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Alcohol Myths · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  I'm your host, Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support
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  with Family and Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky.
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  We are housed in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
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  My guest today is Dr. Alex Elswick, Extension Specialist for Substance Use
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  Prevention and Recovery. Welcome, Alex.
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  Good afternoon, Mindy. So we are going to be talking about alcohol myths today.
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  And we recently have busted some cannabis myths.
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  So now let's bust those alcohol myths.
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  So what do you have for us? These are good ones because these might even be
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  more pervasive myths than the cannabis myths.
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  I think just because alcohol use is more pervasive. So it'd be interesting to
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  see if people are guilty of some of these.
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  Probably. I would guess that that is exactly true because we probably find that
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  people use alcohol more frequently And they probably start using alcohol a lot
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  earlier than they do start using cannabis.
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  Right. To our point about the discussion of gateway drugs.
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  Exactly. Exactly. Are we going to do this the same way we did the cannabis?
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  Yeah, let's go true false. Let me test them or test my knowledge.
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  Yeah, be brave again. So alcohol myth number one, alcohol is not a drug.
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  I would say that is false. Yeah. And I gave you the answer because I presented
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  it as alcohol myth number one. Sorry for that. Yeah.
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  Alcohol is definitely a drug. And it's really interesting when you think about
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  it, the exceptionalism around alcohol.
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  That's what I would say. There's all this exceptionalism around alcohol.
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  We treat alcohol very differently than we regard all these other drugs,
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  whether it's cannabis, nicotine, or heroin, or anything else.
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  I'm not entirely sure why that is. I think part of it is because of its legal status.
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  I think part of it might be because it's in liquid form and it's not a pill
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  or a powder like most other drugs, but any drug can be taken in liquid form
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  and methadone and lots of other drugs come in liquid form.
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  Alcohol is certainly a drug. So it's worth saying out loud that alcohol is a drug. Exactly, it is.
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  All right, number two, true or false, alcohol is good for your heart?
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  False. Yes, good one. So there have been and actually continue to be some studies
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  which show evidence of an association between moderate drinking and a lower
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  risk of heart disease. Right.
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  And so that may actually be true. I mean, correlation isn't causation,
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  so we don't really know what that association means.
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  Even if that does hold water and there is something there, if you talk to any
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  healthcare provider worth their salt,
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  they'll tell you whatever benefits you're getting for your heart are far outweighed
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  by all of the harms that you're doing to the rest of your body,
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  your liver, your kidneys, everything else.
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  Alcohol is a poison. It's really a neurotoxin. It's a poison.
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  One of the things that people like to say about cannabis is that it's carcinogenic.
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  Right. Alcohol is carcinogenic, right?
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  There's that weird exceptionalism, right? I mean, alcohol is very, very harmful.
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  The scientific consensus is alcohol is pretty bad for you. and moderate drinking
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  is specifically defined.
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  It's not what you think is moderation. Moderate drinking is a specific definition
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  and it's a really low threshold.
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  It's surprising to a lot of people. For a woman, it's a single drink.
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  It's a single drink in the night. And so if you have more than one drink in
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  a single sitting, that's no longer moderate drinking. Exactly.
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  Number three, true or false?
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  People who have problems with alcohol drink alcohol every day.
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  False. Very good. Very perceptive. That's exactly right. It's a common misconception.
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  And part of the reason why a lot of folks will struggle to come to terms with
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  the fact that they have an alcohol use disorder, what we would call the clinical
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  term for alcoholism, right?
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  And it's because many people don't drink every day. Right.
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  And so they have the mythological, stereotypical image in their mind of the
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  person with a problem with alcohol who just drinks first thing when they wake
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  up and then they pass out.
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  And actually, one really common pattern of drinking for people who have alcohol
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  use disorder is not to drink every day, but when they drink to then lose control.
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  So once they have the first one, then they can't stop and they binge.
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  Definitely not a common pattern. Those weekend drinkers, right?
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  Weekend warriors. That's exactly right. No, that's exactly right.
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  Weakened Warriors is exactly that group. And so there's actually a line between
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  heavy drinking and binge drinking and actual alcohol use disorder.
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  And so we've said this on these podcasts in the past, but remember that what
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  actually characterizes having an addiction, a disorder associated with that
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  drug is impairment in your work or your life or whatever it is. Right. Okay.
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  Number four, true or false...
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  Alcohol is as harmful as other drugs. I would say true that it definitely can be.
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  You are on it. And I think that's actually a really fair way to say it, that it can be.
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  And the truth is that we should say the same about every drug.
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  We like to sensationalize fentanyl and meth and all these other things.
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  And they all have chemical cousins that we use every day to treat conditions.
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  And we use them to, in fact, help people.
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  I like to reinforce to people, drugs aren't bad. Drugs are neutral.
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  It is all about how you use your drugs. When you get a headache,
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  you probably take an ibuprofen, and that's a good thing. Good for you.
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  Yeah. So alcohol, I think, again, part of that perception comes from the fact
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  that alcohol is legal for the age of 21.
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  And so that gives some sort of an impression that it's almost being endorsed
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  by the government or provider.
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  But alcohol is associated with motor vehicle accidents, with falls,
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  with drownings, with all kinds of accidental death, violence,
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  sexual assault, lots and lots of bad things. Alcohol brings lots of harm. Yeah. Okay.
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  Number five, true or false. People who have an alcohol use disorder don't respond to treatment.
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  I think that would be false too. Very good. And I've heard this in different
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  pockets of Kentucky more commonly, where there's just an attitude that addictions can't be treated.
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  And that there's something hopeless when they find out that their loved one
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  has a problem with drugs or alcohol. and one of my favorite things to say about
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  this is substance use disorder is a good prognosis disorder.
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  And what that means is if you have a substance use disorder,
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  you're more likely than not to recover.
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  Most people who have addictions eventually find their way out.
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  And so it's not hopeless.
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  People certainly respond to treatments. We have lots and lots of evidence-based treatments.
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  Certainly, if you or a loved one feel that you have a problem related to alcohol, reach out for help.
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  And probably getting that diagnosis is the most beneficial piece of information you can have, right?
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  It's really, you know, when you think about what a 12-step program is,
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  the first step in a 12-step program is really about admitting the problem.
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  Right. A lot of ways, that's what a diagnosis does for you.
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  It's a way of stamping it and saying, okay, we can all agree this is the nature
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  of the problem. Right. Okay.
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  Okay, last one. This one is a fun one, because I've heard this a bunch too,
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  and I definitely believed this. True or false?
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  Because kids in Europe begin drinking
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  at an earlier age, they drink more responsibly than American youth.
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  Oh, I'd say that's definitely false. Very good.
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  It's common. And I'll hear, some even hear educated people who work in
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  the field who will say a version of this. And all you have to do is look at the data.
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  It is true that European youth drink more and at an earlier age,
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  but they continue to do that.
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  So they actually drink more and in larger amounts than the average American.
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  Like some people have wondered out loud what would happen if you lowered the
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  drinking age so that young people could start to become more familiar with alcohol
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  and become more responsible with it. And it's actually a really bad practice.
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  It might seem like a really small thing to raise the age from 18 to 21,
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  but it had a huge impact on reducing motor vehicle accidents and changing a
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  lot of high-risk behavior around adolescent alcohol use.
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  Because there are some people who are rule followers and they're going to do what the rules say.
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  And if the rules say you can drink at 18, then they're going to start drinking
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  and they might kill somebody.
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  That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. And you're kind of saying
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  laws exist for a reason. Yeah, exactly. They do.
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  Yeah. So those are our alcohol myths for the day. All right.
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  Well, thank you, Alex. This has been fun, but also enlightening,
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  I hope, for our listeners to understand why we have some of these myths that
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  have been perpetuated over the years.
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  Hope, and that our listeners will help bust these myths if they hear them out in their daily lives.
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  Yeah, you can be a form of advocacy we call being a disruptor.
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  So if you're out there in the community and you hear somebody perpetuating one
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  of these, you can be a disruptor and you can say, hey, that's not what the data shows.
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  Perfect. Perfect. I mean, you don't have to be someone your age or my age.
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  You can be a teenager and be a disruptor, right? Absolutely.
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  Alex, thanks for taking the time to share with me today. Thank you, Mindy.
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