Speaking of Women's Health
The Speaking of Women's Health Podcast is excited to bring you credible women's health information from host and Executive Director, Dr. Holly L. Thacker. Dr. Thacker will interview guest clinicians discussing relevant women's health topics and the latest news and tips.
Please consider supporting Speaking of Women's Health with a monetary donation to help us continue to provide free women's health content. Thank you!
Speaking of Women's Health
Your Body on Alcohol: What Everyone Needs to Know
In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Holly Thacker tackles the complex relationship between alcohol and health, particularly for women. Drawing from both scientific evidence and personal stories, she explains why women experience more severe effects from alcohol than men—even when drinking the same amount.
The conversation goes beyond basic facts about alcoholism to explore how alcohol uniquely impacts women's bodies. Dr. Thacker reveals that women metabolize alcohol more slowly and experience more concentrated effects due to naturally lower body water content. She shares concerning observations from her own medical practice, where she's seen women develop liver and heart damage from what many would consider "moderate" drinking—just one drink per day over many years.
Particularly alarming are the potential interactions between alcohol and medications. With over 150 medicines known to interact dangerously with alcohol—from common pain relievers to prescription medications—understanding these risks becomes crucial, especially for older adults who typically take multiple medications daily.
For pregnant or breastfeeding women, Dr. Thacker doesn't mince words: there is no safe amount of alcohol. She shares a personal experience of how quickly even a small sip of champagne transferred to her breast milk and affected her nursing infant.
Whether you're concerned about your own relationship with alcohol or worried about a loved one, this episode provides valuable insights into recognizing problematic drinking patterns, understanding treatment options, and accessing resources for help. Dr. Thacker emphasizes that alcoholism is a disease that can be treated effectively, though it requires honesty and appropriate support.
Subscribe to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast for more essential health information that empowers you to be strong, be healthy, and be in charge of your wellbeing.
For referral to drug and alcohol treatment programs in your area, call:
Assessment Center Drug and Alcohol Abuse Hotline
1.800.234.0420
National Alcohol and Drug Help Line
1.800.821.HELP (4357)
Welcome to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I'm your host, dr Holly Thacker, the Executive Director of Speaking of Women's Health, and I'm back in our sunflower house to discuss a new topic for our podcast. It's a very important topic. I'm going to discuss alcohol, alcoholism, how alcohol affects the body and how it can become an addiction. I just got finished with one of my golf outings. I've got my little golf cart earrings on, and golf is so much fun because it's social and some of these events raise money for good events. One event that I was golfing in this year actually raised money to combat addiction. Some of it goes to scholarships and a lot of really important topics, and common at golf outings, of course, is generally a lot of alcohol, and I was just remarking to one of my friends who was golfing with us. I said are there any golf outings that go for 27 holes? Because 18 holes didn't seem enough for me. Today I was raring to go for another nine holes and he said are you kidding? A lot of people couldn't even be seeing straight with all the alcohol they drink, and so that can obviously be a problem and really anyone at any age can have an alcohol drinking problem. You might have a great uncle George, who always liked his liquor and maybe his family didn't notice right away that his drinking behavior was getting worse as he gets older. Most of us have someone in our inner circle or our family or friends who have dealt with alcohol or substance abuse problems. Today we're going to mainly talk about just alcohol problems, but certainly there's a lot of different substances. I was really impressed with one of my patients the other day who came in. She was very honest. She showed me this bottle that you can buy over the counter, like at the gas station out there, kind of with the energy drinks, and it's kratom, which is a very addictive substance, and she was saying how her dose kept escalating and escalating. And anytime you're using any substance and you're having or anything that you're having to do excessively or increasing that activity, um, you know it's time to get some help.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:In my own family, uh, my paternal grandmother, uh, nellieie, had an alcohol problem. She was a teetotaler for several years but then she started to drink. She never drove, ever and she didn't even drink during the week, but, boy, when it came to be be Saturday, she had that bottle of vodka and she would just drink to excess. Now she always stayed inside, so you would think, well you know she hurting anybody except for herself and her liver. But one night my brother and sister and I, um, were at their home and she fell asleep while smoking a cigarette and started a fire. I can still remember the embers and just the horrible, horrible smell of the fire, which, of course, can be deadly from smoke inhalation. Luckily we were all saved, but that really impressed upon me at an early, early age about how dangerous drinking, especially excessive drinking, can be. And, as a good mother, I remember telling my sons and my first son, stetson, who's been on this podcast and he'll be on the podcast again in season four I told him that alcohol is a toxin and it damages brain cells and liver cells, and he thought, well, he didn't want to have any negative effects on his brain and he's never had a drink of alcohol. Very, very proud.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Sometimes, though, people that are strict teetotalers, like another grandmother, betty. She was a teetotaler all of her life, but then she started having a drink each night to help her get to sleep after she became widowed, and now you know she's up to drinking a few drinks a day just to get through each day. So a lot of these stories are really common stories and the fact is that virtually most all family, friends and healthcare professionals sometimes can overlook people's concerns about others and their family in terms of their drinking, and sometimes in older age people trouble with alcohol can be mistaken for conditions that happen with age. But alcohol use deserves special attention and in an earlier podcast I did with nurse Samantha talking about preparing for surgery. If you've got any upcoming surgeries for yourself or your family, it's really good to go ahead and listen to that if you didn't get a chance or re-listen to it.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And one of the things that has to be ascertained before having anesthesia or being in a chance or re-listen to it. And one of the things that has to be ascertained before having anesthesia or being in a hospital or changing the routine is really how much alcohol is someone drinking because they can have withdrawal, and withdrawal can be very, very difficult Now in older persons. The same amount of alcohol could have a greater effect on an older person than someone who's younger, and I know many people as they get older who never had trouble with alcohol, that were only social drinkers who, as they get older, just decide not to drink alcohol anymore because they know their metabolism is slower. They know that fall risk increase with age and that it is a hit to the brain and to the liver. So the same amount of alcohol in one person can have a much more dramatic effect on an older person.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And obviously tolerance, other medications, other medical conditions can all factor in. Now some medical conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, poorly healing wounds, can all worsen with alcohol use. And anyone who's having any trouble with their immune system, with healing, with repair, anyone with impaired liver function, anyone with any neurologic conditions, it really behooves you to seriously consider if it's worth having any type of social alcohol, and some substances are more addictive than others. Alcohol and some substances are more addictive than others, like, for instance, tobacco, is very addicting. There's very few people that are just social smokers, that they can put it down and go for weeks on end without cigarettes. Most become very addicted. Nicotine is very addictive. Heroin, opiates, there's many substances that have faster addiction rates. But up to 20% of people who drink can have alcohol problems and there certainly does seem to be a genetic condition. I've had that discussion with my two younger sons who socially drink alcohol, that there was alcohol problems on both sides of their maternal and their paternal lineage. So knowing your family history is very important.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And it's also important to know that many medicines not just prescription but also over the counter, as well as herbal remedies can be dangerous or even deadly when mixed with alcohol. And it's a special worry for more senior, mature folks, because the average person over age 65 takes at least two medicines per day. So if you're on any medications, supplements etc. Ask your physician, pharmacist or healthcare team if it's okay to even have social alcohol. And here are some really common examples. So aspirin can cause bleeding, it affects the platelets, it thins the blood and it can cause bleeding in the stomach, the intestines and certainly if you mix alcohol or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents like ibuprofen, also known as Motrin there's many over-the-counter and also a wide variety of prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, so I'll call it gastritis significant GI hemorrhages can certainly happen when mixing those two.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now, a lot of common cold and allergy medicines, including antihistamines, can make people sleepy. So if you're taking a drug that makes you sleepy and you combine it with alcohol, you can really raise the risk of liver damage. And some medications, even like cough syrups, laxatives, can have an alcohol content included along in the medicine and even drinking just a little bit of alcohol can impair the judgment and the coordination and the reaction time. It can increase the risk of accidents at work, at home, including falls and hip fractures, and as an osteoporosis doctor I have seen many devastating fractures that can lead to nursing home placement, even death, and certainly immobility and pain and just general discomfort and just the hassle of multiple doctor visits, orthopedic visits, sometimes even orthopedic surgeries. You know multiple doctor visits, orthopedic visits, sometimes even orthopedic surgeries.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And alcohol certainly adds to the risk of car crashes and it'll be very interesting to see with the autonomous driving cars how that impacts drunk driving. But it's very important to educate your teens, your young adults. If you're out with people and someone is drinking too much, that you take their keys, that you drive them home, I know a lot of people will not even have one drink of alcohol unless someone else is driving or they'll call you know one of the car services like uber or lyft, and that's really very, very responsible. And and some mixing of drugs with alcohol, like benzodiazepines. You know the famous Karen Quinlan case with valium and alcohol was comatose. So you have to be very careful and alcohol and heavy drinking definitely increases several medical conditions, including cancers and liver cirrhosis.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now one of the most rapidly growing problems with the liver is fatty liver and we have a lot of good information on our website on fatty liver. Our founder of Speaking of Women's Health and our creative strategist, lady Di, the wonderful Diane Dunkelman, developed fatty liver and she talks about how it had nothing to do with alcohol and actually fatty liver is almost eclipsing alcohol in terms of causing cirrhosis of the liver. So it's not a benign condition, especially in women. And, um, if you got fatty liver, you've had abnormal liver functions and it's not from alcohol or and or you've stopped alcohol and you still have problems. You really need to be evaluated for fatty liver and it's very treatable and if you get it to resolve, you can prevent the progression to cirrhosis of the liver. But it's not just the liver that can really get affected. With alcohol, your immune system is suppressed and brain damage and we really want to take care of our brain. If you didn't listen to my podcast on protecting your brain health and cognitive health, I did that in the summer of 2025. I did a great podcast on the MIND diet and the prescription vitamin serifol and NAC, which is now available over the counter as serifol, and brain wellness. I talked a lot about that and that research showing reductions in brain atrophy and N-acetylcysteine or NAC, which can be purchased over the counter, does improve brain glutamate and liver glutathione, so it is protective of the brain and the liver.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now alcohol can make some medical concerns harder for your physician to find out, evaluate and treat. That's why it's always good to be honest and a lot of people underestimate a lot of things in their medical history Alcohol use, substance use, tobacco, sometimes being honest about the sexual history in terms of assessment and anything that only you have knowledge of, that you have to tell your healthcare team. It's important to do that because you're really going to get better care. And alcohol can affect the cardiovascular system. Can affect the cardiovascular system, the heart muscle, the blood vessels. It can also weaken pain.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:I mean some people with chronic pain drink alcohol to dull their pain. I mean years ago alcohol would be used prior to doing medical procedures, before we had anesthesia, and actually back in the 1920s I mean cocaine was a big problem. It wasn't even regulated. That was another form of abuse. It was added to things like Coca-Cola and so sometimes it takes us a while to understand what substances do, and so if you're impaired and not having as much pain as you might, you might miss the signs of a heart attack or even appendicitis.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:I had appendicitis and needed an emergency appendectomy, and I wasn't drinking any alcohol none at all but the pain wasn't as bad as I had imagined or learned about in medical school, and I think it was in part because my body was so good at using the momentum to cover it up and it was behind the cecum, and so I just thought I don't really think I should seek medical attention because it doesn't seem that bad. Then it did get bad enough and I had a fever, so luckily I went in and I got excellent care. It was when I was on the road. So if you're on pain medicines, if you're using substances that dull your pain, including alcohol, then any pain has to be taken even more seriously.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:The other thing is that drinking can make any person, especially older persons, more forgetful or confused and, in my practice, brain fog, word-finding difficulties, forgetting what one is doing and a lot of midlife women who are caring for elderly relatives who have Alzheimer's or female dementia of the's or or other forms of dementia, get very concerned about their brain health, and so folks that really want to protect their brain you really want to protect those neurons. And sometimes alcoholism can be mistaken for mild cognitive impairment, mci, and if you drink alcohol your blood sugar is going to be not as optimal. So for diabetes patients with type 2 and type 1 diabetes, it can really be a problem, and if you drink alcohol, especially too much, it can increase your interpersonal conflicts with your family, your friends, your neighbors, co-workers and many people have personality changes. My paternal grandmother, who was always pleasant and responsible during the week, I mean, her personality really changed, you know, after she had a couple glasses of vodka and there's less inhibition and so there can be more trouble with people, with work or even with strangers. So how can you determine if you think someone that you care about or that you interact with might have a drinking problem?
Holly L. Thacker, MD:So there's two patterns of drinking. In general there's early and also late onset. Some people have just been heavy drinkers for many years but, as with that great uncle George, over time the same amount of liquor packs a more powerful punch, and other people, like my friend's grandma Betty, develop a drinking problem later in life after going most of their whole entire adult life without a drinking problem. Sometimes life changes can bring boredom or loneliness or anxiety, depression, and sometimes depression in older adults goes along with alcohol misuse. Some people feel like, oh you know, a drink brings relief from a stressful situation, but later on drinking can definitely cause problems and alcohol certainly is known, especially beer and hard liquor to increase uric acid levels. And in the past we used to check for uric acid levels routinely on the chemistry panels. But they're not on most chemistry panels and at least 20% of people can have elevated uric acid levels. And if you didn't hear that podcast on gout and uric acid, that's a good one to go back to.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Just another reason you know not to drink or not to drink very much alcohol, and so you might want to get help if you or a loved one drinks to kind of calm your nerves or block out your worries or reduce depression. And we have a lot of great information on speakingofwomenshealthcom about reducing anxiety, about improving the mood, about healthy lifestyles, about how food is medicine and can affect your mood. A lot of common vitamin deficiencies that I see daily, from low vitamin D, low zinc, low B12 level. In fact, I used to just check B12 levels only in people with symptoms or by age 65. Then I moved it down to 60. Now I moved it down to 55. Now to 50. I mean, the more I look, the more I find a lot of vitamin and nutritional deficiencies and these things affect your nervous system.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:People who gulp down drinks, people who drink alone, people who have more than one drink a day a so-called standard drink is a 12 ounce bottle, or a can of beer or a wine cooler or a five ounce glass of wine. In fact, at the club I enjoy going to that my husband and I are members of, when I order a wine, the last time they asked me do you want a six ounce pour or a nine ounce pour? I thought a nine ounce pour is kind of wow. That's like a double 1.5 ounces of 80. Proof distilled spirits is considered a drink.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:People that are lying about their alcohol intake or trying to hide their drinking habits that's another problem. People who hurt themselves or others while drinking. People that have increasing tolerance and need to drink more and more. Folks that feel irritable or resentful or just unreasonable when they're not drinking or whatever using their substance of choice. And then, of course, if you have medical worries, social worries, marital worries, financial worries caused by drinking, those are all serious, serious red flags.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:So you have been listening to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I'm your host, dr Holly Thacker, the Executive Director of Speaking of Women's Health. I direct our Center for Specialized Women's Health. I focus on midlife women's health and menopause. I run our Specialized Women's Health Fellowship and some of our graduates have joined our staff and they'll be talking about a lot of great and interesting topics. Now I will get into more of the signs of alcoholism in just a bit.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now, I am not a chemical dependency expert, but because I've seen thousands and thousands of patients in my practice, in the hospital, in the clinic setting, and because I am very passionate about empowering women to be strong, be healthy and be in charge, this seemed like a really important topic, and the comment from my friend Nick about why there's not 27 hole outings is because too many people just couldn't do it from drinking 18 holes on the course. It really thought wow, you know, um, to me, just having the day to enjoy friends and be outside and socialize and get a little golfing and maybe a lucky shot or two, Um, I actually had a great day. Not so much golfing, um although I always tell people don't ever complain about your golf score unless you're getting earnings from the PGA or LPGA, because it's just a recreation. But I won several raffle bags. Oh my goodness, it was so great. And after, like the third time they called my name they were calling cheater, cheater. So I wasn't cheating, I just seemed to be extra lucky. So I wasn't cheating, I just seemed to be extra lucky.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And some people drink alcohol because they want to lower their inhibitions, to feel lucky, to feel better able to socialize or interact with people, their friends or people of the opposite sex. And really we don't want substances to cloud people's judgment or their performance. So, in terms of getting help, studies show that older problem drinkers can benefit just as well as younger alcohol abusers. So talk to your physician or your advanced practice clinician. He or she can help, give you advice, can talk about treatment options, referral do, medical evaluations. Usually local health departments can be helpful Social service agencies. For those that are college students, there's usually resources on campus.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:There's a lot of different types of treatment that are available. Some are like the 12-step program. They've been around for a long time. You know, I always ask my patients when they tell me I've been sober for 12 years, doctor, or they tell me the date of their last drink you know, years, doctor or they tell me the date of their last drink, you know. I always ask them about their journey and how they became sober, and it's usually a source of accomplishment and pride. Others may need to actually undergo detoxification, you know, in an inpatient program or under medical supervision, sometimes medications can be prescribed to help prevent a return to drinking.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:An individual or group counseling can be very helpful. Some of the new GLP antagonists and weight loss medications seem to, in some folks, help reduce not just excessive overeating but also over drinking. And there are newer programs that teach people that have drinking problems to learn which situations or feelings trigger the urge to drink or as a way to cope without alcohol. And when I have conversations with people about what's their trigger for smoking cigarettes, which they know is bad for them and they want to stop, or what their triggers for drinking alcohol or doing things that they know are not good for themselves, it's important to try to help work towards a substitution like happy hour. You know we all want to relax after work, we want to socialize and maybe try some good food that we didn't have to cook at home ourself. But fun activities don't always have to be associated with alcohol, you know, or with food or with excesses of anything. Generally speaking, support of family members and co-workers can be very important. Many programs counsel married couples and family members as part of the treatment process. Programs can link individuals with important community resources. So scientists continue to study alcohol's effects and look for new ways to treat alcoholism and addiction, and so this research is very important.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, recommend that people over 65 who choose to drink should not have any more than one drink a day, because drinking at this level is usually not associated with health risk. But I will say I have seen some patients in my practice who never seemed to have any alcohol problems. They only had one drink a day and just the way their body metabolized things, they had cardiomyopathy or liver damage, um and so there's really no safe level, and one drink and a man, uh, is like two drinks for a woman, and so if you're a woman who has two drinks, that's like a man having four drinks, and we women don't have the same amount of alcohol dehydrogenase in our intestines. And also if you, I always try to never have even a sip of alcohol on an empty stomach because you just absorb it more and there's more negative effects on the stomach itself. And the alcohol effects do vary with age, so slower reaction times. If you already have problems hearing and seeing, those special senses are important. That puts people at a much higher risk for falls, car crashes or other injuries. Also, if you're on a lot of medications, mixing alcohol and prescription and over-the-counter medications can be dangerous or even fatal.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Alcohol can make many conditions much worse. Anytime I see someone with new onset high blood pressure or worsening blood pressure, I always ask questions about alcohol intake, about alcohol intake and can make someone feel the alcohol even faster. So in the field of women's health, folks ask is it safe to drink during pregnancy? No, it's not. Alcohol is a toxin. It can harm the baby of a mother who drinks during pregnancy. There's warnings all over alcohol bottles. Obviously, the highest risk for fetal alcohol syndrome is for mothers that drink heavily. Sometimes women are upset. They found out that they had a glass of alcohol and then they later find out a week later that their pregnancy test is positive. But there's really not a safe level of alcohol during pregnancy or lactation. Now there's some new strips that can test the milk. You know a lot of women will pump and dump.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:I often wonder if one of the reasons why my son Stetson has never drank is on New Year's Eve, when he was just a young baby, not even three months old yet, I had a little sip of champagne to toast in the new year and he was dressed in this cute little baby outfit with his little tuxedo, nursed him. He immediately threw up and I could smell the champagne in the breast milk. It was terrible and I only had a sip. It was just such a little bit of an amount but it went that fast through my stomach, through my bloodstream, into the breast milk and into him. And so that was it. Never, never had another, never had another drop during um, any breastfeeding or, of course, pregnancies. And if you're trying to become pregnant, then you should just assume. If you're not, you know having a regular period that you could be pregnant and it's best to abstain.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:And does alcohol affect women differently? Well, yes, as I mentioned, women metabolize it slower. Women seem to become much more impaired drinking the same amount. Even when you take into account differences in body weight, women generally have a little less water in their bodies than men and so it becomes more highly concentrated. And also chronic alcohol abuse takes a heavier physical toll on women than men and alcohol dependency and related medical problems affecting the brain, the heart, the liver seem to progress more rapidly in women than men. And the patients I've seen who I did not think ever had any alcohol abuse problems, who never had more than one drink of alcohol per day but after several decades of doing that did have heart or liver damage, were all women. So just another biological difference between the two sexes.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now a lot of women will ask me well, isn't alcohol good for your heart? I thought drinking, you know, red wine was good. I even have a few patients who've tried to force themselves to drink red wine and they don't even like it. I'm like heck. No, have some purple grapes or some grape juice, if you want, resveratrol. So there are some studies that show moderate drinkers seem to be less likely to die of one form of heart disease than people who don't drink any alcohol or folks that drink a lot more.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:But certainly non-drinkers should never start drinking solely to benefit the heart, and it may be that just mild to moderate social use is a marker for other things Social interaction, exercise. So if you want to guard against heart disease, follow a heart healthy diet, get heart healthy fats, get those seed oils out of your diet. Eat whole foods. Know what all your numbers are and get regular exercise. Your numbers are and get regular exercise. And if you're pregnant or planning to become pregnant or you have been diagnosed in the past as having an alcohol related problem or another medical condition, you just simply should not drink and you still should be able to socialize and enjoy your life. You know, I've been to weddings where one of the people getting married is a recovering alcoholic and they still have a toast, it's just with another bubbly drink. That's not alcohol related. So all the fun and celebrations and toasting can still all be done.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now one of the big concerns I see in women is breast cancer risk, concerns Women are so concerned about. Does estrogen increase breast cancer risk? Well, no, in fact, in hysterectomized women it reduces the diagnosis. And yet these same women are regular, many of them are regular social drinkers, and there's really no save level of alcohol, and certainly for women in general, I say really you should not have more than three to at most seven drinks a week, preferably not more than three to five. And even that is not a safe you can't be assured that it's a safe level. So you can safely drink alcohol if you do so, but you have to do it in moderation and you have to realize there is a risk for addiction and that heavy drinking does increase your risk of hypertension and heart failure and stroke and liver disease and slower healing.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:When taking certain medicines do you need to stop drinking? Possibly because there's over 150 medications that can interact with alcohol and any medicines that you're on that affect your central nervous system, like sleeping pills or antihistamines, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medicines, some painkillers. You all have to be concerned. So talk to your physician, talk to your, your pharmacist, in terms of the signs of alcoholism. It's a disease and it usually causes problems at home or work, although there's a lot of people and I know a few people that I believe are functional alcoholics. They drink regularly, they drink too much, but they're still functioning at work and at home. But usually at some point it progresses and it can destroy both emotional and physical health and lead to a much sooner death. It's just tragic the people that die on the road because of alcohol or drug-related crashes. And alcoholism is called a family disease because it hurts the lives of the family members, and so for the person with the alcohol problems to get better, usually the family members need to also help take part in treatment.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:It can occur at any age. If you feel a craving or a need for alcohol, you know, I ask my patients who tell me that they, oh, I like to just drink a glass of wine when I'm making dinner. Age if you feel a craving or a need for alcohol, I ask my patients who tell me that they, oh, I like to just drink a glass of wine when I'm making dinner, and it's not ever been a problem. I ask them well, have you given up alcohol for Lent, for instance, if you're religious and do that, or dry January, or pick a period of time? Because if you can't give up alcohol, like for a month before you're going to have major surgery, or at least even a week before you're having major surgery, or for some specified time period, if you can't do that, that is a concern. So some of my nurses will remember I usually give up alcohol for a certain number of weeks to months, usually during Lent. And so the one year I would only cook with alcohol, I would not drink it. So I would treat my friends and family and coworkers after hours to some of my concoctions like bourbon flavored meatballs and no, we don't have that recipe. On speaking of women's health, that's for sure. But I opened up Angel's Envy bourbon and my husband's like why are you opening that up? That's a good bottle. I'm like, yeah, but it's got so many good flavors. And so certainly there's a lot of recipes that call for various alcohol that might enhance the flavor.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Now, alcoholism cannot be cured, but it can be treated and people can go, hopefully, the rest of their life in remission. The problem is many people don't think they have a problem, and some people haven't hit rock bottom to get motivated to get their life back, and that's a problem. And, um, some people haven't hit rock bottom to get motivated to get their life back, and that's a problem. So symptoms are different for each person, um, but in the early stages people might drink for relief of problems. They might need more and more alcohol to to get drunk. Um, when blackouts happen and you can't remember what happened. That's really serious. Hiding alcohol, sneaking drinks, drinking in the morning, having an eye opener, thinking more and more about alcohol or just planning activities around alcohol. Middle to late stages are drinking more than planned, not admitting to having a drinking problem, trying to control drinking by mind games like saying, well, I just won't drink before noon, breaking promises, having mood swings, personality changes and then those folks who have to drink as soon as they wake up. That's a really significant sign of addiction Having withdrawal symptoms.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:When the body's not getting alcohol you can have delirium tremens or DTs or so-called morning shakes. You know that can lead to seizures, to death, to a lot of problems, and that's why if you're going to be in the hospital or having surgery, you have to be honest about your alcohol intake. There's not a single cause. Your upbringing, physical health, genetics all can play a role. Some people drink to make up for feeling lonely or confused or feeling guilty or just wanting to blot out things from their life, and there's other, healthier ways that you can deal with those symptoms.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:Luckily, there are people that are trained in treating this condition and it is important to be honest and treatment's different depending on where you're at. Some people need detoxification. Once the body's clean, then they can enter a counseling program. Some people go away, you know, for a month or more at a time. Other people do intensive daily AA meetings. Treatment can last a few weeks to years. There can be relapses. I had a friend who had a relapse and got back in treatment and now is doing well.
Holly L. Thacker, MD:So if you need referrals for treatment, you know, talk to your healthcare team. You can call the Assessment Center for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Hotline. That's 1-800-234-0420. We'll put these in the show notes. The National Alcohol and Drug Helpline is 1-800-821-HELP or 4357. 4357. So thank you so much for joining me on another episode of Speaking of Women's Health. In order to get the latest in women's health, please subscribe or follow or collect us. It's all free on wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow us on YouTube and Rumble. If you want the video portions, bookmark our website, share our podcast, give us a five-star rating and we look forward to seeing you next time in the Sunflower House. Remember, be strong, be healthy and be in charge.
