Alcohol consumption
I’m not against drinking alcohol. I don’t believe the Bible condemns alcohol consumption - it only speaks against drunkenness. However, the more I study the effects of alcohol consumption, the more wary I become of the stuff. I used to have a glass of wine (sometimes two) every evening. But after reading up on the topic, I now limit my consumption to two to three glasses a week.
Red wine is being touted by many as being a deterrent for heart disease, stroke and macular degeneration. Resveratrol is frequently credited as being the compound in red wine that provides the healthful benefits. However the small quantity present and the limited benefits gained don’t seem to be sufficient to account for all the positive effects, so the conclusion is that alcohol itself is also a beneficial component. I still enjoy having a glass of wine when I go out to eat with my husband or when I’ve had a long, stressful day. It does help me to relax and have a more mellow mood for the rest of the evening. But let me give you a partial list of the damage that alcohol causes, and then you can decide where it belongs in your life.
We all know alcohol impairs your reasoning. My favorite online game is Web Sudoku, easy level. Normally, I’ll complete a puzzle between 2.5 and 3.5 minutes. After one glass of wine, my completion time jumps to between 4.5 to 6.5 minutes. That’s a fairly significant reduction in mental ability from one beverage, and I couldn’t tell in any other way that it had an effect on me. If you doubt that it affects you, test yourself when you’re completely sober and rested, and then again after just one drink, and see what the difference is. Now realize that even though it doesn’t seem to impair you, it IS having an impact on your driving responses, your work decisions, your social decisions, etc. You might even alienate an important customer or friend and not realize it!
Alcohol uses up the body’s supply of glutathione, which is the primary antioxidant manufactured by the body. According to some researchers, using up glutathione is one of the main ways that alcohol wreaks havoc on the body. Without an adequate supply of glutathione, the liver won’t function properly, which results in a buildup of toxins. The metabolic products of alcohol are undesirable molecules known as aldehydes. In addition to causing inflammatory responses, aldehydes can also damage interior parts of the cell.
Alcohol (even a glass or two) will mess with your sleep. Since sleep is so important to rejuvenation, it’s important to have a good sleep experience every night. A few alcoholic beverages in the evening may make you drowsy, but in the middle of the night, the alcohol causes a burst of norepinephrine, a hormonelike neurotransmitter secreted in response to excitement or stress. Hours after taking a drink, this burst will intrude in your consciousness, disrupting your sleep cycle or even awakening you. This will not only result in a poor night’s sleep but also leave you looking dull and thinking slowly the next day. If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night after having a drink before bed, you might want to rethink your routine.
Alcohol is bad for the skin. And this is not just because it dehydrates you. While it is important to rehydrate, alcohol creates inflammation throughout the body, resulting in effects that far outlast dehydration. Alcohol alters the blood flow to the skin and produces an unhealthy appearance for days. This effect can manifest as dullness, enlarged pores, discoloration, a red and blotchy complexion, puffiness around the eyes, loss of contours, sagging, and lack of resilience. These negative effects occur because alcohol causes small blood vessels in the skin to widen, allowing more blood to flow close to the skin’s surface. In addition to a flushed skin color and feeling of warmth, this dilation of blood vessels can break facial capillaries. And if you’re having hot flashes, even small amounts of alcohol will intensify them. Also, dehydration produces skin that is more prone to fine lines than skin that is well hydrated.
Alcohol can enhance the memory of bad experiences. According to Dr. Jeanette Graf, M.D., in her book Stop Aging, Start Living (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), “Many people turn to the bottle in order to forget a bad experience. Interestingly, research shows that drinking may actually reinforce bad memories, causing them to stay with you longer. Ohio State University researchers have found in animal studies that moderate drinking - the human equivalent of two drinks a day - improves memory of both positive and negative events. Alcohol does this by increasing the expression of a receptor on the surface of brain cells. ‘People who drink to forget bad memories may actually be doing the opposite by reinforcing the neural circuits that control negative emotional memory,’ wrote study author Matthew During, a professor of virology, immunology, and cancer genetics.” This might explain why drinking when you’re depressed can make you even more depressed rather than elevating your mood. Suicide and depression are associated with alcoholism. Suicide completers have high rates of positive blood alcohol. I recommend never drinking when you’re unhappy or hurt or feeling rejected. I believe it will just help you hold on to the hurt longer.
Alcohol increases the risk of developing cancer. Per the Harvard School of Public Health, “There is convincing evidence that alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer. In a combined analysis of six large prospective studies involving more than 320,000 women, researchers found that having two or more drinks a day increased the chances of developing breast cancer as much as 41%.” Also: “In an exhaustive new report, the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research indicate that there is convincing evidence linking alcohol use to cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, breast, and colon and rectum in men, and probable evidence that its use contributes to liver cancer and colorectal cancer in women. The risk is multiplied for drinkers who also smoke tobacco.”
Alcohol affects your digestive system. Some alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream directly from your stomach. The unabsorbed alcohol stays in the digestive tract. (Look at the list of cancers in the above paragraph. They mostly involve the digestive tract.) Alcohol irritates the stomach and causes an increase of digestive juices (hydrochloric acid). Significant amounts of alcohol will stop the digestive process, which reduces the vitamins and minerals that will later be absorbed by your system. Not only will alcohol increase the free radicals and toxins in your system, but it will reduce the nutrients your body needs to deal with the effects of those free radicals and toxins!
If you have four or more drinks a day (a drink being nationally defined as 12-oz of beer, 5-oz of wine, 1.5-oz of liquor), you fall into the category of “heavy drinker.” There are NO benefits to this level of drinking, only destructive consequences. You’re drinking yourself to death, and you’re in for a significant amount of unpleasantness on the way to your destination. And any day you drink four or more drinks a day is destructive. Drinking seven drinks one day and none the next six days provides NONE of the health benefits you would get from one drink every day. When you’re young, you can escape some of the physical, visible manifestations of alcohol, because the young enjoy greater physical resiliency. But the effects are cumulative, and eventually the balloon payment is due. If you want to find out more about the effects of alcohol consumption, this web site contains links for information from the latest research: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alcoholconsumption.html