speaker 5: as you age, and it also increases for women who
Speaker 5: haven't had children by age thirty.
Speaker 3: Wait, what really something about being pregnant does something to
Speaker 3: lower cancero us.
Speaker 5: Yes, there are just different things that affect your hormones
Speaker 5: that can affect development of breast cancer. So as you age,
Speaker 5: you're just more likely to be identified as someone with
Speaker 5: breast cancer as you get older. I mean, one thing
Speaker 5: we're learning is that as you age, your body sort
Speaker 5: of processes alcohol slower. So that might be why when
Speaker 5: you're in your thirties and forties, you're like, oh, why
Speaker 5: is it that when I'm having one drink now, I
Speaker 5: already feel really tipsy.
Speaker 4: I don't feel well.
Speaker 5: I'm sort of you know, you're feeling very differently than
Speaker 5: you might have felt in college when you had a
Speaker 5: couple drinks. What is happening is that your liver is
Speaker 5: metabolizing the alcohol slower and it's staying in your body longer.
Speaker 5: Another thing to think about in terms of alcohol use
Speaker 5: for women in their thirties and forties is this is
Speaker 5: like sort of the prime of reproductive age or even
Speaker 5: even in your twenties, and we know that alcohol can
Speaker 5: you know, any level of alcohol is potentially harmful for
Speaker 5: developing fetus. So if women are thinking about being pregnant
Speaker 5: or trying to conceive, you know, alcohol during any phase
Speaker 5: of pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder risks.
Speaker 5: It can increase risk for a miscarriage. So it's just
Speaker 5: important to think about that, you know, as you're consuming alcohol,
Speaker 5: if you're thinking about trying to get pregnant.
Speaker 3: And what about menopause, can you tell us about what
Speaker 3: happened when we drink alcohol during menopause and how that
Speaker 3: affects cancer risk.
Speaker 5: When women are premenopausal are going through menopause, we know
Speaker 5: that alcohol can really make symptoms worse of that process,
Speaker 5: so it can increase hot flashes, night sweats, disrupted sleep, irritability,
Speaker 5: changes in mood. That time is a time where your
Speaker 5: hormones are naturally changing a lot, which increases your risks
Speaker 5: for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, weight gain, and it's believed that
Speaker 5: if you're consuming a lot of alcohol, you're going to
Speaker 5: have a harder time storm managing your weight, which can
Speaker 5: also contribute to development of those other conditions.
Speaker 1: Do the long term health effects of alcohol differ for
Speaker 1: occasional drinkers or heavy drinkers.
Speaker 5: Yes, for sure. I mean your risk is higher the
Speaker 5: more you drink. So if you're someone who's consuming alcohol
Speaker 5: every day, or you drink three four times a week,
Speaker 5: but you're having four or five drinks on each occasion,
Speaker 5: your risks are much greater in terms of adverse health outcomes,
Speaker 5: and also your risk for developing cancer is higher.
Speaker 3: We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 3: right back to wellness Wednesday with doctor Rachel Sego Atoms
Speaker 3: And we're back with doctor Rachel Sego Atoms. I know
Speaker 3: that you've done some really insightful research on alcohol and
Speaker 3: millennial women. What have you discovered about the ways that
Speaker 3: we consume alcohol, how alcohol is marketed to us, and
Speaker 3: how this whole dynamic has really evolved over time.
Speaker 5: So I've done a lot of thinking and work with
Speaker 5: colleagues thinking about the way alcohol is sort of portrayed
Speaker 5: to us as women of what i'll call middle age,
Speaker 5: So you know that spans millennials and you know some
Speaker 5: Gen xers as well. But I think that there's been
Speaker 5: a real shift over the past decade or so in
Speaker 5: terms of first social media coming onto the scene and
Speaker 5: what social media has created a place where we sort
Speaker 5: of are able to talk about alcohol a lot and
Speaker 5: share information, and alcohol is presented in social media from
Speaker 5: our peers and used as you know, it's lots of jokes,
Speaker 5: lots of memes.
Speaker 3: Emmy wine culture, mommy wine, the signs at hobby lobby
Speaker 3: and home goods. I mean, mommy wine culture is inescapable.
Speaker 5: It is, And so we've done some thinking about like,
Speaker 5: is there any potential risk of that. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: meant to be a joke, it's meant to be funny,
Speaker 5: but it's also promoting this this idea that women who
Speaker 5: are struggling, perhaps with motherhood and it's like exhausting and
Speaker 5: tiring and hard and feels isolating, that what we should
Speaker 5: do at the end of the day is you know,
Speaker 5: turn to a glass of wine and that that's going
Speaker 5: to make our problems. That's going to make us feel better.
Speaker 5: We deserve it and it's going to help. And in fact,
Speaker 5: like a woman in that situation who's struggling and rightly so,
Speaker 5: exhausted and tired and stressed, alcohol probably will make that
Speaker 5: night in the next morning harder because alcohol disrupts sleep,
Speaker 5: Alcohol can increase feelings of anxiety or depression. Alcohol can
Speaker 5: make you more irritable. So you know, once in a while,
Speaker 5: that's fine, probably, but if that's what you're doing repeatedly,
Speaker 5: that's that's not going to be helpful. So we've thought
Speaker 5: a lot about just those messages and how we need
Speaker 5: to try to bring in different, different information into the conversation.
Speaker 4: I think we.
Speaker 5: Can't ignore the alcohol marketing and how there's been a
Speaker 5: real shift and an explosion of products really that are
Speaker 5: targeting women. There's pink drinks, you know, rose has become
Speaker 5: extremely popular. We talk about rose all day. We have
Speaker 5: low calorie selzers and products and drinks that are all new,
Speaker 5: and those are targeting women predominantly, and all of that
Speaker 5: I think is playing a role in exposure. And I
Speaker 5: think that you know, people ask me a lot like
Speaker 5: how is it different than forty fifty years ago? Like
Speaker 5: women there were social pressures to use alcohol then too,
Speaker 5: But I think when you think about what's happening with
Speaker 5: social media and marketing today, those are some new factors
Speaker 5: that have come in that have potentially really changed things.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Completely, As a mom who is very intimately familiar with
Speaker 3: that feeling of like I have no one to talk to,
Speaker 3: no one cares about me and my needs, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: I'm on the verge of a breakdown in those moments,
Speaker 3: the cheaper, easier fix is, you know, a glass of
Speaker 3: wine or you know, whatever it may be that might
Speaker 3: be unhealthy, because unfortunately, the healthier fix, like let's say,
Speaker 3: hiring a mental health professional to talk to them, that's
Speaker 3: so much more expensive than you know, attend dollar bottle
Speaker 3: of wine. So I feel like we need to just
Speaker 3: get our priorities and check and provide women who are
Speaker 3: struggling with some of these things that you're talking about
Speaker 3: with resources that can actually help us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think one of the things we can
Speaker 5: do is help each other out. So I think that
Speaker 5: part of this and part of what's so helpful about
Speaker 5: this new Surgeon General report is we can start talking
Speaker 5: about it a little bit more, and we can start
Speaker 5: thinking about our friends and our peers and know that,
Speaker 5: you know, maybe one of the best things we can
Speaker 5: do is when we're when we're together, when we're holding
Speaker 5: a social gathering and event that we can just normalize
Speaker 5: like we're going to have, you know, we'll have alcoholic drinks,
Speaker 5: but we're also going to have some fun non alcoholic
Speaker 5: drinks and just acknowledging that, like people might not always
Speaker 5: want to have a journey and that's okay. But if
Speaker 5: we don't like put it out there that this is
Speaker 5: a choice and we all have like the right and
Speaker 5: we maybe should be reflecting on our alcohol use, then
Speaker 5: it's just going to kind of continue where you go
Speaker 5: to an event, you go out to dinner with your
Speaker 5: friends and everybody's ordering drinks and you feel really awkward
Speaker 5: if you're not.
Speaker 3: That is such a good point that women have an
Speaker 3: opportunity to come alongside one another with this information and
Speaker 3: be each other's support system.
Speaker 5: I think so, And it's hard. I mean, we talk
Speaker 5: about peer pressure for adolescents and college students with substances
Speaker 5: with alcohol, but I think it is so real with
Speaker 5: women and women in their twenties and thirties and forties.
Speaker 5: It's hard to be the person that's going to not
Speaker 5: choose to drink because there's a lot of fears associated
Speaker 5: with that. You think that, you know, maybe your friends
Speaker 5: will think you're judging them, or that people will assume
Speaker 5: that you have a problem that you're you know, you can't.
Speaker 5: Why is she not drinking? She might you know, is
Speaker 5: she in recovery? You might burn friendships. So it's it's not.
Speaker 1: Easy, simone. Are you wanting to cut alcohol out entirely
Speaker 1: from your life?
Speaker 3: No, I'm not planning to. I actually have in the past.
Speaker 3: I stopped drinking for about two years and it was great,
Speaker 3: but I found a way to work it back into
Speaker 3: my life. That feels like a healthy level of moderation
Speaker 3: for me. How about you.
Speaker 1: I don't want to cut it out entirely either.
Speaker 2: I think most people are probably in the same lane.
Speaker 2: As we are, so I'm curious if there is anything
Speaker 2: that people like us should really be keeping in mind
Speaker 2: in order to partake in a way that is as
Speaker 2: healthy as possible. You know.
Speaker 5: One of the things that I started thinking about all
Speaker 5: of this was in twenty nineteen, the book Sober Curious
Speaker 5: came out by Ruby Arrington, and it's sort of I
Speaker 5: think one of the take home premises from that is
Speaker 5: just reevaluating your relationship with alcohol, which might mean you
Speaker 5: want to still continue drinking at times, but maybe not
Speaker 5: as much, and just be more thoughtful about when you
Speaker 5: want to drink and why. So I would encourage anyone
Speaker 5: really to perhaps for a period of time keep like
Speaker 5: a journal about just record when you're drinking and why,
Speaker 5: and who you're with, if you're alone, and how you
Speaker 5: feel after if you're you know, you have any regret
Speaker 5: or you think that that was a good experience, just
Speaker 5: to learn more about when you're drinking and why. And
Speaker 5: then I think that there's a lot of optimism about
Speaker 5: these new non alcoholic products that have entered the market
Speaker 5: and how you're starting to see them more at regular
Speaker 5: grocery stores and in restaurants and at Fenway Park in Boston,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean they have these non alcoholic beers,
Speaker 5: they have non alcoholic drinks.
Speaker 4: They've really and they're quite good.
Speaker 3: And they're sober bars too, they're sobertail.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: That movement started really strong actually right before COVID hit,
Speaker 5: and COVID sort of like halted it pretty clearly. And
Speaker 5: then a lot of women in particular turned to alcohol
Speaker 5: during COVID for different reasons. But what I've seen is
Speaker 5: a positive thing is now some people women and men
Speaker 5: who are you know, would maybe have three four drinks
Speaker 5: in a night, are having one or two and then
Speaker 5: they're switching to the non alcoholic drink for the rest
Speaker 5: of the night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a nice option.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Just having these these types of products around in your
Speaker 5: house is a choice. So it's it's not really it
Speaker 5: doesn't have to be all or nothing for most people.
Speaker 5: And I think as you experiment and try different things
Speaker 5: over time, you might you might continue to evolve and
Speaker 5: think differently about it.
Speaker 4: And that's all. Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think I've seen done
Speaker 2: really well, my mom actually does it. She makes non
Speaker 2: alcoholic seltzer water really fun. She cuts up a ton
Speaker 2: of fruit and berries and like makes the glass look
Speaker 2: really enticing and fun, and so people at parties, I think,
Speaker 2: feel more comfortable holding it and drinking it because it
Speaker 2: feels like an experience right, just the way like an
Speaker 2: alcoholic Drick does. The one thing that I can tell
Speaker 2: you I've personally struggled with in this vein is the
Speaker 2: social pressure around it all. Because when I was younger
Speaker 2: and I would go out to work drinks or even
Speaker 2: on a date and I would say, oh, I'll have,
Speaker 2: you know, a Seltzer water with lime or a diet
Speaker 2: coke or whatever it is. People would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're no fun, or come on, you have to have
Speaker 2: one with me. And as I've gotten older, it's gotten
Speaker 2: easier to not give in to that pressure, but I
Speaker 2: really still find it challenging if I'm being honest, because
Speaker 2: I don't want to be looked at as if I'm
Speaker 2: not fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course, I mean I think there's a few
Speaker 5: things that can help, And if you're going to meet
Speaker 5: a group, I think it helps to have something in
Speaker 5: your hand. People are uncomfortable when you're standing there with
Speaker 5: nothing in your hand. You're like making someone else uncomfortable,
Speaker 5: which is crazy, but you know, so if you can
Speaker 5: get there first, or you have a friend that knows
Speaker 5: you're not drinking to just someone can grab you a soda,
Speaker 5: water and lime, or you know, a non alcoholic drink
Speaker 5: put in a regular glass, so maybe you're not drawing
Speaker 5: attention to the fact that what you're drinking is non alcoholic.
Speaker 5: I think that those are great things. I think the
Speaker 5: date situation can be very tricky. I've talked to friends
Speaker 5: who the same thing. It's it's really hard to go
Speaker 5: on new dates with people and not want to order
Speaker 5: alcohol because then you think that they are making judgments
Speaker 5: about you. I've witnessed people handle that different ways, and
Speaker 5: I think what tends to work best is just honesty,
Speaker 5: being like practicing, and being more comfortable to just say,
Speaker 5: I'm getting this type of drink, and you know what,
Speaker 5: You don't have to make an excuse. You really don't,
Speaker 5: but if you want to, you can just say, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm getting this type of drink I really like it,
Speaker 5: or I have a big meeting tomorrow.
Speaker 4: You know you can.
Speaker 5: You can make up a reason and the reasons are
Speaker 5: probably all true.
Speaker 3: You can send them a link to this episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my best friends has a joke with me.
Speaker 2: She will always be like, because I trained for a
Speaker 2: triathlon at one point, and so I really was not drinking.
Speaker 1: And that was years ago.
Speaker 2: And so now if I'm not drinking and we're all
Speaker 2: out together, my friend'll be like, oh, Danielle's training for
Speaker 2: a triathalone.
Speaker 4: You can't drink.
Speaker 1: She's always training, right.
Speaker 2: It's like people don't yell at you if you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm training for a ten k, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: My friend said to me once and here, I am
Speaker 5: an alcohol researcher and I've been studying this for about
Speaker 5: almost twenty years. And I was going to a conference,
Speaker 5: an international conference about five years ago or something, and
Speaker 5: I said to my friend, and this was a time
Speaker 5: I was trying to just really be present and reduce
Speaker 5: my own alcohol, but realizing how uncomfortable I meet other people.
Speaker 5: And I said, you know, I don't I don't really
Speaker 5: want to drink, but it's so hard in these situations
Speaker 5: because it's such a big part of the community. And
Speaker 5: she was like, Rachel, I just don't believe anyone should
Speaker 5: drink if you don't want to, Like, you should never
Speaker 5: drink a drink when you don't want to, and that
Speaker 5: like very simple statement was so profound to me. I thought, like,
Speaker 5: of course, of course you shouldn't drink this, Like you
Speaker 5: don't have to drink an alcoholic beverage if you don't
Speaker 5: want to.
Speaker 4: I'm an adult, I study this, but it's hard.
Speaker 3: And I think we can also be an advocate for
Speaker 3: the people in our friend group who aren't drinking and
Speaker 3: kind of step in and say, hey, she's you know,
Speaker 3: she's not drinking tonight, and that's her choice, Like let's
Speaker 3: move on. Yes, I think that we can kind of
Speaker 3: support our friends in that way.
Speaker 2: It's time for another short break. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: with doctor Rachel Saco Adams and we're back to wellness
Speaker 2: Wednesday with doctor Rachel saco Atoms.
Speaker 3: Okay, Rachel, we'd love for you to set the record
Speaker 3: straight on some common alcohol anecdotes.
Speaker 4: Son, Will you tell.
Speaker 3: Us if these are fact or fiction? It was conventional
Speaker 3: wisdom for a long time that a glass of red
Speaker 3: wine every day is good for your heart. Is that true?
Speaker 3: If not, why has this been so misconstrued for so long?
Speaker 4: That is not true.
Speaker 5: It was believed for a period of time, and the
Speaker 5: research world has struggled with this, and.
Speaker 4: I'll explain why.
Speaker 5: The idea that low level drinking like that was good
Speaker 5: for you has to do with the way that studies
Speaker 5: were set up. So essentially, the researchers were looking at
Speaker 5: people who drank sort of low levels of alcohol in
Speaker 5: comparing them to people who completely abstained who didn't drink
Speaker 5: any alcohol, and then looking at health outcomes like development
Speaker 5: of cardiovascular risk or other types of health outcomes mortality risk.
Speaker 5: But the problem with that design is that a lot
Speaker 5: of the people who weren't drinking anything were already struggling
Speaker 5: with health problems, so they were a sicker population. So
Speaker 5: that made them look like it made it look like
Speaker 5: the people drinking low levels of alcohol were you know,
Speaker 5: having improved health. But in actuality, it had to do
Speaker 5: with the comparison group. So now they've started to do
Speaker 5: studies where they're looking at, you know, the comparison group
Speaker 5: is people who drink just really infrequently, and they're realizing
Speaker 5: that those potential health benefits don't really play out anymore.
Speaker 3: Okay, next one, Tequila is quote unquote the healthiest liquor.
Speaker 3: We've heard that it's better for you than darker liquors.
Speaker 3: Are there any forms of alcohol that are actually healthier
Speaker 3: than other ones?
Speaker 5: No, All alcohol has the same alcohol molecule in it,
Speaker 5: so it has the same association and risk for development
Speaker 5: of these cancers, So there's no real difference. I think
Speaker 5: that's really just a myth. I mean, there's no What
Speaker 5: you should pay attention to, though, is alcohol content within
Speaker 5: drinks and sort of drink sizes. So you know, if
Speaker 5: you pay attention to this, like no more than one
Speaker 5: drink per day. For wine, that's like five ounces of wine.
Speaker 5: But if you have an enormous wine glass and you
Speaker 5: have a very heavy pore from your friend, I mean,
Speaker 5: one glass might actually be equivalent to two glasses. So
Speaker 5: you got to think about that when you're choosing what
Speaker 5: drinks you're going to have and paying attention that, like,
Speaker 5: actually the size of the bottle or the alcohol content
Speaker 5: in the beer, for instance, does actually change the amount
Speaker 5: of alcohol you're ingesting.
Speaker 2: How about drinking during the day is better than drinking
Speaker 2: at night because it doesn't affect your sleep, true or false?
Speaker 5: I mean I think that for people who've drank a
Speaker 5: lot during the day, they get really tired later in
Speaker 5: the day usually and then are exhausted. It can be
Speaker 5: hard to sort. You're still metabolizing the alcohol, and you're
Speaker 5: going to go through the same processes, and you're going
Speaker 5: to be dehydrated probably around the time like you need
Speaker 5: to start going to bed regular time, So I think
Speaker 5: that you're still probably going to have interrupted sleep that evening.
Speaker 2: Lastly, mixing alcohol is worse for you than staying with
Speaker 2: the same one all night.
Speaker 5: I think that perhaps that is true that you might
Speaker 5: feel worse when you're mixing lots of different things together,
Speaker 5: but it also probably could have to do with the
Speaker 5: fact that you're just ingesting a lot of alcohol, and
Speaker 5: so the more different types you.
Speaker 4: Have means you've had a lot and you just might
Speaker 4: not feel well the next day.
Speaker 2: Doctor Seco Adams, this has been so interesting and informative.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing your time and your knowledge with us.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rachel Saco Adams is a substance abuse researcher and
Speaker 2: associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're joined by actor
Speaker 3: Jordana Brewster to talk all about our new movie Hard Eyes.
Speaker 3: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
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Speaker 3: See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.