Can we talk? about drinking...

Weesa - I am with you totally. I love to drink. Love my red wine in the winter, a light white in the summer, a cold beer at the cottage....I am a little shy as well, and I have always found it to be a great social lubricant. On a normal day, I would drink at least two glasses of wine a night - one when I was cooking dinner, another with my husband after the kids were in bed. I never thought I drank "too much"

After I was diagnosed I did read that moderate consumption could raise my risk of recurrence, but a safe level was 1/2 glass a day - so i would have a glass of wine on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. I missed it during the week, but I thought I had reached a good compromise. Now I am reading that maybe even 3 drinks a week could raise my risk by 35% or something crazy. I really am not sure what I will do - maybe just cut back more to Saturday nights only...??

It actually really pisses me off to tell you the truth. I feel I have lost so much to this jolly disease, I hate that it just is taking even more. 

I have cut down on my wine.  But I never drank a lot...if you don't include my teen years.  Maybe 3 glasses of wine a week.  Now I usually only have wine or martini (my fav) on special occasions. Like last night.  Two Christmas parties.  I ate sugary things and dips with fatty stuff in it too.  Ohhh, it was soooo good.

weesa where do you live-not boone nc ?

I don't know.... I have read the studies but I also have alot of family in France (my mother was french) and some of them are doctors. They still extol the virtues of moderate red wine drinking and the BC studies in France -- where pretty much everyone is a daily drinker-- don't bear out the same results we have here. I have cut WAY back but I do still have a glass of wine almost every night. 

I remember when I was Dx, I was asked how much did I drink and my response was "before or after you told me I had bc?"!!!  Geeze...I did everything "right" and still got breast cancer......so I figure, I if I want a glass of wine or 2, I am going to have it.....love red wine.....heck, I think I may go pour a glass....mmm boy is that good!!!!!

Bugs....I agree with you.....BC had robbed me of so much, I am not going to let it rob me of a few glasses of wine here and there.....or other foods I like.  Overall, I do what I am supposed to do....

Weesa thanks for starting this thread.  DH loves a good chardoney, great scotch and great beer.  Me, I just like my merlot or cabernet....other beverage of choice is water or herbal tea.

Off to the onc tomorrow.....maybe I should ask him about wine (or maybe I''ll just whine!!!!!).

I drank some in my late teens (it was legal for b+w then), a good bit in my 20s, less in my 30s. When I stopped playing softball in my mid-late 30s, I pretty much stopped drinking. By then I was only drinking after games, the pitchers of beer at the bar thing. Since then (15+ years), I've had a few sips of champagne or brandy, literally just a few sips.

I just didn't enjoy the taste or feeling any more.

Didn't help a bit to prevent bc, but that was never the point of not drinking.

It doesn't bother me to be the sole non-drinker in a group. I just have my water.

Wine alittle; you'll feel better.

well, i like my wine and i do drink. i quit drinking for 2 years when i was diagnosed.  then a friend of mine passed away from "unknown primary cancer"  (not breast cancer). she was a marathoner..ate all really great food...worked out...didn't drink..really took exceptionally good care of herself.  after she died...i thought..."heck with this; if it is my time..it will be my time whether i have a beer or glass of wine...." so i decided that while i was alive..i was going to enjoy some of the things i had always enjoyed. (in moderation)  i think it is important to pay attention to risk factors with breast cancer; however...there are risks just being alive.  all things in moderation is my motto now. i think it is different for everyone in what they are comfortable with.  i am comfortable with my glass of beer and goblet of wine.

 so, i am going out to cycle.  i try to keep a balance. hah

diana50

Well, i have just re-read the conference report - they say 3 drinks a week gives the same recurrence risk as no drinks. So, that is certainly do-able for me. Man, I sound like an alcoholic!! LOL! 

I think about this a lot.  I love a nice cold glass of white wine.  Sometimes when I am drinking it I wonder if it will hurt me.  Then I think about friends of mine who never drank who died of cancer.  I never drank much before bc but I will confess that I drink more now.  Not to excess but I really do like a glass of wine.  I wonder if the stress reduction of having a glass of wine cancels out any ill effects.  I hope so!  And I will also confess that I definitely pour a glass when I am worried about a dr. appt.

I know someone who was recently diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer that is an avid runner, eats very little meat, eats tons of veggies and fruit.  I don't get it.  On some level I think it does not matter what you do.  The words, "crap shoot" come to mind.

Yep, why why why why why. It really makes no sense to me at all.

I'm visiting my best friend right now who lives in a gorgeous little town in New Jersey about 1/2 an hour east of Philly. Her stepdad just gave me a case of my favorite beer, Yuengling, which is only sold in a few Northeastern states. You can bet your sweet bippy that I'm going to indulge! I'm going to be swimming in Yuengling this week! Ha! Seriously, though, I usually only have 1-2 drinks per week, and I plan on continuing to do so.

Weesa, I can just picture you sitting in the window of your sons' pub, drinking Irish coffee! I would be reluctant to give that up, too.

When I hear statistics like 4 glasses with a 30% increase I have to wonder how they narrowed that to the only difference.  If someone begins drinking again are they also 30% more likely to have stopped taking their tamoxifen, 30% more likely to not be exercising.  There are so many variables and yet I didn't have even a sip of wine until almost a year after my original diagnosis (and I had been having a glass a night for years prior to diagnosis).  I love a good glass of wine, but now I have a glass perhaps once a month or less.  It just isn't worth it to me.  I wish I could say I had the same kind of will power over sweets.

From what I understand, this latest study concerns a primary recurrance in the contralateral breast, not loco-regional recurrance nor mets.  For those of us who did a bilat, it seems the study doesn't apply.  Also, even if it does apply to you, take that 30% with a grain of salt - if your risk of recurrance is 10%, a 30% increase raises it to 13% - in overall numbers, not a great increase.  It doesn't mean that your risk of recurrance goes all the up to 30% - it just means that it increases your baseline risk.  There are so many other risk factors for recurrance that I think no one can avoid them all and live anything like a normal life.  So, I just try to balance them - I exercise religiously and am trying to watch my weight even while on Femara.  I figure if I keep down some of the risk factors, then I can indulge in the others - like a nightly glass of wine.  Just a thought. 

Weesa - sorry, I think I'll skip your Red Devil libation . . . I've had enough of it!

Weesa, gag me!  I still can't drink anything red devil-ish colored.  Argh, icky.