Drink less...for your Breasts with Kathryn Elliott

Episode 185

My guest this week is Kathryn Elliott who has been interviewed for a previous podcast focussing on Binge Drinking

Kathryn and I were both heavy drinkers…. and we’ve both had breast cancer

These days we are both sober… and passionate about empowering other women with the knowledge they need about the link between alcohol and breast cancer.

Knowledge which will make them think twice next time they think about having a drink.

In this episode:-

We talked about binge drinking which many of us get into when we are teenagers… and then keep the habit going until we are much older
For example Kathryn was a binge drinker from the age of 15 to 46!
Through her work as an alcohol mindset coach she has discovered that binge drinkers share similar traits:-
A) Started binge drinking at an early age
B) Celebrated by their peers and society for this behaviour
C) Their binge drinking not perceived as a problem… more a rite of passage
We agreed that many people are unaware of the definition of binge drinking – they tend to think it’s about the kids knocking back 15 tequila shots in a nightclub but in reality it’s more likely to be an older woman sitting at home alone drinking a bottle of wine.
So to be clear the definition of a binge is 4 standard drinks on one occasion for a woman and 5 for a man
If we are binge drinking on a regular basis our liver will not get adequate time to recover – which is why low risk guidelines suggest going alcohol free for several days a week
Kathryn explained the psychological profile of a binge drinker - a fast drinker, without an off switch, often blacking out and unable to get control of it over many years in spite of setting rules.
We also agreed that willpower was ineffective when trying to control binge drinking – so many of us have tried "the rules" – I’m only having 2 glasses of wine tonight etc but once the first glass is drunk all the bets are off!
The only thing that will work is a mindshift, working on our limiting beliefs so we can see alcohol for the poison that it is
Kathryn and I are both breast cancer thrivers and we were equally shocked with our diagnosis - neither of us had any idea that there was a link between alcohol and breast cancer
Kathryn began to do her own research into the link and was shocked by what she found… also shocked as she realised that this was never a topic of conversation with her friends nor had she ever seen a health campaign highlighting this
She was also shocked to discover that even low to moderate amounts of alcohol will increase our risk of breast cancer
Just 3 standard glasses of wine a week can increase the breast cancer risk by 15%
Each additional drink will add another 10% to that risk
During her research Kathryn came across an American campaign called "Drink Less for your Breasts" which was impressive and had so much information
The research was showing patterns… links between early binge drinking habits that could show up as breast cancer later i
Both Kathryn and I had estrogen driven breast cancer – and alcohol does increase the amount of estrogen in the system
We agreed that the lifestyle choice to be alcohol free that we have both taken feels empowering…
We can’t guarantee that we’ll never get a recurrence of our cancers but we can be confident that we are doing everything we can to avoid it
So Kathryn and I chatted about our binge drinking and our breast cancers and then moved onto our third topic which is educating corporates about the health risks of alcohol
Kathryn is running seminars for leaders and employees in workplaces to help them understand how alcohol impacts their emotional, mental and physical health.
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Published on 2 years, 2 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

Drink less...for your Breasts with Kathryn Elliott