Mike all the best for you and Mary to return to cycle touring this year.

With the exception of this past December, I think I have averaged two drinks a month for the last couple of years. Alcohol upsets my gut. Red wine (even a small glass) gives me a headache. And, worse still, alcohol messes up my sleep cycle. I'll trade one night of restful sleep in my tent or motel for a cold beer any day.

John yes all these unwanted side-effects ring true for me too. And I’ll add the diuretic impact of ethanol. That’s not a benefit when I’m camping.

Overall I think age has been the main game changer for me. When I first started cycle touring, my Celtic-German liver was virtually bomb proof. Nowadays it’s appreciating a less toxic routine, and I’ll feel much better as a result. 

Another good change has been following many of the nutritional guidelines from Michael Mosley’s books. Especially his “Clever Guts Diet” book. It’s been a revelation. 

Thanks Graham - that's a great point about the carcinogenic effect. I guess that's something I knew in the back of my mind was likely, but never really thought about it that much compared to all the metabolic effects. Much as I like a dram of whisky from time to time, strong alcohol plus all those smokey extracts (nitrosamines?) can't be good in that regard.

Thanks for the thoughts on alcohol and work culture - likewise, it's something I've seen change significantly even in my relatively modest 15 years or so of work in the commercial world. In my first job, there was actually a rule in the employee handbook that drinking at lunch was fine, as long as it wasn't sufficient to take you over the drink-drive limit. Since we still have the highest limit in Europe, that meant 2-3 pints at lunchtime was officially fine! By the time I joined there were (few) employees that indulged like that - but xmas parties and the like were quite boozy. I think some not-so-junior employees managed to get arrested for drunk-and-disorderly not long before I joined.

After a life as 1-2 drink/day man (a pint of ipa, a glass of wine) for most of my adult life I abruptly parted ways with alcohol about three weeks ago, literally overnight.  The reason had nothing to do with biking though, or with concerns about adverse health effects so I haven’t bothered responding here because it seemed outside the scope of your question.

In my case I’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA).  All the autoimmune diseases are special in their own way apparently, but GCA’s main calling card is that it attacks your eyesight, often leading to permanent blindness if not treated timely - and time really is of the essence. The standard treatment is heavy doses of steroids, beginning with three days of the really hard stuff administered intravenously while you’re admitted to hospital.  They do this even before they have a confirmed diagnosis if they suspect the disease but haven’t verified it through a biopsy.  If you wait a few days for the biopsy results, it may be too late for the best outcome.

I’ve been there, and now I’m discharged and on a high (89mg/day) prednisone prescription for at least 7 weeks.  Beyond that the goal is to taper me off gradually, monitoring me through periodic blood tests, periodic trips to the rheumatologist and ophthalmologist, and my own self-monitoring for possible evidence of remission.

Contrary to appearances I’m a pretty bright, clear headed guy.  Given a choice between sight and alcohol I think I’m making the right call here.  And if I ever go completely off prednisone, which is the long term goal, at this point in life I won’t go back.  And actually, it’s been easier for me than for most folks trying to make the transition because I was born without a sense of taste or smell so I really can’t tell wine from water without looking at the color.  With me it’s always been largely a mind game, as it is with food in general.

__________

But that’s not why I’m contributing to this forum post.  And it’s not to elicit sympathy or traffic or likes to our current journal (although it’s been built, and if you come you won’t be turned away at the gate.).  It’s about thostwo NYT articles on the adverse health effects of alcohol at any level of consumption, and our local Safeway (one of America’s larger supermarket chains, Graham).  Two things about this store.  One, they must not trust their staff to be able to read English or judge their customers accurately, because they card everyone, regardless of age.  The night before I stopped drinking alcohol I got carded (I look reasonably young for my age perhaps, but even the new 78 still 78 after all).  But I failed the ID test because I lost my driver’s lisencw in California the day before I went into the ER there, and it hadn’t occurred to me to take my passport to the store to buy a sixpack.  But it gets worse, if that even seems possible.

But that’s just for comic relief really, and still isn’t the reason I’m writing.  The first time I went back to see if they carried nonalcoholic beer, they had exactly one six pack on the shelf, a nice (looking at least ) Black Butte NA Porter.  The entire selection.  I took it:

Rachael went back and bought me a couple of other six packs since then, because I’m a two-a-day NA beer drinker now and it was the same situation with exactly one beer to choose from.   Tonight though I was down to.my last can and feeling festive so I walked over again.  Something’s changed in the past few days, and now there’s an entire NA beer section, with maybe a dozen different beers - west coast IPA’s and hazy IPA’s and kolschs, the works, some from brewers that specialize in NA products, like Athletic Brewing; but othersARE from  established craft brewers that have spilt this out as a new product line.  This didn’t happen overnight.  Safeway’s change did though, so I think someone in management can read between the lines and knows that the times they are a’changin’.  Maybe they can read and follow the NYT, or perhaps rhey picked it up here first from your Forum post and CycleBlaze has a larger following than we suspected?

Scott all the best with the treatment. I can imagine you’d be experiencing quite of range of emotions at this stage. Any risk to vision is a scary prospect.

Yes without question we here on the CycleBlaze Forum should be claiming full credit for the increase in awareness of how big a risk alcohol is to health, and the brewers responding with improved NA options. 

More seriously, your mention of immune system is directly related to why I’m convinced that a zero alcohol intake has contributed to my feeling so well over the past year. I’m convinced that at our age the immune system needs all the help it can help from diet. 

I’ve also been following the dietary principles communicated so well by Michael Mosley in his books. Not because I wanted to lose weight, but because I wanted to improve the health of my gut microflora. A benefit of this seems to be a better regulated immune system, less inflammation, less infections, more energy and so on. And coincidentally I’ve reduced weight by about 9kg. 

So far so good, so I’m going to stay the course.

The other reason that Safeway beefed up its NA beer selections may be because of that ever more popular annual trend of "Dry January".  A lot of folks find some benefit from a reset after the winter holidays. In fact, local bars have been experiencing some stress during January because of a significant drop in patronage. I say, they can do what Safeway did, increase their NA offerings and continue to offer a warm, convivial place for people to congregate. 

I’m with that.  When I get back in March I want to check out the Lucky Lab o see if they have a nonalcoholic option.  Rich Frasier has been after me for another lab shot, and I feel like I’ve let him down.

Graham

Coffee and tea contain caffeine which as well as a stimulant is also a dieuretic but not as much as alcohol.