Alcohol and Cancer Risk: What Every Swinger Should Know

Can swinging increase your risk of cancer?

Whether you meet at a bar, smuggle alcohol into your room for events, or book an all-inclusive cruise or resort, alcohol is always readily available.

Welcome to Swinger University. I’m Phoebe. And I’m Ed.

I like doing the intro. It’s fun. You don’t usually do the intro. It’s fun. You don’t usually do that. I don’t. I took charge. Phoebe’s on top this time. I am.

So we came up with this topic because it’s all over the news. Oh yeah. You can’t turn the news on and not see the latest story about, yeah, it used to be a glass of wine a day was healthy for you and it helped with your heart and your circulation and all that. And yeah, beer’s not that bad. And if you are going to have a hard alcohol drink, you know, you limit it to two drinks a week kind of a thing. Right. Yeah. Not the case anymore. But now…

Yes. They’re really, I guess, campaigning for visibility on the carcinogenic nature of alcohol, which honestly I didn’t know. And there was a study that they did where 40% people surveyed knew that consuming alcohol increases their chance of later developing cancer. When that came out, I was shocked because I’m the other 60%. I didn’t know. I’m like, who knew? Why didn’t I know? How did I not know? And I thought, wow, that marketing campaign is really getting squashed by you know who.

The alcohol lobbyists, etc. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-alcohol but I do have some interesting facts for you and some alternatives.

So, because it wouldn’t be Swinger University without some facts.

We all know that Swingers love to party and we have a plethora of events, meet and greets, we go to adult resorts, we go on cruises, and

it’s just there. Alcohol’s there. Alcohol’s everywhere. In everything you do, any celebratory event, birthdays, weddings,

christening, the bow of a boat, a ribbon cutting ceremony. There’s champagne, right? So, it’s so ingrained in us and society and part of connecting with one another that it’s just basically seen as normal.

And I made the choice for myself to stop drinking recently because of some of the effects that I will tell you about in a second here.

But as Swingers, why do we use it? Why do we like it?

I think most of the time alcohol is a social movement. Everybody talks about it being the uninhibitor. And I’m going to need a drink for this to really relax and lose. Or the great leveler. Do they kind of say that or it just levels everybody? They’re all… Yeah, I guess you could say that. Because if you’re all drinking, you’re all on the same page. If you’re not, you kind of feel like the third wheel, which is a bit awkward.

Yeah, that would make sense in a party situation. Like everybody’s letting loose kind of thing. And if you were the one sober person, yeah, that would be pretty awkward. I’ve been at that party. I was that guy at that party.

But I think for the most part, Swingers, Swinger Events like to use alcohol as a way of kind of relieving tension. It’s a nervous kind of a thing.

You’re not sure what’s going to happen. You’re putting yourself out there. You’re trying to approach people and make a connection. And that’s hard. You’re an introvert. Maybe you’re not good at closing the deal. You haven’t been dating for many years. Why? Because you’ve been in a committed relationship or monogamous relationship for 20 plus years. And you just feel awkward. We felt awkward trying to flirt with other people. We were both new to the dating scene when we met each other. And we barely had our flirting skills honed in. Yeah, I was pretty rusty.

be honest. And you were still better than me. Well, I’m a natural flirt. You are a natural flirt. So if you if you kind of go through the list of events, you know, most of them are by OB. Yeah. So there’s a there’s an expectation like right there on the invitation that you’re going to bring your own beverage your own alcohol. We’ve met and we know a few swingers who are in fact, non drinkers. But for the most part, I think almost everybody in the lifestyle drinks to some level or another. Yeah, some people drink a lot. We’ve seen a lot of, you know, unicorns, drunk and drunk. Yeah, very, very soft unicorns,

which is not the best experience for them. But if you go down the list of all these cruises, for example, they sell a drink package, several hundred dollars worth of drink package for that and it’s all you can drink. So you want to get your money’s worth, right? Yeah, because it’s expensive. So that’s seven days of just hammering your liver.

And the rest of your body. Yes. Because what would we say the drink package was at least $100 per person, right? Per day. I think it was just under 100 bucks. If I remember right, it was like 85 bucks per person. But with a couple, both people have to have the drink. Yeah. So it’s so first seven day cruise for two people. It’s you know, it’s a lot. It adds up. It does. Because you can’t share. If you look at adult resorts like here, they are all inclusive. All inclusive is meals and alcohol. So drinks are free flowing. You can hang out at the pool. There’s a bar. You can hang out at the nightclub where the dinner is. There’s a bar. There’s the piano bar. Yeah, there’s a bar. Yeah, there’s alcohol everywhere. Yes. Events.

Is it a good thing? I mean, yes, no, I don’t know. It depends on what you want to use it for. And your level of risk, I guess. We could use the same. We just did another follow up on STIs. And you could use the same formula for you and your body. What’s your level of risk? Right? Do you do you want to live a long life? Do you do you want to just throw caution to the wind and say, whatever, you know, live life through the fullest, I’ll die later and I’ll die happy. Maybe you have a lot of cancer in your family and you have to be more mindful of your health. So level of risk is going to be different for each person. Yeah. And I think the other level of risk that a lot of people don’t really talk about in lifestyle is consent. And yeah, with alcohol comes a diminished capacity for granting and accepting consent. Yes. We talk about it all the time because you’re not very good at it. We’ll just say it that way. Yeah. And alcohol doesn’t help. It doesn’t help people to use their words and to know what they’re talking about at the time that they’re saying. And I have been known to make decisions under the influence. I wasn’t drunk, but I was buzzed. And they sounded like a great decision. Everything sounds like a really good idea when you’re drinking. And while I had a good time, if I had been sober, I probably would not have chosen that interaction. And I guess I’m trying to, I know somebody’s going to ask me this question. Well, if you had a good time, that was a big deal. Because the day after, and it’s not the hangover, there is some type of fallout usually for me, meaning you and I missed a connection or I said yes to something that I wouldn’t normally say yes to, maybe at all or with that person, maybe I would only say yes with another person. Right? So things in the moment that seem okay, but the next day you kind of feel icky about it or not so great.

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing is that alcohol reduces your inhibitions and it reduces your ability to make really the best decisions. Yeah. Sound doesn’t mean they’re all going to be bad decisions. But yeah, right. All right. So let’s be let’s be Debbie Downer. Yes. Sorry. Sorry, not sorry. Because you need to know. Yeah, I think it’s important to talk about it. I think it’s important for people to start to think about this because this is new information. Like this is, I know, coming out and it’s all over the place. Yes. So apparently alcohol, like I said earlier, is a carcinogen. It is a class one carcinogen by labeled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. And the reason it is is because it’s

Tabilized into acetylhyde

Which is a carcinogen and That damages the DNA and increases your risk for cancer Right it can increase the types of cancer in your liver breast cancer colon cancer head and neck and esophageal cancer, right I Had no clue none none none none Maybe if I had more cancer in my family and there was more of awareness You know swirling around my family with conversation about health and cancer and stuff I would know this right, but I don’t have that in my family So I just been like kind of shocked by this information Yeah, yeah for sure Some of the other stuff that’s been coming out is that it disrupts the hormone balance So it’s really bad for women who are in perimenopause and menopause Oh, yeah, and you have an increased risk of hormone related cancers for Breast and I remember you talking on a number of occasions where you got a terrible night’s sleep because the alcohol It was affecting your hot flashes you were Your body was out of sorts because of it. Yeah. Yeah, so I I personally have have stopped drinking it I Drink COVID we were we were kind of having a heyday like everybody else did because the world was ending but and you really didn’t Have to go anywhere. So I was like, ah, you know who cares about a good night’s sleep, whatever, but Right

But you know when you’re not sleeping, right? There’s weight gain your health starts to suffer your immune system is decreased Your brain does not do its cleaning process at night thoroughly Which puts you at risk for Alzheimer’s if your brain isn’t able to to get them the cleaning process It’s a dishwasher going on in there in the middle of the night Yeah, they used to describe it as you know, your mind needs to rest at night, right? Like it gives it a break from you know Processing all the stuff during the day and it’s it’s recharging its batteries. Right? Well, they figured out that it’s actually also Flushing toxins out. Yes. Yes

Yeah, I mean once again science is amazing we’re constantly learning new things about the human body and all of this stuff right

Now you may have also heard in the news recently the US

Surgeon General Vivek Murphy who is on his way out soon with the new administration

so he’s he’s been on a speaking campaign and I was listening to him on NPR today and he was saying that

The

Alcohol related cancer is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the US Yeah, so I thought that was Pretty high. I didn’t know that either so you can Save your life basically or live longer. You just stop drinking

Now he’s he’s calling for Congress to authorize a warning label on alcohol, but the the alcohol lobbyists are Really lobbying hard against that. I’m sure this is not the first time it’s come up, but

Yeah

With cigarettes where yeah decades they Lied to the public about it being perfectly safe and it was actually healthy They did in your in your in the office in the hospitals or in the waiting rooms, yeah, and it wasn’t until

The truth got uncovered and people really started to realize

Really true and then they slapped the warning labels on it But it took forever to get the warning labels and then it took forever to get shift this the smokers off of airplanes Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. I remember all that Yeah, so there’s two perspectives on this

Two perspectives you can take on this

Live your best life and go out with a bang Right. Yeah, you only live once and yeah, I I can appreciate that perspective We know people that have that perspective. They’re like, yeah, you only live once I’m going out with a bang I’m gonna live it up. Yeah and the other perspective is Increase your chances of living longer and you get to increase your quality of life. So You know if you’re if you’re looking at the blue zones and you want to have a really long life You want to be an octogenarian you want to live well into your hundreds?

You know, maybe this is something you cut back on or eliminate from your diet, you know Right, I know our grocery bill has gone

I

Do miss it I will say I like the little buzz that I get from a gin and tonic I I I will say as I’ve

aged and progressed into menopause. My body doesn’t handle the alcohol very well anymore. Like you said before, it does affect my sleep. It affects my hormones.

It affects my digestive system. Actually, I was doing a lot of research, I didn’t even put this in the outline, on your microbiota and it really wreaks havoc on all the healthy organisms in your intestines. It basically just destroys them. Yeah, it’s a cleanser. Yeah, it’s like, I’m sure it’s not exactly like this, but it’s just like drinking, you know, rubbing alcohol. (Laughs) It is not that bad, but yes, it is. It is alcohol, totally different than alcohol. It cures COVID. Do not drink rubbing alcohol. It will make you go blind by the way. Oh, oh, really? Oh yeah. Oh.

(Laughs) Very, very, very bad. So it’s really, it’s not the best thing for you, but you know, I do, you know, it’s nice, it’s fun. It can be tasty. There are some really fun tasty drinks out there. I love you a good, you know, whiskey or tequila. And beer, I do miss beer. Yeah, we were just looking at those hazy IPAs that somebody was sort of in one of the shows we were watching last night. Yeah. Yeah, it does taste really good. We’ve certainly acquired those taste buds, although your taste buds have shifted recently. They have shifted. Well, it doesn’t taste good for you. Still tastes good for me.

(Laughs) I still miss a good drink. And I would say I haven’t cut it out completely, but I have cut way back. Yeah. Way back. And pretty much we go out to a dinner with friends. I’ll order a drink with that, and we don’t go out that often. Yeah. It’s not like it’s happening once a week or even once a month. Yeah, and we did have a few glasses of wine over the course of a week. We’d opened up a bottle of wine. But I had to be really careful about what was going on for me that week. Did I need a really good night’s sleep? Right, right. And what kind of healthy things can I do the next day to kind of repair the damage that I’ve already done to my microbiota?

So it’s a pro and con. There’s some consequences to that that you have to do after, at least for me. So I don’t anticipate partaking of any drink package on any cruise ever. Not that we have. I mean, we don’t buy the package. If we wanted a drink, we just buy it. And honestly, now the adult resorts are looking less exciting even more because I’m paying for alcohol that I will never drink. Right. Never drink. That’s true.

So I guess that’s just part of it. Yeah, yeah.

So here’s an interesting proposition we’re gonna throw out there. If you are concerned about your microbiota and your health and cancer and all of that kind of stuff, and you kind of think you might like trying

playing while you’re sober. Uh-huh, which we did pretty much for the first five, six years of our open relationship. Yeah. Yeah, we didn’t drink at all.

So it’s something to experiment with. Try it. Go to a house party and not have a drink. Keep it sober and see if your experience is better or worse. And it may force you to be a little bit more present and use different ways of shaking the nerves off or breaking the ice. But that’s also a good exercise too. Yeah. So you’re doing your breathing, getting in the zone, having a good wing person so that you feel like you’re supported so that you’re not out there all by yourself and you’re not because you’re probably going with a partner. So think about it that way. Working on your confidence, practicing your closing statements when you’re trying to close the deal.

And it’s a nice, I don’t know, we felt really awkward in the beginning in a lifestyle because we didn’t know what was going on and we were trying to date other people and it was weird and awkward. And we didn’t know what to say. There’s a whole bunch of things that were making it. All of the above. And we just thought that the alcohol was gonna make it way worse. And in hindsight, it may have made it better, but I don’t really know. But what it did give us was a lot of good skills. Yeah. We’d come home and we’d break down what worked, what didn’t work, and then we’d go back out there and we’d give ourselves homework at each event.

And so it was a growth experience. For sure. It was a growth experience. And I don’t think I would have been able to do that if I was drunk or too buzzed. Yeah, yeah.

So the challenge, of course, is gonna be, this is difficult at first. Oh yeah.

Venture into this and try it because alcohol is at every event. So if you’re at a social event.

If it’s a Super Bowl party, there’s gonna be beer. If it’s a Swinger event, somebody’s gonna have cocktails there.

So here’s some things to think about when you’re having to cope with all of that.

What do you hold in your hand? Because I think a lot of that is having that thing that you’re walking around with. Yes. You can grab a soda, you can grab soda water, you could do a lime and ice, you could do a tonic. You could do a virgin cocktail. So you can do tonic water and water is really good.

Ginger ale is also really tasty as well. You can bring your own cup to the party. We have a couple friends that just have water and they hold their water cup, their mug, whatever.

And that kind of keeps them,

they like that, right? So they’re even, it’s like a little safety blanket, I guess. Sure, sure. Yeah. And too, if you’re carrying your own water around, you don’t feel compelled to go get something from some counter where, oh, look. Oh yeah, there’s a, oh, there’s a Jello shot right there. Maybe I’ll just take, you know, just one, just one. I think that was the last thing that happened with us at the party. I know. You can practice saying no also because people are gonna want you to drink. It’s part of the social thing, you know, feed you, drink you, make you feel comfortable, all the social things that they want you to be taken care of. So you can practice saying no, no thank you or I’m good.

Right, and you could explain to them why you’re doing it or you could just practice your consent and say, no, thank you. I just, I’m just not, I’m not having anything to drink tonight or I’ve had enough for tonight. You can even say that. Oh yeah, I’ve had enough for tonight, yeah. They’re not gonna know if you’ve had anything. They’re not keeping count. Ooh, I like that one. I’ve had enough for tonight. So remember, this is, you’re doing this to be kind to yourself. This is a service to yourself and focus really on your progression. It’s not getting it right the first time, it’s are you working towards that goal of maybe not drinking anymore? Yeah, that’s not perfection, it’s progression. Yeah.

Most importantly, your consent will be much better. Yeah, you will be present to be able to say, hell yeah, for no thank you. No, thank you.

Which is great. Yes. No more like slipped and fell and landed on a dick. (Laughing)

Right.

And I will say your experience might be better.

Depending on what you’re going after. Now, if your intent is to go after having a good party time, you wanna get your dance on, you wanna get your flirt on, you wanna feel the buzz and you wanna just be in that space. Well, obviously, if that’s part of that, you can’t really do that sober, but you can dance sober and you can get your flirt on sober. I did that for many, many years and I had a good time. See, but I’m a little different. I get really high off my own hormones that are coursing through my body. I pull a lot of energy, I get high off the energy from other people. So just the music and their vibes, I just am a buzz. So I really don’t need anything.

So yeah, your experience could be better or different. Yeah.

Wait, let’s think about what else could be different with your experience. How about your communication or your sexual experience? Can that be different? Absolutely, just like consent, if you are more present in what’s going on, you’ll be able to ask for what you want. Now, you may be nervous about that or you may feel pressure about using your voice and saying no to something or asking for something, but at the same time, if you’ve been drinking, you wouldn’t be asking for those things either. So even though you’re less inhibited,

you’re in a sense not going to be held back from just speaking your mind,

you probably are also more easily gonna go with the flow and just not say anything. So learning to practice that I want this and this and this and I don’t want that, that’s actually a really good thing. And your sexual experiences tend to be better when you ask for what you want. I agree, because you are really taking control of your experience and not letting it just happen to you. You can direct that by your consent

in the beginning and ongoing through that experience.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen women are,

usually I’m focusing on the women because I’m always wanting to make sure they’re okay. They who have had too much to drink and they’re kind of just laying there with their partner

and they are kind of checked out.

And I know they’re not having a great time. They’re just.

They’re probably not even gonna remember it. Yeah, we’ve had experiences with people where after the fact we were like, “I don’t know if she’s gonna remember any of this tomorrow because she

didn’t look drunk at the time, but I don’t… halfway through it, you’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on with her.” Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And once again, you will have your naysayers that say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Live your best life.” Which, you know, everybody’s entitled to their thing. The really good thing about cancer is it’s not contagious. Right. Don’t need to wear a condom for that. They’re only affecting yourself, but at the same time, you know, if this is… if you’ve been watching the news and this is something that’s concerning you, something to think about. Yeah. Something to think about. You know, it would be nice if these big resorts had a…

Right. A catalog, a menu list of… The Virgin… Virgin drinks. Yeah, it’d be pretty cool. That you could pick from. I like a Virgin Moscow Mule. It’s ginger-virgin. I guess you could make anything virgin. You just tell them. Some things taste better with the extra juice, but there’s a lot of stuff with… Especially mixed drinks. You can kind of tell, but there’s ways of fixing that too. Yeah. So. Yes.

Think about who is important in your life. Consider making healthy choices, because this is something that can affect your health, and you should probably consider it. Your health, and therefore the health of the others around you, right? The whole, you know, put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Right. Because you have others to take care of, potentially.

Be kind to yourself. Yes. And realize that this is a struggle for a lot of people, and this is your own personal thing, so do what you want to do with it. Challenge yourself to more personal growth by staying sober and grounded. Give it a try. Yeah. See if your experiences are better.

Yeah, and it’s a good challenge, I think, to be in that space where you stand your ground. It’s going to be a little uncomfortable, but you will feel better about yourself. You will gain confidence if you’re drinking because you’re an introvert, or you don’t like social situations, you’re awkward. Well, you can change that. You do have the power to change it. You don’t need a substance to do that.

Although I will say, because I am going to get some comments on, for people that do like to use other substances like mushrooms or MDMA or things like that, for individuals with severe anxiety,

there are some alternative substances out there for individuals that really can’t really function in society unless they have some of these substances to kind of get them through the day.

So there is that, and I’m not shaming those substances at all. No, absolutely. There’s a lot of research being done on the hallucinogenics for things like PTSD, and they can have an amazing effect on people’s lives in terms of helping with that. Yeah, and using those are also, I mean, using any of this is fine at a party. Just make sure you really are dialing in your consent, that you’re giving your true consent, and that the person you’re giving it to is really listening, and that you can have that exchange for a good experience.

That was a really good wrap up. Yeah.

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