Question Regarding Alcohol Consumption

Wondering how others on this forum have handled the question of alcohol consumption. If you drank alcohol prior to your cancer diagnosis, have you decided to cut down or abstain entirely as a result?

Personally, I have cut down a lot to just a couple of drinks per week, but I'm beginning to wonder if I should abstain entirely.

Thoughts?

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Age - 62
PSA in Oct 20 - 7.2
DaVinci Prostatectomy - 1/27/21
Gleason 7, negative margins/nodes; bladder neck invasion; Stage T3a
PSA Mar 21 - 0.05
PSA May 21 - 0.12
PSA July 21 - 0.18
PSA Sept 21 - 0.32

PET Scan in Sept 21 - clean
Salvage Radiation (EBRT) - 39 session; 72GY + 6 month Lupron

PSA Jan 22 - <0.01
PSA Apr 22 <0.01/Testosterone 3
PSA July 22 <0.01/Testosterone 750

I have been drinking beer and wine since high school, too much at times but much more moderate as I aged. I started losing weight after retirement followed by PCa which caused me to stop drinking coffee and alcohol for a period of time, both of which I slowly started up again as I felt up to it. Since I had surgery followed by RT, it was was more gradual process than just surgery recovery. Morning coffee was pretty easy to ramp back up to pre-PCA levels but I was not drinking the nastiest Starbucks coffee I could find either. I would have a couple ounces of red wine at night and that was about it. I would have a beer occasionally, also of the lower alcohol levels for a while. Then we would go to a brewery with some friends and I would have 2 pints which seemed like an awful lot at that time.

That being said, almost all doctors will tell you that alcohol is not good for you, especially some cardiac docs who think the 1 drink per day advice is too much. Limiting alcohol is generally good and you should look at how it fits into your "new" life. There is a strange dichotomy that exists in that you may live longer without alcohol but your PCa diagnosis did little to guarantee a longer life so what's the harm, live while you are alive. If you want to abstain, that is good so give it a try if you want. You can always abstain but have the occasional drink for special events. A couple of drinks per week is ok also. My PCP has no problem with the average 1 drink per day as a general rule but he doesn't drink and says it is always better if you don't. He doesn't push the issue for those that are reasonably healthy and drink modestly. He is not so kind to those that are way overweight or have other medical issues where alcohol is doing them no good.

I know in my case, I enjoy a small glass of wine, <4 oz, or a 12oz beer at night when I kick back and read HW and other posts. It is very rare that I would drink more than that which would require an occasion of some sort where two drinks makes sense. I don't really miss drinking any more than this which is a far cry from my younger life on weekend nights. Moderation is the key to so many of these things.

I drank at the high-school and college keggers. Where I went to school, if you didn't, you were a fish out of water. Also in the military. Same deal. But quite honestly looking back I really didn't like it. I just sort of followed the herd. Always felt out of control of my senses while under the influence. So I cut back in my late 20's and stopped entirely at about the age of 35. I had a beer once after I was prescribed a T2D med and had an awful feeling. Not a drop since. And can't say I miss it at all. It's a personal decision. Some people love that glass of wine at dinner. Or that shot of cognac at the wedding reception. It's all good. But then, I've known people who've had their lives and the lives of their families ruined by it. Like everything else, moderation is the key to healthy living and satisfaction.

My thought: No way I will. (Moderate conpsumtion of course).

I haven’t been a big drinker since my college days. I enjoy a Martini on occasion when out to dinner with friends but that’s it. And PCa never changed that, and in fact I haven’t seen any research showing that an occasional drink affects the progression of PCa.
With that said the last month or so I have eliminated all alcohol for a different reason….heart disease, necessitating a serious effort to lose some weight. Calcium score from a CT scan of the heart is off the charts. Very scary.

I enjoy a glass of fine red wine every evening, as per my doctor's orders. Yet, the SOB would never write me a prescription for it.

Several hundred years ago as a young Navy guy I had several occasions to consume what the saltier guys referred to as 180. Never drank it straight but mixing even a small quantity with a Coke or Pepsi was all it took to do me in. I don't know what that stuff was or but I assume (now) it was probably Everclear 180. Never had it since and don't miss it at all.

Those of you who have been around the forum for a while may remember 142 who was one of our moderators. He'd already been a mod for some time when I signed on as an additional moderator to help out. We corresponded about mostly forum-related topics but I was fortunate enough to get to know him in person at our annual GFMPH gatherings. It has he who turned me on to single-malt scotches. Through his tutelage and my own... um, research... I have managed to reach the point where I know which malts I particularly like and have at least a bluffer's knowledge of why I like them. He used to host the Scotch Tasting events at the gatherings and I was something like his understudy. He managed his metastatic prostate cancer quite successfully for many years but a couple of years ago it finally caught up with him and he passed. He is still keenly missed. He was never a heavy drinker but, occasionally, at the gatherings we would sit by the fire pit with a dram or two from a favorite bottle and get mildly illuminated. It is possible that the scotch shortened his life by a day or two, or maybe a week, but that's only if you don't adjust for quality of life.
The nice thing about single malts is that I am too danged cheap to ever abuse them. I generally limit myself to a dollar a day for my single malts. That gets me half and ounce of Laphroaig or a thimble full of Lagavulin or a quick sniff of the cork from the Bunnahabhain 18.

Since modeling studies have suggested that PCa may take as long as 10-20 years to develop to detectable status, it makes sense to look at early-life alcohol consumption. A VA study:

Early-life Alcohol Consumption and High-Grade Prostate Cancer (2019)

"...
Participants
Men aged 49 to 89 at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina undergoing a prostate biopsy between January 2007 and January 2018. Only men with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test within 12 months prior to enrollment and no history of prostate cancer, who also completed the questionnaire and consented to a prostate biopsy, were included in the study.
...
Key Findings
Biopsy was performed on 1,221 (77%) of the 1,595 eligible men. Biopsy results were missing on 12 men, 528 men did not complete the questionnaire, and 31 men were missing covariates, leaving a study cohort of 650 participants. Age at biopsy ranged from 49 to 89 years old and 47% were white. Median PSA was 5.7 ng/mL. From ages 15 to 19, 317 (49%) men reported not drinking, 279 (43%) reported 1 to 6 drinks per week, and 54 (8%) reported ≥7 drinks per week. Men who reported ≥7 drinks per week at 15 to 19 years old also reported more smoking pack-years (P<0.001). Half of the 650 participants (n=325) were diagnosed with prostate cancer; 238 were grade 1 or 2, and 88 were grade 3, 4, or 5.

Results of statistical analyses included the following:

• There was no association between alcohol intake at ages 15 to 19 and odds of prostate cancer diagnosis; P=0.57 and P=0.76, respectively.

• 1 to 6 drinks per week at ages 20 to 29, 1 to 6 drinks per week at ages 30 to 39 and ages 40 to 49, and ≥7 drinks per week at ages 30 to 39 and 40 to 49 were associated with increased odds of prostate cancer diagnosis.

• ≥7 drinks per week was not significantly associated with prostate cancer for ages 30 to 39 and 40 to 49.

• There was no association between alcohol intake and odds of low-grade prostate cancer at ages 15 to 19, and not with any other decade of life.

• ≥7 drinks per week at ages 15 to 19 was significantly associated with increased odds of high-grade prostate cancer, with a significant trend across categories of increasing alcohol intake (P=0.020). Similar trends were seen for ages 20 to 29 (P=0.034), ages 30 to 39 (P=0.19), and ages 40 to 49 (P=0.007).

• Current alcohol consumption was not significantly associated with high-grade prostate cancer diagnosis.

• There was no difference in associations between alcohol consumption and overall prostate cancer diagnosis between white and non-white men.

• The middle tertile for cumulative lifetime alcohol consumption was associated with a moderate increase in overall and low-grade prostate cancer diagnosis but this trend was not significant. Men in the highest tertile of cumulative lifetime alcohol consumption had increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer diagnosis (odds ratio [OR]: 3.20) compared to the lowest tertile, with a significant trend for high-grade prostate cancer diagnosis (P=0.003).

Male military veterans with heavier alcohol consumption earlier in life were more likely to be diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer when compared to men without early-life consumption. Higher cumulative alcohol consumption in tertiles was also associated with increased odds of high-grade prostate cancer. Current level of alcohol consumption did not correlate with either overall or high-grade prostate cancer diagnosis.
...
Practical Implications
...
We know that life choices can affect risk for many cancers: sedentarism and colon cancer, smoking and lung cancer, and obesity and breast cancer, to name a few. If the results of the present study should prove true in future analyses, then all integrative practitioners have a responsibility to educate patients about the risks associated with alcohol consumption in their conversations about prostate cancer prevention.
..."

I won't recommend anyone do what I do, but I've been a lifelong beer drinker.
Maybe it's in my genes with a lot of Germanic and British in my ancestry,

I now usually have 4 12oz Bud Lights each day but some days I'll have one or 2 more.
I seem fortunate that it doesn't put weight on me, and my BP is well controlled with meds.

I weighed 150 pounds when I got out of the army in 1959, but have ballooned to 155 pounds now.

I admit that I may have been lucky so far except for the PC.

Ohio State Michigan game and play offs is about it for me.

Drink less and less with every passing year. Average a couple of beers a week. Nothing to do with PCa, just have less taste for it I guess. That said, if I were Lord of the Universe I would that the stuff had never existed. I have seen what alcoholism does to families, and here in upstate NY I think many of the auto fatalities, and most violent crimes, have alcohol in the mix.

If you have any incontinence problems, alcohol only exasperates it. Muscles relax. For us, not worth it. My boyfriend and I have the occasional... but that is it. We did like to pound them before PCa.