Think Before You Drink Alcohol

With the normalization of the habit of having a drink or two here and there and the massive amount of social pressure on consuming alcohol in social settings, regular alcohol consumption, even as little as 1 drink per week, has the potential to negatively impact our lives in profound ways. There is a detrimental misconception that if we consume alcohol the worst thing that will happen will be a hang-over or having made some poor choices, but consuming on average just 1 alcoholic drink per week can cause brain thinning, negatively altered moods, liver damage, DNA and epigenome damage (think aging faster with more defective cells), sterilization, leaky gut syndrome, and a scary increase in the risk of cancers. One study concluded that 4 glasses of wine each week may be the health equivalent of smoking 10 cigarettes each week for women and 5 cigarettes for men, with breast cancer rates being the main differentiator. Our goal of this article is not to push any agenda, but simply to share what we have just recently learned in the hopes of making our community’s alcohol consumption choices more educated. In this article we’ll expand on the negative health impacts of consuming alcohol, discuss the MovementLink protocol for exploring a life with less alcohol, and link to our favorite experts who deep dive into the subject.

At MovemetLink, we do not automatically accept the status quo as the best way and are always looking to learn and improve. Sometimes, the masses get it right, but unfortunately for our ability to just “fit in” and go with the flow, sometimes the way Americans live and the choices our peers make is not in line with our life’s goals. Alcohol seems to be one of these societal norms that are pushing most people, their lives, and their health in a negative direction…and sadly most people don’t realize how terrible of a molecule alcohol really is…we sure didn’t.

Detriments of Alcohol Intake (even moderate amounts)

Let’s first define “Moderate Amount” - There are many different studies and it is safe to make the assumption that there are degrees of negative effects that correlate strongly with the average amount people drink each week. Some results, like cancer increase, are profound at just 1 drink per week on average, while other studies focused more on the 7-14 drink on average range. This could be 1 drink a night, 3 drinks on 2-3 nights, 3+ drinks 2 nights a week, or 7+ drinks one night a week. We think that it’s important to note that there is not a magic thing that happens when we average 7 drinks per week, that even 1 drink per week has major detrimental health and brain implications, and that there are a lot of people who fall into the drink a few drinks a week camp, which come with the negative effects we dive into below. We think that it is also important to note that although it seems like drinking alcohol is something almost everyone does, it can certainly feel like that when going out sometimes, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, only 54.9% of Americans consume alcohol each month. So, if we’re looking to make a change, we are not alone on this one even if our current habits and social groups may make it seem like it.

Let’s dig in!

There are three forms of alcohol: Isopropyl, Methanol, and Ethanol. Ethanol is the type of alcohol we consume. Regardless of if we are drinking wine, beer, liquor, etc. all alcoholic drinks are ethanol and although it is consumable, ethanol is toxic to us.
Myth: “Certain kinds of alcohol are safer.” All alcohol we consume is ethanol. All consumed alcohol is toxic.
Ethanol is also widely used as a disinfectant in laboratories. Our guts are home to around 100 trillion bacteria, most of which are vital to our health and survival. Consuming alcohol effectively disinfects our gut, destroying healthy bacteria and our gut lining. With gut permeability (also called leaky gut), things enter our bodies that are not supposed to, causing inflammation and allergic reactions. Our gut is a major source of health and when it’s out of whack, so are we.
Most molecules that temporarily change a cell’s function work through binding to specific receptors on cells. The alcohol we consume (ethanol), is water and fat soluble, meaning that instead of binding to receptors, it is free to enter in and out of any type of cell, even brain cells, indiscriminately. This also means that if pregnant, alcohol easily passes into the cells of the fetus.
The ethanol we consume is toxic to us, so after it’s killed a bunch of our good bacteria, our body uses up NAD (a molecule that when high is an indication of prolonged lifespan) to convert ethanol to acetaldehyde in the liver. Because acetaldehyde is also toxic, the liver further uses NAD again to convert some of it to acetate.
Although the alcohol we consume is ultimately converted to acetate which is a fuel source, it is a very poor one and with a process that includes the toxic byproduct acetaldehyde, we can think of alcohol as empty calories. There is no nutritive value of alcohol, and although some of it can be used as energy, the toxicity involved is a major net negative.
These toxins, ethanol and acetaldehyde, enter cells causing DNA damage, damage to the cells’ epigenome (the reader of DNA), and systemic inflammation. Our cells’ inability to read our DNA properly is a major source of aging as cells cannot perform their functions or reproduce correctly.
Risk of cancer increases by 4-13% for every 1 drink per week on average someone consumes. So if we average 3 drinks per week, our cancer risk may increase by 12- 39%!
Testosterone (in males and females) is converted to estrogen which negatively changes our testosterone to estrogen ratio.
With increased inflammation, hormone disruption, negative impacts on sleep and motivation, and the additional calories that come along with alcohol consumption, workout recovery and results from our workouts decrease.

“By why can Alcohol be so much fun???”

Well, because alcohol is fat and water soluble, it breaches the brain blood barrier and poisons our prefrontal cortex. Again, it does not bind to receptors and cause things to happen, the things that happen are due to poisoning. The prefrontal cortex is incharge of thinking, planning, and suppression of impulsive behavior. This short-term spontaneity caused by being poisoned, can be enjoyable for some and is the experience of being drunk. But, unfortunately, even moderate weekly alcohol consumption causes these neural circuits to degrade, long-term, lessening our ability to think, plan, and control impulsivity on a daily basis even when we are not drunk.
Alcohol temporarily raises dopamine levels, but only in the very short-term. Very quickly, our dopamine will drop down below our original baseline. So, for those of us who are looking to alcohol as a quick pick-me-up when we have had a rough day, the net effect is actually going to make us feel worse off. Because of this, people using alcohol as an escape from depression unfortunately cause their depression to worsen if they look to alcohol. Alcohol:
- Increases symptoms of depression,
- Increases perceived stress levels, &
- Decreases motivation among many other changes.

“Well alcohol helps me sleep.”

Maybe it can help us fall asleep, but it dramatically impairs the quality of our sleep. Because of the poisoning of your prefrontal cortex, we may have experienced a temporary stress reduction allowing you to fall asleep, but our body cannot get into REM sleep (a vital sleep cycle), until the alcohol is metabolized. So, we are not actually getting the quality of sleep you need while there is alcohol in our system. Note: caffeine also works this way as we cannot get into REM sleep until the caffeine in our system is metabolized.

MovementLink Protocol for Improving Relationship with Alcohol

We start with 1-3 months of consuming no alcohol. This challenges us to experience a wide variety of real-world situations, especially situations where we may have always had something to drink, sober. The goal is to build experiences and build our freedom to choose one way or the other. Ultimately, as with everything in our lives, we get to decide for ourselves if consuming alcohol has a place in our life and in what amounts. In our opinion, it is imperative that if there are situations in which we feel like we need to drink or situations where drinking has become habitual, we want to experience those, hopefully multiple times within the experiment, without drinking.
From there, if we are going to consume alcohol in our lives, especially because it’s brain poison, we extremely, extremely limit when and how much we consume. We do not drink as a habit in situations, as a pick-me-up when we feel down, or without taking into account the vast negative side effects. If we choose to drink in a situation, it is rare and has been well thought through relative to our health and the life we want to live.

We are not here to judge people’s decisions. We are happy that in 2023 we do not feel the need to write an article about the negative effects of tobacco use, but in writing this article and researching this topic, we do get the feeling that it is inevitable that at some point society will accept the realities of alcohol consumption and consuming alcohol will viewed like smoking cigarettes. If you are struggling with your relationship with alcohol consumption, here is a resource to explore options for help:

A Great Resource for Getting Help