#and I have no tonic and no cream/milk so both are out of the question
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Nothing identifies me more as a bartender than having two fifths of my freezer taken up by glassware and vodka. Another shelf is solely ice.
#yes that’s a tequila bottle at the back there#no I’m not such a monster that I’d freeze tequila#it’s vodka in a tequila bottle because the second vodka bottle didn’t fit#also those coupes are a stupid size and shape but they’re all I could afford#they work well for things that don’t need a crema - love lemon drops in them because they have a nice big surface for a sugar rim#but esspresso martinis look shit in them - as do all cream based drinks like grasshoppers#fuck now I want a grasshopper#I also want a gin and tonic#and I have no tonic and no cream/milk so both are out of the question#I will also say the vast number of ice packs are a remnant from my ‘I’m doing eight hours of dance every day minimum’#because I used to come home and just tape ice packs to the various injuries I had instead of actually resting#gotta love toxic industries#I really jumped straight out of one and into another#also holy shit I was just reading online about what the current consensus is on vodka in the freezer and…nearly every single article cites#a business insider interview with the guy who created grey goose where he’s like ‘nooo it kills the flavour don’t put it in the freezer!’#and sir sorry to break it to you but your fucking expensive vodka tastes shit#we have a bottle at work and hardly sell any of it because it’s over priced and is one of the worst tasting vodkas we have#I’d genuinely take the shitty Chekov vodka that we use as house when we can’t get our actual house in than grey goose#grey goose is shit that rich people pretend to like because grey goose are insanely good marketers#vodka honestly isn’t meant to be complex (yeah there are some good complex vodkas - I really like źubrówka if I’m drinking it neat or over#ice) but truly…vodka is there to be a source of alcohol. if you want complex flavours then go with gin or whiskey or rum or tequila#vodka is ethanol plus water. the bison grass źubrówka obviously has a little more to it but that’s why I drink it. and if I were to have a#anyway what I’m saying is if I were to have to drink grey goose I’d definitely freeze it first. it’s such a mediocre vodka considering the £#I will also say this comes from the perspective of a cocktail bartender. I use vodka because it doesn’t have a flavour that’s gonna fuck wit#whatever fruity drink I’m making#unless I’m specifically making a vodka martini I don’t really want to think about the vodka#I just want it to be my basic more or less flavourless spirit#I did not mean to go on so much about vodka
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50 Questions!
tagged by @ethan-bears and @itsjuliak5 thank you!!! 💛✨🤩💫💫😌💛💛✨💗🤍🤍💗🤠💫🤠😌🥺💛
what is the color of your hairbrush? i have a wooden paddle brush and a black pick comb
name a food you never eat? mushrooms
are you typically too warm or too cold? too cold, my body like refuses to regulate temperature normally lol
what were you doing 45 minutes ago? having a breakdown over algebra then eating tacos
what's your favorite candy bar? crunchie bar
have you ever been to a professional sports game? i went to a flames game when i was like maybe 10 and had no clue what was happening, can’t even remember who they were playing (maybe arizona????)
what is the last thing you said out loud? something about how my dog loves ice cream i think
what is your favorite ice cream? either moose tracks (people from british columbia rise up) or tiger
what was the last thing you had to drink? bubbly water
do you like your wallet? yes, i have a small card wallet which is great for errands and my actual wallet has cacti on it
what is the last thing you ate? dairy queen skor blizzard
did you buy any new clothes last weekend? no but the few pieces i ordered awhile ago finally came, we do be loving new sweatpants and cord jeans
what's the last sporting event you watched? hockey
what is your favorite flavor of popcorn? idk normal flavour, salted, but pickle popcorn does slap
who is the last person you sent a text message to? my sister
ever go camping? as often as i can!! one of my sisters and i did a week long camping trip this summer
do you take vitamins? when i remember, yes
do you regularly attend a place of worship? no, i am not religious
do you have a tan? my tan from the summer is still around so that counts i think lol
do you prefer Chinese or pizza? pizza
do you drink your soda through a straw? though it elevates the experience, no
what color socks do you usually wear? depends, i went through a funky sock phase so i still have a bunch of those but mainly like no socks or black
do you ever drive above the speed limit? i try to drive the speed limit in residential areas, speed of traffic on any main road, and highways..... the speed limit is a suggestion
what terrifies you? failure, falling, being a disappointment, apes/monkeys
look to your left, what do you see? my yoga mat
what chore do you hate most? vacuuming
what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? steve irwin????
what's your favorite soda? diet cream soda
do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? definitely the drive through
what's your favorite number? my favourite number is 11 but my jersey number is 19
i accidentally deleted this question so i’m sorry
favorite cut of beef? i have no preference, i’m mainly vegetarian lol
last song you listened to? “lovers” by anna of the north
last book you read? ‘world war z’ by max brooks
favorite day of the week? thursday and saturday
can you say the alphabet backwards? no
how do you like your coffee? with vanilla coconut creamer or frothed milk
favorite pair of shoes? either my hiking boots or any of my vans
time you normally get up? 7ish for school, 4-5 for hiking, and 9ish for weekends
what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? both, i will not pick
how many blankets on your bed? three in the summer, four-five in the winter
describe your kitchen plates? white and blue
describe your kitchen at the moment? everything is cleaned up
do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? i don’t drink a lot because i’m diabetic and just turned 18 but pink whitney and bubbly water, gin & tonics, wine/sangria, and cocktails slap (sound like a bit of an alcoholic from that lol but i swear i don’t drink a ton)
do you play cards? i play crib sometimes
what color is your car? the family car i can drive is black but i ALMOST bought a dark blue car a few weeks ago
can you change a tire? yes, i will be the prefect match for any nhl player
your favorite state? i have only ever been to california and hawaii but i would love to do the pacific northwest (washington, oregon) and like colorado and utah
favorite job you've had? i was a swim instructor for youths with disabilities and that was so awesome
I tag: @tylermotte @cartrshart @dude-wheres-makar @berrybreadd and anyone else who wants to join but pressure though, it's a long one
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50 questions you’ve never been asked
Thank you so much for tagging me, @burninghoneyatdusk <3
What is the color of your hairbrush? Multiple colors, it has this Morroccan-style pattern, so it’s yellow, red, blue, green, and absolutely beautiful! It’s the first decent brush I’ve ever bought and it’s been serving me well.
Name a food you never eat? Animal insides are a no-go. And I’ll agree with burninghoney, I don’t like sushi. I like my food to be cooked thoroughly.
Are you typically too warm or too cold? Neither; I usually feel comfortable with the temperature. But I find cold much more irritating than warmth.
What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Drinking coffee and getting ready for the day.
What is your favorite candy bar? I don’t like candy like that.
Have you ever been to a professional sports event? I don’t think so?
What is the last thing you said out loud? “Fuck it.” It’s basically my go-to response these days.
What is your favorite ice cream? I really love sweet and sour flavors! Like, cherry, and that bubblegum flavor, idk what it is but it is GOOD. And chocolate, of course!
What was the last thing you had to drink? Coffee and water.
Do you like your wallet? Yes! Red apparently brings financial good luck, and it’s pretty, and I love red in general.
What was the last thing you ate? A croissant with ham and cheese and my dudes, it is so GOOD!
Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? Nope, trying to shop as little as possible so I can wear all the clothing I actually own.
The last sporting event you watched? World Cup finals because my country played. :’)
What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? There are... popcorn flavors?
Who is the last person you sent a text message to? I don’t really text. :’) Do DMs count? Because if so, someone who won my Instagram giveaway.
Ever go camping? Nope! I think it’d be cool, if I had like an RV. But I’m not a fan of sleeping on the ground - too many bugs and creepy crawlies.
Do you take vitamins? Yep! B complex, vitamin C, grape seed extract, cumin extract, turmeric, and occassionally non-aluminum baking soda! I just need vitamin D.
Do you go to church every Sunday? Nope. I am spiritual and religious, but I don’t think the Church promotes Christian values.
Do you have a tan? Hahahah no.
Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? Both? Like, pizza is my comfort food. But I love Chinese food SO MUCH.
Do you drink your soda with a straw? Not really.
What color socks do you usually wear? White or with crazy patterns.
Do you ever drive above the speed limit? No. I’m not a big fan of speed - I like the acceleration from the first to the second gear, but speed? Nah, don’t give a fuck + it’s not safe.
What terrifies you? Nothing.
Look to your left, what do you see? My kitchen and another croissant I’m gonna sink my teeth into in a few secs. Plus, my coffee.
What chore do you hate? I don’t know how to do laundry so that. But otherwise, I really love chores and cleaning, they’re my idea of meditation.
What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? It makes me smile because it’s a cool accent and I think Australians are cool, laid-back people.
What’s your favorite soda? I don’t drink soda. Does apple juice count?
Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thrus? Usually a fast food place, but I don’t eat fast food often. Normally just when I’m with friends and we get hungry while out and about.
Who’s the last person you talked to? My dad. He’s taking these sinus drops so he’s sneezing and I am a hypochondriac so you can imagine how that’s going.
Favorite cut of beef? Is that a steak-related question? I don’t really like steaks.
Last song you listened to? Hozier - NFWMB, and thank you @ the anon who wanted me to do a prompt inspired by it! Now I can’t stop listening to it. :’)
Last book you read? Oh Jesus, I haven’t read a lot in the past year. I’m currently reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential (loving it).
Favorite day of the week? I’m gonna quote burninghoney: “Do we even have days of the week anymore?”
Can you say the alphabet backwards? Nope.
How do you like your coffee? One teaspoon of sugar, black. Sometimes milk. And iced coffee whenever I can get it. If it’s available, Turkish always so I can read from the residue.
Favorite pair of shoes? My cowboy boots! And my red high heels with snake print on the heels.
The time you normally go to sleep? 2-3am. I did have a phase recently where I just got knocked out by 11pm and woke up at 7am. That was weird, but I secretly loved it. I’d wake up earlier than everyone else, make myself coffee, and watch morning talk shows.
The time you normally get up? 10-11am, but it depends on my obligations for the day.
What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? Sunsets.
How many blankets on your bed? Two + a comforter. And yes, I sleep with my socks. I’m THAT kind of person.
Describe your kitchen plates: Plain white.
Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage? RAKIJA!!!! And gin tonic is cool. :) I’m not a big drinker, really. I do like like one tiiiiny glass of rakija a day bc it’s good for health, and I savour it.
Do you play cards? Nope.
What color is your car? Metallic grey. I call it zebra bc I patched the scratches with zebra stickers.
Can you change a tire? Technically, yes. Remind me to tell you abt the time I had to smash a tire with a cinderblock to change it by the side of the road in Tenerife.
Your favorite province? The Dalmatian coast!
Favorite job you’ve ever had? Running my own business is pretty neat so this one.
How did you get your biggest scar? I have an appendectomy scar which is pretty big. I got appendicitis on my 18th birthday so the first legal documents I signed were surgery papers. It was fun, the doc who operated on me sang happy birthday as they rolled me into the OR.
What did you do today that made someone else happy? Announce my IG giveaway winners! :D That was super fun. It was my birthday a few days ago and I couldn’t really celebrate properly what with the state of the world, so I decided to run 3 giveaways on my poetry IG. :’)
I’m tagging: @wolfheartgirl @craniumhurricane @alltheworldsinmyhead @important-metaphors @keiraknighted @luisgijo @nefarioustortellini @catja @clarkeindra @llysandra @thefangirlingbarista @jasperjoordan @ritta1310 @probably-voldemort @littlekiwifrog @littlebearhardt @carrieeve @captaindaddykru @kay-emm-gee + everyone else who wants to do this! Have fun!
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50 questions you’ve never been asked
Tagged by @captaindaddykru @marauders-groupie @burninghoneyatdusk
What is the color of your hairbrush? Black.
Name a food you never eat? Peanut butter. Just the smell makes me nauseous.
Are you typically too warm or too cold? Cold. Except during Summers in Bulgaria - they're waaaay too hot for me to feel cold.
What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Going through all the games I've been tagged in. 😁
What is your favorite candy bar? I don't really eat a lot of those but if I had to choose KitKat.
Have you ever been to a professional sports event? I don’t think so?
What is the last thing you said out loud? "I don't wanna discuss this." when my friend asked about my exes 😬
What is your favorite ice cream? Right now I keep eating oreo ice-cream. But if I go to a gelateria - pistachio, ferroro roscher, cheesecake.
What was the last thing you had to drink? Water.
Do you like your wallet? I only have a cardholder because I don't carry cash anymore. 😁 But yeah, I like it.
What was the last thing you ate? Spaghetti bolognese. Yum!
Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? Nope.
The last sporting event you watched? Uhhh no idea. I'm not big of sports. 😂
What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? Caramel. Love 'em!
Who is the last person you sent a text message to? My sister.
Ever go camping? No, but I want to. I was planning to this summer but yk 😁
Do you take vitamins? No, but I should.
Do you go to church every Sunday? No. (I agree with LANA, I don't think the church promoted Christian values).
Do you have a tan? Hah no. I don't tan. I burn. Spectacularly. Like Mr crabs colour burn.
Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? Both? I have pizza so often now that I've grown tired of it. I love Chinese but it can be so heavy and greasy sooo I don't know. 😅 Sushi is the best. 😂
Do you drink your soda with a straw? I don't drink soda at all.
What color socks do you usually wear? Black, pink with polka dots. My mom bought them for me 😁
Do you ever drive above the speed limit? 😬 Yes. 😬 But its not often and it's usually on the highway so.
What terrifies you? So much. But mainly snakes.
Look to your left, what do you see? Laptop, my bookcase, moon lamp.
What chore do you hate? Dishes.
What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Bob and Eliza.
What’s your favorite soda? I don't like soda.
Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thrus? Never gone through a drive-thru so fast food place.
Who’s the last person you talked to? My flatmate. She just showed me a video of a fluffy fat hamster being hyperactive and said, "look its you!". Thanks, friend 😂
Favorite cut of beef? I don't really know much about cuts of beef/steak but I recently ate a sirloin steak that was pretty good.
Last song you listened to? Welcome to my life by Simple Plan 😂😂😂 I was annoying my flatmate with it.
Last book you read? I'm reading so many books at once 😂 the most recent one is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuogn - a-ma-zing!
Favorite day of the week? It's all blended together now 😩
Can you say the alphabet backwards? No.
How do you like your coffee? One spoon sugar, lots of milk. Like as much milk as coffee 😁😁. I love a macchiato from Starbucks too.
Favorite pair of shoes? My chunky white trainers. So comfy, so cool.
The time you normally go to sleep? The past month its been 2am, but usually around 11pm-12am.
The time you normally get up? 8am-9am. It depends on the season though. Winters in Scotland are very depressing because mornings are super dark. So if I don't have anything to do, I sleep in. Spring or summer though, I like to wake up early and have coffee on the balcony, read or sketch.
What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? Sunrise.
How many blankets on your bed? One +comforter but only in winter.
Describe your kitchen plates: Plain white. I like simplicity.
Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage? Gin and tonic, elderflower or lychee cider. When home, rakia. 😁
Do you play cards? Cards against humanity, yeah. 😁
What color is your car? I don't have a car but I drive my parents'. Its metallic grey/silver (?).
Can you change a tire? In theory. I never had to do it though.
Your favorite province? Does Halkidiki count as a province?? 😁 Any place in Greece really. I love that country so much. Its always like coming home. (which it kinda is)
Favorite job you’ve ever had? I used to be an interpreter when I was 18 at a summer project. It was essentially summer camp. I had so much fun.
How did you get your biggest scar? Probably on my nose. I broke my nose when I was 6 and I was pretending to be a ballerina. Had to get stitches. The scar has faded now, but it's still the biggest I've got.
What did you do today that made someone else happy? I call my sister and told her I'm coming home soon, told my flatmate lots of shitty jokes (I also sang her true friend by Hannah Montana 😂), and I made her coffee.
Phew, this was long, but so fun!
Tagging: @natassakar @kizo2703 @igotbellarkeforthat @sometimesrosy and anyone who wants to do it! 💙💙
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I was tagged by @theleavesoflorien and @stronghaz to do a couple of memes (Thank youuu <3333 I love doing these things!)
Song titles
Rules: only using song titles from one artist/band, cleverly answer the questions and tag 10 people
Artist: Paul McCartney
What’s your gender? Mrs. Vandebilt
How are you feeling? Hope for the future
If you could go anywhere? London Town
Favourite mode of transportation? I Don’t Know
Your best friend? My Valentine
Favourite time of day? Beautiful Night
If your life was a tv show? My Brave Face
Relationship status? No words (for my love)
50 questions you’ve never been asked
1. What is the colour of your hairbrush? grey and boring
2. A food you never eat? I never eat fish (which I should but... ) or seafood, I just hate the taste!
3. Are you typically too warm or too cold? I tend to get cold easier (but I always bear it with more dignity than when I get too warm hahaha)
4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? I was just finishing work while I drank some tea! I was correcting some Writing assignments from 6th graders, and then sending a couple audio messages to another teacher to properly coordinate.
5. What is your favourite candy bar? “Kinder Bueno”❤️
6. Have you ever been to a professional sports event? Yeah, several times! When I was 12-13 I was really into football, so I went to lots of matches in the Camp Nou (the Barça stadium) both of Barça and the national team. I also attended to several rugby matches, even if I didn’t really like it, because my dad was a city council worker and all of them had free passes, for some reason... and it quickly became “our thing”.
7. What is the last thing you said out loud? I said “but that’s awfuuul and I hate iiiit”, because the other teacher had just told me that we’re supposed to keep correcting assignments simply indicating the mistakes so that the kids can find the correct way of saying things themselves, and that this process can be repeated as many times as it takes for the kid to find the solution.
8. What is your favourite ice cream? Mint chocolate chip! 🌿😍
9. What was the last thing you had to drink? A cup of black tea with a dash of milk
10. Do you like your wallet? Yes! It’s a colourful one that my parents bought me for my birthday, a couple years ago!
11. What was the last thing you ate? It was a banana, as a desert! (I had lunch a couple hours ago)
12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? Hahaha not really! Since the quarantine situation happened, I haven’t been able to leave my home and all shops are closed, so...
13. The last sporting event you watched? Ugh, honestly, who knows?😂 It must’ve been a long time ago, but most likely a football match during the last World cup?
14. What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? Salted popcorn all the way! I worked in a popcorn stand back when I was 16, and it was the worst work experience of my life, I still get war-flashbacks! Since then I’ve hated sweet popcorn with a passion, it’s like my brain still remembers what a nightmare it was to clean the machine that made them 😂
15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to? It was another workmate - a teacher with whom I need to organise preschool activities.
16. Ever go camping? I’ve never done it, no!
17. Do you take vitamins? Not right now, but I usually have to take some to help strengthen my throat area, since I get lots of sore throats during the school year.
18. Do you go to church every sunday? Hahaha not really, no! I only do it for special occasions - weddings, comunions, all that!
19. Do you have a tan? I’m probably one of the less tanned people to ever live in Spain😂
20. Do you prefer chinese food or pizza? Both are GREAT, but if I really have to choose, I’d go with pizza
21. Do you drink your soda with a straw? No, unless I’m at the cinema and I’ve got one of those plastic containers!
22. What colour socks do you usually wear? I like my socks colourful, and sometimes with cute patterns, so all colours, really!
23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? I’ve never driven a car, so no!
24. What terrifies you? Almost everything, probably! A huge phobia to bees and wasps stands out, though!
25. Look to your left, what do you see? The empty cup of tea, a pen and a paper with some handwritten notes related to work.
26. What chore do you hate? Sweeping is the thing that I hate the most, it’s so boring and as soon as you’ve done it, everything is dirty again 😂
27. What do you think of when you hear an australian accent? Not a lot, really! I’m not that good at recognising Australian accents if I’m honest!
28. What’s your favourite soda? Coca-cola!
29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? Since I don’t drive, I usually go and eat it in the fast food place. But I’m not big on fast food in general :)
30. Who’s the last person you talked to? That teacher I was sending the furious audio message to 😂
31. Favourite cut of beef? I don’t really have one!
32. Last song you listened to? Oh Love - Green Day 🥰🎸
33. Last book you read? It’s been a while since I read anything other than fics really hahaha
34. Favourite day of the week? Friday!
35. Can you say the alphabet backwards? Probably I could, if I focused on it enough!
36. How do you like your coffee? Half coffee, half milk, two spoons of sugar!
37. Favourite pair of shoes? A nice pair of ballet flats I bought some months ago. So cute and comfy at the same time!
38. At what time do you normally go to bed? In a normal routine, between 11 and 12. Right now, around 2 am.
39. At what time do you normally get up? In a normal routine, at 6. Right now, around 9 am.
40. What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? Sunsets!
41. How many blankets are on your bed? Only one. But I always put one of those hot water bottles to stay warm ❤️
42. Describe your kitchen plates? They’re a very nice shade of pastel green! We bought them when we moved to this flat 6 years ago!
43. Do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? Gin&tonic all the way!!! But I also love white wine and baileys
44. Do you play cards? Not really!
45. What colour is your car? I don’t have a car haha (so many car-related questions!)
46. Can you change a tire? aksfhakfsjhkashf I’m sure I would NEVER be able to do that, for the life of me. Like, I wouldn’t even know how to start hahaha
47. What is your favourite state/province? Catalonia, of course ❤️
48. Favourite job you’ve ever had? Some years ago, I worked as an English teacher in an academy. It was a job that, in terms of personal development, was leading nowhere and I was also not being paid a lot, that’s why I eventually quit and went on to work at the school, which is my current one... but it was such a nice job. So fullfilling, with such nice work environment. I remember laughing SO MUCH every day! I still miss it, to this day❤️
49. How did you get your biggest scar? I was around 7-8 years old, and I was playing in the house with my sis. We were pretending to be frogs and jumping all around, and apparently at one point I jumped into a very pointy corner of one of those old computer tables (you know, the ones that have wheels so that you could move the computer from one room to the other), which caused a really big gash on the side of my upperbody. They stitched me, but it left a pretty big scar, unfortunatelly.
50. What did you do today that made someone else happy? I tried to be kind and encouraging when answering to the kids who were sending me their assignments. I don’t know if that made them happy, but it definitely was my intention :)
I haven’t been able to keep track on who has already did these, so if anyone wants to do any of these memes, consider this your tag! 🥰
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50 questions
I was tagged by my brother @angel-deux-writes
What is the colour of your hairbrush? Black
Name a food you never eat: Like my brother, mushrooms and seafood. Are we the same person, simply separated by time and space and a year?! Maybe!!
Are you typically too warm or too cold? too hot, hot damn!
What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Lazing around in bed, fucking around on tumblr when I should’ve been getting out of bed.
What’s your favourite candy bar? Fry’s Turkish delight
Have you ever been to a professional sports game? several! Cricket, basketball. I went to the Sydney Olympics when I was 12 and saw a bunch of different things which was great.
What was the last thing you said out loud? "she used to climb trees in primary school!" (I was talking about a truly feral child I taught last year)
What is your favourite ice cream? choc chip cookie dough 🤤
What was the last thing you had to drink? iced coffee
Do you like your wallet? yeah it's cute, though these days I do most things with my phone
What was the last thing you ate? museli and mango yoghurt for breakfast
Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? yes, a new knitted sweater and two skirts!
What’s the last sporting event you watched? Does The Last Dance count? Because I have been watching that.
What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? this is the type of question that is so very American, but... plain? Or caramel.
Who is the last person you sent a text message to? my boss
Ever go camping? I used to go a lot as a kid and really enjoyed it.
Do you take vitamins? nah. I eat heaps of fresh shit
Do you go to church every Sunday? nope. At best I was a CEO Christian: Christmas and Easter Only, but only when I was near my grandparents at those times of the year
Do you have a tan? yes, though not as dark as it could be.
Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? pizzaaa
Do you drink your soda through a straw? I mostly drink soft drink from a bottle, so no.
What colour socks do you usually wear? I really only wear these black grip socks for Pilates. I have little sockettes on right now, one grey and one 'skin coloured'.
Do you ever drive above the speed limit? Is the sky blue?
What terrifies you? Needles. i hate them.
Look to your left. What do you see? My ironing board??
What chore do you hate most? washing dishes. A few years ago I used my tax return to buy a dishwasher. No regrets.
What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? *who me?-gif*
What’s your favourite soda? coke zero and I miss it 😭
Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? look, either. Both. I live very close to a little restaurant district and there is a cluster of good drive thru places near work. So.
What’s your favourite number? 8
Who’s the last person you talked to? coworkers
Favourite cut of beef? porterhouse
Last song you listened to? Deepest of sighs, the frankest of shadows - Gang I'd Youths
Last book you read? Idk, but I'm currently, slowly, reading the Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.
Favourite day of the week? Saturday
Can you say the alphabet backwards? slowly, and with some thought
How do you like your coffee? Skim flat white if I’m getting it barista made, milk with no sugar if I’m making it at home (with my stove-top percolator)
Favourite pair of shoes? look. my podiatrist designed sneakers. I am not ashamed of that.
Time you normally get up? 5ish
Sunrises or sunsets? I see so many sunrises
How many blankets are on your bed? 2 at the moment, but a third will be added soon!
Describe your kitchen plates. plain cheap white ones. I am looking forward to upgrading
Describe your kitchen at the moment. messy, but only five minutes effort away from being clean
Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? Gin and tonic with a wedge of lime
Do you play cards? yes, and I'm pretty good. Though not poker.
What colour is your car? White!
Do you know how to change a tire? my dad taught me when I was 16. And I have never had to do it since.
Your favourite state? the one I live in, Queensland.
Favourite job you’ve had? working at a comic shop while I was at university.
How did you get your biggest scar? Knee surgery
Tagging @samirant and, Idk, @firesign23.
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50 questions you’ve never been asked before
i was tagged by @canyonemoon
1. what is the colour of your hairbrush? brown
2. a food you never eat? lettuce
3. are you typically too warm or too cold? too cold, definitely!
4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? i think i was already on desktop, answering a game on tumblr
5. what is your favourite candy bar? i have no many but fini
6. have you ever been to a professional sports event? yeah, i used to enjoy football a lot more so i went to cheer for the team i was rooting for
7. what is the last thing you said out loud? was talking about something related to the government with my uncle
8. what is your favourite ice cream? flake ice cream
9. what was the last thing you had to drink? coke lmao
10. do you like your wallet? i don’t really have a proper wallet? i used to but it’s old and worn out and never got myself a new one.
11. what was the last thing you ate? gingerbread
12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? nop, the last thing i bought was a non official louis merch but it was weeks ago
13. the last sporting event you watched? probably volleyball?
14. what is your favourite flavour of popcorn? honestly, it depends on what i’m craving at the day. i enjoy both but i’ve been eating a Lot of popcorn these last few weeks (because there’s nothing else to do) and most of the time it was salty.
15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? my aunt
16. ever go camping? nop
17. do you take vitamins? very rarely
18. do you go to church every sunday? nop
19. do you have a tan? i haven’t got a tan in AGES!!!
20. do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? pizza, i’m scared of trying new food ngl.
21. do you drink your soda with a straw? nah, straight from the cup
22. what colour socks do you usually wear? white socks or mostly white with some patterns
23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? i can’t drive lol
24. what terrifies you? losing people, in many many ways.
25. look to your left, what do you see? the couch and wall
26. what chore do you hate? washing dishes is the absolute worst
27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? i don’t know, never really thought about it too much but sometimes i get confused because they pronounce some words very differently
28. what’s your favourite soda? i mean... the only soda i really enjoy drinking is coke, it’s a problem really
29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? none? if i want to eat fast food usually i’ll just order it to my house.
30. who’s the last person you talked to? in person? my uncle
31. favourite cut of beef? i don’t really know how to answer that
32. last song you listened to? the neighbours are playing some now so technically dance monkey (now it’s playing promises by sam)
33. last book you read? oh, i started reading one but i stop right at the beginning and can’t quite remember the name lmao
34. favourite day of the week? friday
35. can you say the alphabet backwards? not at all
36. how do you like your coffee? mixed with milk.
37. favourite pair of shoes? anything that doesnt rough edges because my feet is quite sensitive
38. at what time do you normally go to bed? now i’m going to sleep at 3-4am but we were living our life normally i would go to sleep at 12pm or a little earlier if i was really tired.
39. at what time do you normally get up? now i’m waking up at 11-12am
40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunsets because either i don’t see the sunrise because i’m sleeping or it means i’ll have to get up to uni so sdjkfksdfk not fun
41. how many blankets are on your bed? just one
42. describe your kitchen plates? they’re white, circular but like wavy?
43. do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? right now is either gin and tonic or skol beats
44. do you play cards? yeah, i love it
45. what colour is your car? don’t have one
46. can you change a tire? nop
47. what is your favourite state/province? like in the us?? i’m not passionate enough about the us to pick any sdjkfsjkfkdg
48. favourite job you’ve ever had? none lol
49. how did you get your biggest scar? in high school i banged my head pretty bad in a wall during PE and got some stiches.
50. what did you do today that made someone else happy? played crosswords with my uncle
i’m gonna tag @wallsbylouis @whatevertearsyou @ltyear @livehabit
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Lithuanian Food Trip!
So, I was just in Lithuania, meeting my friend Eve and the trip didn’t disappoint me! Down below are some pictures which I took during my trip and thanks to these photos Eve insisted to call me a hipster, as I reminded her from Liam from Monster Prom! I don’t deny or say anything to her claiming. Enjoy!
The plane took off at 11.50 am from Helsinki Vantaa airport, but since the big shot mister President Donald Trump was then visiting Finland to discuss with Putin, I was afraid that if I went there with later buss I would miss my plane. So I went to airport as early as 06.00 am and I had to wait there forever until my plane could take off...! I was so tired, I hadn’t slept at all night before thanks to horrible heat and I was nodding off and feeling nauseous in heat. So I took the first solution that came to my mind and tried coffee for the first time in my life in a form of Vanilla Latte. Where the fuck was that vanilla, all I could taste was coffee and foam!
So I made it to the plane and we took off. Me being tired as fuck and not so modest took a comfy position and listened music for about an hour while we were on air. Rest of the flight I almost slept. Eve was so kind and waited me at the airport when my plane landed and she took me to my hotel!
I was so hungry, I needed food and what’s a better way to start your food trip in Lithuania than ordering traditional herb and butter filled chicken dish with french fries! OMG, it was so delicious...!
For breakfast I had modest toast, three slices of delicious watermelon, cucumber, some sausage and cup of black tea. I wonder where they hid the milk?
Eve took me to a local shopping mall where we shopped for some clothing and then we went to have ice cream in Chili Pizza called restaurant. I took cream flavoured ice cream in hot chocolate with nuts and I wasn’t disappointed, it was SO GOOD...! Dammit, I wanted more...! Of course, me being immature adult like I am I had to play with my food and lick it like a cat.
Then I had this alcohol drink called Devil’s Eye. It was by far tastiest drink I have ever had in my life and most beautiful one also.
That night I had some delicious roasted duck with potato pyre, with caramelised pears and cranberry sauce. I had never had duck before, the texture wasn’t anything like chicken’s texture, it was like eating a hybrid between animals!
Next day Eve took me out to visit Vilnius’ older town, where there was this amazing tower, gardens and rain. Well, it was a small thunder storm, but I loved it. The heat would have killed me otherwise!
The church was beautiful! I can really appreciate the details put into sculpting as I am a fan. On our way back towards hotel we came across something I had never seen before. KFC. Kentucky Fucking Chicken. I could feel myself drooling, I’ve heard it’s chicken’s friend’s go to place if you wanted some good fried chicken...! But I was too modest and not so hungry yet so we kept walking despite Eve trying to encourage me to get chicken. No Eve, the night draws near and I can always wait until we get KFC in Finland. When will that day come, I wonder...?
Next day I met Eve’s friend Gabby. She was super nice and she liked same stuff as we did! We three went together to this Lithuanian sightsee tower and the view was amazing! Service was a little lacking though.
I got myself a beautiful and delicious Red Sunset while we were waiting for Eve’s and Gabby’s orders. And Pepsi, but I gave it to Eve. She needed sugar, after all she had a meeting after our little tower adventure.
DO NOT ORDER THIS DRINK. This Gin Tonic might look pretty and cooling, but it’s bitter and sour as Hell! Yack! Eve and Gabby thought it was fine, but I didn’t like it... Didn’t stop me from drinking it though.
Later that day after 5 hour naps I went to have some dinner. Roasted chicken breast with smashed potatoes, mushrooms and fresh salad. Delicious, it was my first time eating mushrooms.
Next day we went to Eve’s home! Gabby was there also! We played Cards Against Humanity, Monster Prom and Gabby and me managed to get Liam’s Yaoi ending! We were both so happy! We also played regular card games and then we watched Oshiete Gal-chan anime! They liked it, though Eve told me the series was mainly about boobs so no wonder I liked it. I can’t say she was wrong, boobs were big part of each episode. Then we ordered pizza and Eve’s mother got them to us. I got chicken pizza, but look at all those mushrooms! Then Eve proceeded to act as a translator between me and her mother who didn’t speak English as she wanted to ask me questions about Finland and myself. I made a good impression on her.
Next day Eve’s mother took me and Eve to this restaurant where she wanted me to try this seed juice. I won’t lie, it tasted a little bit like pickle juice.
Next Eve’s mother ordered me this traditional Lithuanian dish where you took meat, surrounded it with mashed potatoes and cook it. I got so excited at the sight of food that I forgot to take a picture before eating. I ate the whole thing.
And I even got a nice Cosmopolitan!
For dessert Eve’s mother got herself ice cream and fresh fruits. She was so kind to let me take a picture of her dish.
Eve got herself this dish with bread and sweet whipped cream. The bread was salty, so weird, yet delicious when she gave me a taste.
Eve’s mother ordered me this traditional cake filled with raisins and poppy seeds. It was good, I won’t lie. After dinner we all got into car and headed towards the castle!
It was so beautiful and calm, people were chilling and everything, there were a lot of ducks and even a swan family! We took pictures with me and Eve in them, but I ain’t putting them here! I’m camera shy and so is Eve. I was happy, but a little sad also since it was my last night in Lithuania.
This is the darn plane that was destined to bring me back to expensive Finland. Eve and I hugged as we said good bye, but I didn’t want to let go...! But I had to. That’s my finger on the bottom left. I didn’t notice it until I was editing pictures.
Good bye Eve, Tomas and Gabby! I’ll miss you!
What the heck? Well, maybe it’s right, maybe...!
Back in Finland and it’s hot as in Devil’s pot. I stopped at the Burger King to get my little brother hamburger since he was on couple days vacation from army. I know army is hard and everything, but he could have at least cleaned cats’ litter boxes instead of leaving them to me!
And there you have it people! My trip to Lithuania!
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June 17, 2018: Let’s Talk About Japanese Toilets
こんにちは、
Japan is a country that really needs no introduction - everyone had been exposed to its culture, its language, and its food at some point; and with Tokyo being a hub for expatriates and tourists, there should not be a huge culture shock to a Westerner visiting Tokyo.
Part of that claim is true, Japanese entertainment accurately showcases the country's daily practices and people generally have a basic knowledge of Japan's differences anyway. Most of the culture shock I experienced were not really culture shock, per say. I knew about these differences, but seeing them in reality and having to perform them really require skills in adaptability.
What was hilarious when landing in Japan was my brain was still thinking I was in China, so whenever I interacted with someone, I accidentally greeted and thanked them in Chinese. It took a few interactions for my head to realize that we were not in China anymore and I can forget words like shui (水) and start remembering words like mizu (水) when asking for water in a restaurant. Sumimasen! Mizu-o kudasai (すみません！水をください!)
I did not miss the hot water China always served me at all. I'm never taking ice for granted ever again.
Before arriving to Tokyo, I really needed to review my kana, two of the Japanese writing systems that include hiragana and katakana. Both hiragana and katakana are the same 104 syllabic sounds, yet they are two completely different systems with different uses. Hiragana is the authentic Japanese writing system that's the basis of all Japanese words, grammar, and pronunciation. Those characters are the ones used when a Japanese writes konnichiwa (こんいちは) or sayonara (さようなら) - they're the Japanese that everybody is exposed with.
Then you have the good 'ole katakana, which is only used when the Japanese write foreign words. As a tourist, this is the writing system you'll see most often in subway stations and airports since the Japanese use words like elevator (エレベーター/erubeta), escalator (エスカレーター/esukareta), and toilet (トイレ/toire).
So, I basically had less than enough time to review 208 total characters from both hiragana and katakana. How exciting!
It was a good idea to visit Japan after spending a few weeks in China because it exposed me to kanji (Chinese characters in Japanese) on a daily basis.
Side note: Japanese uses four different writing systems: hiragana (native Japanese characters), katakana (used only for foreign words), kanji (the Chinese characters used in almost every single word), and romaji (the 26 Roman alphabet letters to write words like Tokyo and konnichiwa). It's important to be familiar at least with hiragana when visiting Japan, because even though you can't read the Chinese characters, there is usually furigana, the Japanese reading aid consisting of hiragana written above or under the characters to show how it's pronounced.
Nobody impresses me more than the Japanese, if you ask me.
The picture shows the three Japanese systems, without romaji. Notice the Chinese characters (kanji) and hiragana? The katakana is written above "Nose breath" which is written to spell "nose breather" (noju buriju).
I read an article a while back about how the Japanese subway system had to release an apology because one of the subways left 30 seconds earlier than usual during rush hour, which caused many people to miss the train. Someone from Los Angeles would be lucky if the Silver Line even showed up at all during Monday rush hour.
Naturally, everybody talked to me about Tokyo's extensive subway system before heading off:
"Transportation is never going to be a problem", "Everything is so accessible", "You will never be late".
And it surprised me how accurate these were.
Google Maps claimed that our train from Narita International Airport to the subway stop by our hotel will take 77 minutes. If you know how Google Maps work in Los Angeles, 77 minutes can roughly be translated to either 43 minutes or 128 minutes depending on who was operating the subway that day.
Not in Japan. 77 minutes mean 77 minutes - to the very minute. If the subway arrived earlier, which was rare during my experience, it waits to leave at the exact minute on the timetable so it reaches its next destination promptly.
This was a culture shock I thoroughly enjoyed adapting to.
Before leaving for the trip, I was recently made aware of Tokyo's culture on sending their kids to school via the subway system. The city values independence more than anything, since independence is equated with maturity. Children as young as five and six years old were navigating through Tokyo's extensive subway system on their own, which is looked down upon in Los Angeles.
Car culture is huge in Los Angeles - everybody pretty much drives a car, even going to a store that can be reached by a five-minute stroll. There is a hidden stigma, I should say, to those who use the subway system in Los Angeles. It is not an overt judgment, but it is there. Nobody likes to take the subway system in Los Angeles because they're equated to dirty and dangerous. So, imagine how an Angeleno would react finding out that Japan sends their children to school through the subways - the questions and concerns would be never-ending.
The Feed released a video about it if you're interested as to why Japan does this: Japan's Independent Kids
I also wanted a section devoted to comparing and contrasting the toilet culture between China and Japan, because, wow, the change was dramatic.
We just came from a country which was plagued with squatting toilets and urinals that were basically just holes on the ground - even in mega-cities like Beijing. I avoided using every restroom that did not offer a western-style toilet until I find one (or I hold it in until I come back to the comfort of my western toilet in my hotel).
Then there's Japan, where the toilet opens up, prepares the seat protector sheet, warms up the seat, and then greets you. The toilets also have the option to play music for you or offer some background noises for privacy.
Unlike China's squatting toilet and lack of tissue paper everywhere, Japan's toilet culture offered many ways to rinse you off after finishing: sideways, front side, backside, in oscillating motion, and pressurized. You did not need any tissue paper when the toilet offers you a bidet.
I can't believe I'm uploading pictures of toilets, but here are the options you see in most toilets in Japan - and if you're lucky, you might come across an English one!
Most of my knowledge in modern-day Tokyo comes from Vox videos. So, here's one I also recently learned through them - the vending machine culture: Why Japan Has So Many Vending Machines
They're more ubiquitous than the fast food restaurants in America. Tobacco, drinks, ice cream, snacks, frozen healthy goods, condoms, you name it and Japan will have a vending machine dedicated for it. They were my lifesavers, especially when we do a full-day treks in the city and the water bottles in 7/11 were too expensive or the closest Family Mart was a block away. The vending machines were always within reach - and the good news was, they have ¥100-only vending machines. Which means that every single item only cost me $1 USD - insane!
I lived off vending machines during my stay in Tokyo, if you haven't concluded yet.
And the biggest culture shock of them all - one that I planned for us to experience and live through - Japan's signature capsule hotels.
Capsule hotels are regular hotels, but instead of a room with a bed and a bathroom, they have capsules and communal bathrooms. Some are even unmanned, like many regular and love hotels in the country. Unmanned basically means that there are no human receptionists providing service for you - everything is done via a computer. The future is now. The future is Japan.
Each guest is assigned to a capsule and a locker. The lockers are found outside the capsule rooms where the guests can leave their luggage in. The size of the locker depends on the capsule hotel you stay in. Our capsule hotel in Tokyo fit all three of my huge luggage, while our capsule hotel in Osaka had a designated area around the reception where you can lock your bigger luggage, in addition to having a locker.
The lockers and the capsules are separated to prevent waking up those who are sleeping when someone decides to change to go out somewhere in the middle of the night or rummage through their luggage at 3 AM for reasons unknown.
The capsules are more or less holes on a wall with a very roomy bed that could fit two people. Each capsule hotel is different, but all will have bed lights, lamp lights, outlets, and obviously a bed. Our Osaka capsule had a TV included, while my friend's capsule hotel in Shinjuku included a mirror and his own mini air-conditioner.
All capsules require their guest to check out everyday around 10-11 AM for cleaning. The guests won't have access to their rooms between check-out and check-in (usually 3 PM) because of this. But, don't fret! You don't have to take your luggage out from your lockers everyday - you just can't be in the rooms when they tear the entire capsule rooms apart - it's very sanitary.
Upon every check-in, you're given an amenities bag equipped with your capsule pajamas, slippers, bath and face towels, and toothbrush. All other amenities, such as hair, face, and body products are found in the communal showers. They offer them for free and include things like body milk, face milk, skin mist, hair tonic, acne cleanser, face and feet masks, gels, shaving materials etc.
The capsules are also segregated by sex, with separate elevators for each. The communal showers and toilets are also separated, usually in a different floor. So, in our Tokyo capsule hotel, men capsules would be in the third and fourth floors, while women capsules would be in the fifth and sixth floors. Our showers are both in the seventh floor, but the elevator only has access to the showers for our specific sex. So, the elevator from the third and fourth floors of the men capsules will only have access to the men showers in the seventh floor.
You won't see both sexes mingle with each other besides the lounge, where they can sit around, socialize, and eat.
It is the epitome of modern Japan.
Capsule hotels don't cost much for a solo traveler but just a heads up, it could get very expensive if you travel as a family, since everybody pays for each capsule. I feel like it should be a required experience when you visit Japan the first time, if you're willing to stay at least a day or two.
I know this blog falls under my Tokyo series, but it is also relevant in other bigger cities, such as Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto - so don't limit these culture shocks in the mega-city alone.
I am currently on the train from Kyoto to Tokyo on our way to depart for Incheon, since our summer study abroad program starts this week! I will try to finish all my Japanese blogs before orientation on Tuesday (I'm writing this on a Sunday).
Regarding my third Tokyo blog, I am still debating how to go about it. Should it be a personal or an informational account? I'm just fearful of how fast it would become questionable or controversial for a blog that is going to be read by prospective summer abroad students from my school.
I feel like it is necessary though - after all, I am writing these blogs for me to read and reminisce in the future, and my experiences with the gay red light districts in Tokyo and Osaka played a vital role on making my trip as memorable as it was. No need to worry though, I am definitely certain to spare the specifics. Until then!
さようなら、
Chris 「クリス」
P.S. I have the Korean placement exam on Wednesday, so I have three days to review my written and oral Korean skills since I don't want to be placed in a Korean class I've already taken just because I do not remember any basic vocabulary or grammar points. Wish me luck!
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I thought I’d done everything right: breastfeeding my children, a careful diet, plenty of exercise. I wasn’t overweight and didn’t have a family history. I bought BPA-free bottles for my filtered water. But on a visit to the radiology department last spring, a pair of red brackets highlighted something worrisome on the ultrasound monitor.
Invasive lobular carcinoma—a malignant breast tumor. This spidery little beast measuring nearly three centimeters meant I had stage 2 cancer.
At 47, I was a decade and a half younger than the median age for breast cancer diagnosis in the United States. Was this just bad luck? Maybe, but the journalist in me was still curious to know: Why me? So I dug into the literature on risk factors to see where I might have fit in. It’s an impossible question to answer definitively for an individual, like trying to prove that a single weather event was caused by climate change. As one doctor told me, “You know who’s at risk for getting breast cancer? People with breasts!”
Still, most of the broad indicators didn’t seem to apply to me. The biggest one is age: The median diagnosis in the United States is at 62, and the highest breast cancer rates are in women older than 70. Another is taking hormone replacement therapy after menopause, but I’m premenopausal and haven’t taken it. Obesity raises risk, but I’ve never been overweight.
Then I saw one that gave me pause: alcohol consumption. I’m not a heavy drinker, but like most women I know, I have consumed a lot of alcohol in my lifetime.
While doctors have frequently admonished me for putting cream in my coffee lest it clog my arteries—a correlation that’s been pretty thoroughly debunked—not once has any doctor suggested I might face a higher cancer risk if I didn’t cut back on drinking. I’d filled out dozens of medical forms over the years asking how much I drank every week, but no one ever followed up other than to say with nodding approval, “So you drink socially.”
I quickly discovered that way back in 1988, the World Health Organization declared alcohol a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning that it’s been proved to cause cancer. There is no known safe dosage in humans, according to the WHO. Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, but it kills more women from breast cancer than from any other. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that for every drink consumed daily, the risk of breast cancer goes up 7 percent.
The research linking alcohol to breast cancer is deadly solid. There’s no controversy here. Alcohol, regardless of whether it’s in Everclear or a vintage Bordeaux, is carcinogenic. More than 100 studies over several decades have reaffirmed the link with consistent results. The National Cancer Institute says alcohol raises breast cancer risk even at low levels.
I’m a pretty voracious reader of health news, and all of this came as a shock. I’d been told red wine was supposed to defend against heart disease, not give you cancer. And working at Mother Jones, I thought I’d written or read articles on everything that could maybe possibly cause cancer: sugar, plastic, milk, pesticides, shampoo, the wrong sunscreen, tap water…You name it, we’ve reported on the odds that it might give you cancer. As I schlepped back and forth to the hospital for surgery and radiation treatments, I started to wonder how I could know about the risk associated with all these other things but not alcohol. It turns out there was a good reason for my ignorance.
I was born and raised in Utah, and after my cancer diagnosis, I wondered what would have happened if I’d stayed put. My home state has one of the lowest rates of breast cancer in the country. Observant Mormon women don’t drink, and like other populations that abstain, they have significantly lower rates of breast cancer than drinkers. In Utah, Mormon women’s breast cancer rates are more than 24 percent lower than the national average. (Mormon men have lower rates of colon cancer, which alcohol can also cause.)
RELATED: What If Everything Your Doctors Told You About Breast Cancer Was Wrong?
Researchers suspect the low overall rate of breast cancer in Utah has to do with the LDS church’s strict control over state alcohol policy. Gentiles, as we non-Mormons are called, grouse mightily over the watery 3.2 percent beer sold in Utah supermarkets, the high price of vodka sold exclusively in state-run liquor stores, and the infamous “Zion Curtain,” a barrier that restaurants were until recently required to install to shield kids from seeing drinks poured. Yet all those restrictions on booze seem to make people in Utah healthier, Mormon or not, especially when it comes to breast cancer.
Epidemiologists first recognized the connection between cancer and alcohol consumption in the 1970s. Scientists have since found biological explanations for why alcohol is carcinogenic, particularly in breast tissue.
When you take a drink, enzymes in your mouth convert even small amounts of alcohol into high levels of acetaldehyde, a carcinogen. People who consume more than three drinks a day are two to three times likelier to contract oral cavity cancer than those who don’t. Alcohol also damages the cells in the mouth, priming the pump for other carcinogens: Studies have found that drinking and smoking together pose a much higher risk of throat, mouth, and esophageal cancer than either does on its own.
Alcohol continues its trail of cellular damage as enzymes from the esophagus to the colon convert it into acetaldehyde. The liver serves as the body’s detox center, but alcohol is toxic to liver cells and can scar the organ tissue, leading over time to cirrhosis, which raises the risk of liver cancer.
As acetaldehyde courses through the body, it can bind to DNA, causing mutations that can lead to cancer, particularly in the colon. Alcohol is suspected of inflicting a double whammy on breast tissue because it also increases the level of estrogen in a woman’s body. High levels of estrogen prompt faster cell division in the breast, which can lead to mutations and ultimately tumors.
Researchers estimate that alcohol accounts for 15 percent of US breast cancer cases and deaths—about 35,000 and 6,600 a year, respectively. That’s about three times more than the number of breast cancer cases caused by a mutation of the BRCA genes, which prompted Angelina Jolie, who carries one of the abnormal genes, to have both her healthy breasts removed in 2013. The breast cancer risk from alcohol isn’t nearly as high as the lung cancer risk from smoking. But alcohol-related breast cancer kills more than twice as many American women as drunk drivers do. And alcohol is one of the few breast cancer risk factors women can control. Others, like starting menstrual periods before the age of 12 and entering menopause after 55, are baked in.
Overall, American women have about a 12 percent lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. Walter Willett, an epidemiology professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has conducted studies on alcohol and breast cancer, says a woman who consumes two to three drinks a day has a lifetime risk of about 15 percent—a 25 percent increase over teetotalers. By comparison, mammography reduces the death rate from breast cancer by about 25 percent. “Alcohol can undo all of that at about two drinks a day,” Willett says.
When the evidence of alcohol’s cancer risks emerged, public health advocates sought to spread the word. In 1988, California added alcohol to its list of cancer-causing chemicals that required a warning label. The next year, when Congress first mandated nationwide warning labels on alcohol, advocates tried to include cancer on them. Battered by activism around drunk driving and fetal alcohol syndrome, the booze industry was already in a slump, with alcohol consumption per capita on a steep slide since its 1981 peak. Fearing health advocates would do to alcohol what they had done to tobacco, the industry fought back with an audacious marketing campaign.
Alcohol companies worked to rebrand booze as a staple of a healthy lifestyle, like salads and jogging. The wine industry led, with vintner Robert Mondavi taking rabbis and doctors on educational tours about the alleged health benefits of moderate drinking. He told the New York Times in 1988 that wine “has been praised for centuries by rulers, philosophers, physicians, priests, and poets for life, health, and happiness.
The industry’s attempt to transform its products into health tonics might never have succeeded without the help of Morley Safer. In 1991, Safer hosted a 60 Minutes segment about the “French paradox,” the idea that the French eat heaps of red meat, cheese, and cream but have lower heart disease rates than Americans, who were many years into a low-fat dieting craze. On the show, he held up a glass of red wine and declared, “The answer to the riddle, the explanation of the paradox, may lie in this inviting glass.” New research, he said, showed red wine might flush out fatty deposits on artery walls and counteract the effects of the heavy French diet.
That TV episode, which according to the International Wine & Food Society was viewed by more than 20 million people, created a media sensation and caused a spike in red wine sales nationwide. Researchers soon debunked the idea that wine was helping French heart health, and France’s heart disease rate turned out to be higher than advertised. Meanwhile, all the wine the French consumed was killing large numbers of them. The same year as the 60 Minutes episode, France passed some of the world’s strictest regulations of alcohol advertising to combat prevalent liver cirrhosis.
Even so, the US wine industry lobbied to include a positive health message about alcohol in the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans published by the Department of Agriculture. The new guidelines removed language indicating that alcohol had “no net health benefit” and stated that for some people, moderate alcohol consumption might reduce the risk of heart disease.
At a conference of beer wholesalers in 1996, the Miller Brewing Co.’s vice president of corporate relations touted the success of the 60 Minutes episode and the subsequent changes in government health messages as progress in the industry’s effort to brand its products as healthy. She urged attendees to open every meeting with an elected official by saying, “Alcohol can be part of a healthy diet.”
Over the past two decades, the alcohol industry has gone all out to tie its products to an active lifestyle. Peter Cressy, the former CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the liquor lobby, explained in 2000, “DISCUS is working to ensure cultural acceptance of alcohol beverages by ‘normalizing’ them in the minds of consumers as a healthy part of a normal lifestyle.”
Alcohol companies, long sponsors of football games and NASCAR events, now sponsor 5K races and triathlons. During last year’s Super Bowl, a Michelob Ultra ad featured extremely fit people working out and then grabbing a beer to quench their thirst. (Drinking alcohol after exercise causes dehydration and impedes muscle recovery.) Hard liquor companies concocted products like Devotion Spirits vodka, which supposedly contained a protein that would help build muscle while preventing hangovers. (In 2012, Devotion Spirits withdrew many of its health claims after the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation.)
Indeed, the supposed health upside of moderate drinking is one of the industry’s go-to talking points. When Mother Jones reached out to the leading beer and liquor companies and the major industry groups, those that responded acknowledged the connection between alcohol and cancer, but some argued the risk belongs mostly or entirely to heavy drinkers. Sarah Longwell, the managing director of the American Beverage Institute, said in a statement that “a substantial number of well-conducted studies reveal no correlation between cancer and moderate to light alcohol consumption.” Moderate drinking, she noted, has been found to reduce the risk of heart disease, among other benefits. “There has been a concerted effort by some researchers to reverse that knowledge,” she said in an earlier conversation. “I think it is flying in the face of good science.”
Edmon De Haro
Marketing alcohol as a health product should be a tough sell. Cancer is only one of the many ways it can kill you. Drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, injuries, domestic violence, liver disease—alcohol is responsible for the deaths of nearly 90,000 Americans every year, more than double the estimated 40,000 US opioid deaths in 2015. To overcome this hurdle, the industry needed to give its PR campaign scientific backing. The strategy came straight from the tobacco playbook, which wasn’t a surprise: Sometimes the companies were one and the same. The tobacco giant Philip Morris, which bought Miller in 1970, later became Altria, which today has a big stake in Anheuser-Busch.
Big Tobacco had set up research centers to dispute science tying smoking to lung cancer and funded research designed to show benefits from smoking, like stress reduction, to help fend off stricter regulation. The alcohol industry took a similar tack, aided by research it had been funding since the late 1960s. In a 1993 book called Forward Together: Industry and Academia, Thomas Turner, the former dean of the Johns Hopkins University medical school, explained how, starting in 1969, he had worked with the heads of the world’s biggest beer companies to create the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation (now called the Foundation for Alcohol Research). The foundation took academics to exotic destinations for conferences and gave grants to scientists.
Between 1972 and 1993, Turner bragged, the beer foundation and its precursor funded more than 500 studies on alcohol and distributed grants to dozens of researchers and universities. One was Dr. Arthur Klatsky of Kaiser Permanente. In the early 1970s, Klatsky had access to extensive data through Kaiser’s health system that included information about patients’ alcohol intake. In 1974, he published one of the first papers suggesting that light drinkers had lower rates of heart disease than abstainers. Soon after, the beer foundation started funding Klatsky’s data collection at Kaiser, a relationship that continued for decades. Between 1975 and 1991, according to Turner’s book, the foundation contributed $1.7 million to Klatsky’s research on alcohol and health. The industry widely promoted his work suggesting health benefits from drinking, and Klatsky is still quoted regularly in the media, often without any disclosure of his relationship with the industry.
Klatsky says industry funding has never compromised the objectivity of his research. He notes that the first study he did with beer foundation money showed that drinkers had an elevated risk of high blood pressure. He also published an early study on the link between alcohol and breast cancer. “I think that most people who know me and know my work think I’m unbiased,” he told me. “I see both sides of the alcohol issue. It’s a double-edged sword.”
The industry has also funded researchers who cast doubt on studies that pose problems for it. For example, the Distilled Spirits Council paid for a 1994 study by Dr. H. Daniel Roth, who was then helping Philip Morris reach a settlement with lung cancer victims, that disputed the link between alcohol and breast cancer. “You’re looking at industries that are adept at creating doubt when it comes to protecting their profits,” says Robert S. Pezzolesi, the founding director of the public health group New York Alcohol Policy Alliance.
In the early 1990s, the beer foundation funded research by George Koob, who served as a foundation adviser between 1999 and 2003. In 2014, he became director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the only federal agency devoted exclusively to alcohol research.
Washington’s revolving door sends people in both directions. At least a half-dozen government officials working on alcohol policy have left for gigs with the industry over the past 20 years. Among the most prominent is Dr. Samir Zakhari, the former director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects at the NIAAA. In 2012, the Distilled Spirits Council hired him to head its science office.
RELATED: Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA-Breast Cancer Link?
The NIAAA has long recognized that alcohol increases breast cancer risk, and literature on the Distilled Spirits Council’s website acknowledged this, too, although it appears to have been taken down. But in 2015, Zakhari published a scientific journal article asserting that “there is no solid evidence associating moderate alcohol consumption with an increased incidence of breast cancer.” He advised women worried about cancer to consult a doctor because “moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with potential health benefits, including decreased risk of coronary artery disease and overall mortality, protection against congestive heart failure, decreased risk of ischemic stroke, and protection against type 2 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.” An industry group recently cited the paper to try to fend off restrictive government recommendations about alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom.
Zakhari keeps in touch with his old colleagues at the NIAAA, according to emails Mother Jones obtained through a public records request. In 2014, the Baltimore Sun ran an op-ed by the industry-supported Competitive Enterprise Institute that complained tax dollars were paying for “anti-alcohol advocacy” and cited an NIAAA-funded study about industry marketing to underage drinkers that had been conducted by David Jernigan, the director of the Johns Hopkins University Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. An email circulated among NIAAA employees alerting them to the article. Koob, the NIAAA director, forwarded the email thread to Zakhari and wrote, “Sam: For the record. This will NOT happen again. I will NOT be funding this kind of work under my tenure.” Zakhari responded that some researchers advocated these types of studies “out of shear [sic] ignorance or because they are sympathetic,” but that he was confident Koob would “spend research money on real science.”
Zakhari takes issue with the idea that he is emblematic of Washington’s revolving door and says the 2015 paper “reflects my personal scientific opinion.” In a statement to Mother Jones, he said, “I came to the Council, after my retirement from NIH, because I share their commitment to responsible alcohol consumption. My dedication to evidence-based research remains the same regardless of where I am employed.”
My discovery that alcohol consumption was a risk factor for my breast cancer contradicted everything I thought I knew about drinking. Like 76 percent of Americans surveyed by the American Heart Association in 2011, I believed a little wine was good for the ticker. The fact is, people want to believe that drinking is good for them, and the science in this field is easy to manipulate to convince them.
Scientists have long known that heavy drinking causes high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks. That’s why early studies investigating drinking and heart disease started with the logical supposition that people who abstain from alcohol should have low rates of heart disease compared with moderate or heavy drinkers. As it turned out, they didn’t. When plotted on a curve, drinkers fell into a J-shaped pattern: Abstainers in the studies had rates of cardiovascular disease similar to those of heavy drinkers.
But this J-curve is deceptive. Not all the nondrinkers in these studies were teetotalers like the ones I grew up with in Utah. The British epidemiologist A. Gerald Shaper began a wide-ranging men’s heart health study in the late 1970s, and when he examined the data, he found that 71 percent of nondrinkers in the study were actually former drinkers who had quit. Some of these ex-drinking men were as likely to smoke as heavy drinkers. They had the highest rate of heart disease of any group and elevated rates of high blood pressure, peptic ulcers, diabetes, gallbladder disease, and even bronchitis. Shaper concluded that ex-drinkers were often sicker than heavy drinkers who hadn’t quit, making them a poor control group.
Yet for decades, researchers continued to include them and consequently found an implausible number of health benefits to moderate drinking, including lower rates of deafness and liver cirrhosis. The industry has helped promote these studies to doctors.
That’s one reason why, until recently, alcohol’s heart health benefits have been treated as incontrovertible science. But in the mid-2000s, Kaye Middleton Fillmore, a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco, decided to study Shaper’s ex-drinkers. When no one in the United States would fund her work, she persuaded Tim Stockwell, then the director of Australia’s National Drug Research Institute, to help her secure Australian government funding.
Stockwell and Fillmore analyzed decades’ worth of studies on alcohol and heart disease. Once they excluded studies with ex-drinkers—which was most of them—the heart benefits of alcohol largely disappeared. Since then, a host of other studies have found that drinking does not provide any heart benefits. (Some studies have found that drinking small amounts of alcohol—sometimes less than one drink per day—can be beneficial for certain people at risk of heart disease.) Robert Brewer, who runs an alcohol program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says, “Studies do not support that there are benefits of moderate drinking.” The Agriculture Department removed language suggesting that alcohol may lower the risk of heart disease in the most recent US Dietary Guidelines.
Yet the debate rages on, in part because the industry continues to fund and promote studies indicating that alcohol helps the heart. The NIAAA is currently embarking on another one with $100 million in funding, most of which was solicited directly from the industry, according to the New York Times. The study was planned in consultation with industry leaders and pitched as a way to prove that moderate drinking can be healthy. It is being billed as the most definitive study on moderate drinking to date, but it will likely understate the risks, partly because it won’t run long enough to track any increases in cancer rates. At least five researchers on the project are past recipients of industry money.
Public health experts say that even if there is a small heart benefit from alcohol, it will never outweigh the risks. Alcohol “would never be approved as a medicine,” says Jennie Connor, a preventive- and social-medicine professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand who wrote one of the landmark papers linking alcohol to cancer. “It’s addictive, like opioids. If you give medication to people that could affect their unborn child or make them aggressive and hit their wife, what kind of medicine is that? From a public health standpoint, using alcohol for heart disease is utterly wrong. It goes against everything medical people do.”
“From a pure scientific perspective, what is the point of this [pro-alcohol] research?” asks Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. “How is it going to change policy or practice? It’s not. Even if it turns out that there are true benefits, we’re not going to start recommending that people who have never had alcohol before start drinking.”
There are far safer ways than drinking to reduce the risk of heart disease—walking, for instance—that also won’t give you cancer. That’s why the American Heart Association strongly warns people not to start drinking if they don’t already.
I drank my first beer when I was 13. My dad and I had been out pheasant hunting on a cold day. After we bagged our birds, we got into the Jeep to warm up, and my dad handed me a Mickey’s Big Mouth. It was nasty, but I drank it to prove my worthiness of the adult gesture. When I was done, he said, “You wanna drive?” That was Utah in the ’80s, at least if you weren’t Mormon.
Later, I went to a Catholic high school, where we distinguished ourselves from the future missionaries in the public schools with excessive drinking. Even in Utah, booze was easy to come by. There was Doug at Metro Mart, who sold us beer from the drive-thru window. When he wasn’t around, we stole it from our parents, siphoning off small amounts of bourbon, rum, gin, and vodka and then dumping the whole awful mix into a cola-flavored Slurpee and sucking it down through a straw.
I went off to the University of Oregon, where Animal House had been filmed 10 years earlier. During my time there, the university decided to crack down on underage drinking on campus. Riots broke out, and the local police had to deploy tear gas.
I’ve never drunk as heavily as I did before I could legally buy a drink. My experience isn’t unusual. Ninety percent of alcohol consumption by underage Americans is binge drinking, defined as four or more drinks on one occasion, according to the CDC. I’ll never know for sure, but all the drinking I did in my adolescence may have helped pave the way for the cancer I got at 47.
Human breast tissue doesn’t fully mature until a woman becomes pregnant. Before then, and particularly during puberty, breast cells proliferate rapidly, which may make them especially vulnerable to carcinogens. That’s one reason why never getting pregnant is itself a risk factor for breast cancer. Scientists have understood this for nearly 40 years, thanks to studies of women in Nagasaki exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb. Japanese women who’d been exposed before age 20 had the highest rates of breast cancer. Other studies suggest that the risk of premenopausal breast cancer goes up 34 percent for every daily drink consumed before the age of 30. And the longer women go between their first period and their first baby, the riskier drinking becomes.
With a first pregnancy at 33, I had a good 20 years of drinking to damage my breasts, and my adolescent binge drinking may have been especially devastating. Dr. Graham Colditz, a cancer prevention specialist and epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote in the British medical journal Women’s Health in 2015 that “women who report seven drinks on the weekend but no alcohol consumption on the weekdays may have higher risk of breast cancer as compared with those who consistently have one drink every day.” One study Colditz cited found a nearly 50 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women who consumed 10 to 15 drinks over a typical weekend compared with those who had no more than three.
Colditz says cancer prevention efforts haven’t kept up with demographic trends. As women across the globe have delayed childbearing, he says, “We’ve really extended this period of life when the breast is most susceptible, and we haven’t mounted a prevention strategy to counter the marketing of alcohol.”
Liquored Up
US per-capita alcohol consumption, in gallons of ethanol per year
Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
In fact, just as the evidence was becoming clear that women are disproportionately vulnerable to alcohol’s cancer risks, the industry mounted a campaign to get them to drink even more. “Women all over the world are underperforming consumers,” explains Jernigan, the Johns Hopkins researcher who is now a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. The distilled spirits industry, facing flagging sales, created “alcopops”—sweetened alcoholic beverages such as Zima, Smirnoff Ice, and Skyy Blue that are packaged in childlike bright colors. Marlene Coulis, director of new products at Anheuser-Busch, explained in 2002, “The beauty of this category is that it brings in new drinkers, people who really don’t like the taste of beer.”
Just who were those “new drinkers” who didn’t like beer? Federal data shows the median age for the first consumption of alcohol is about 14, and Jernigan says the people who don’t like the taste of beer tend to be young women. The alcopop-makers managed to convince state and federal regulators that the products were “flavored malt beverages” like beer, even though the main ingredient was distilled spirits. The designation allowed companies to sell these products in convenience stores that also sold beer, at a much lower tax rate than hard liquor required, making them more accessible to underage drinkers. The liquor companies then blasted the youth market with ads for the new products.
The distilled spirits industry had voluntarily given up advertising on the radio back in 1936 and on TV in 1948 to avoid regulation by Congress, but it jettisoned those pledges in 1996. Still, TV liquor ads didn’t fully take off until the advent of alcopops. In 2001, says Jernigan, there were fewer than 2,000 ads for spirits on cable TV. In 2009, that figure had jumped to more than 60,000, and many ads targeted TV audiences with large numbers of viewers too young to drink legally. (In 2012, all the major TV broadcast networks also abandoned their ban on liquor ads.) In an email to Mother Jones, Coulis said the idea that alcopops were intended to appeal to underage drinkers is a “gross mischaracterization and absolute falsehood.”
Traditionally, young people in the United States have been beer drinkers, but in the early 2000s, surveys showed that women were increasingly turning to harder stuff, and they’ve remained there. Ads and products now push alcohol as a salve for the highly stressed American woman. There are wines called Mother’s Little Helper, Happy Bitch, Mad Housewife, and Relax. Her Spirit vodka comes with swag emblazoned with girl-power slogans like “Drink responsibly. Dream recklessly.” Johnnie Walker recently came out with Jane Walker scotch, to market a liquor “seen as particularly intimidating by women,” according to the company. (Johnnie Walker is owned by Diageo, a multinational alcohol conglomerate. One of Mother Jones‘ board members is also an executive at Diageo.)
Booze-makers have also “pinkwashed” products targeted at women, literally draping the ads in pink ribbons, with promises to donate some proceeds to breast cancer charities. In 2015, Alcohol Justice, a California-based policy advocacy group, found 17 brands of pinkwashed booze. “They’re marketing a carcinogen,” says the New York Alcohol Policy Alliance’s Pezzolesi. “Can you imagine if Philip Morris did a pink tobacco pack? People would be up in arms.”
The campaigns seem to have worked. An NIAAA study found that drinking by women jumped 16 percent between 2001 and 2013, more than twice the increase among men. The change is greatest among white women, 71 percent of whom drink today, compared with 64 percent in 1997, according to a Washington Post analysis. The alcohol-related death rate for white women more than doubled between 1999 and 2015.
The ad is graphic: A glass of red wine spills onto a white tablecloth and starts to form the image of a woman. “Alcohol is carcinogenic,” the narrator says. “Once absorbed into the bloodstream, it travels through the body. With every drink, the risk of cell mutations in the breast, liver, bowel, and throat increases. These cell mutations are also known as cancer.” The wine pools around the woman like blood, and the narrator advises limiting cancer risk by not having more than two drinks on any day. The ad campaign aired in 2010 in Western Australia.
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In England in 2013, a public health charity broadcast an ad campaign featuring a man drinking a beer with a tumor at the bottom of the glass, which he ultimately swallows as the narrator explains, “The World Health Organization classifies alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen. Like tobacco and asbestos, it can cause cancer.”
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Other countries have begun to take heed of alcohol’s cancer risks. For the first time, in 2010, the World Health Organization issued a global strategy for reducing the harms of alcohol. It recognized cancer as one of those harms and called on countries to implement measures to lower consumption. Many have done so. South Korea has tightened its recommended alcohol limits, and new Dutch guidelines urge people not to drink at all, but if they do, to consume no more than one drink a day. In December, Ireland’s upper house of parliament approved a cancer warning label for alcohol that is now being debated in the lower house. Even the Russians raised their alcohol taxes. (Canada recently launched an experiment to test cancer warning labels on alcohol in the Yukon but stopped the project a month later amid intense pressure from alcohol companies.)
In 2016, Britain reduced its recommended alcohol consumption limit for men to the same level as for women, about six pints of beer a week. Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, told the BBC, “If you take 1,000 women, 110 will get breast cancer without drinking. Drink up to these guidelines and an extra 20 women will get cancer because of that drinking. Double the guideline limit and an extra 50 women per 1,000 will get cancer…That’s not scaremongering. That’s fact.”
It’s not the kind of straight talk you’re likely to hear in the United States, where the industry is fighting to prevent cancer fears from hurting its bottom line. In spring 2016, the American Beverage Institute’s Longwell told a brewers’ conference that public health officials “want to tell you that alcohol causes cancer,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Such public health activism, she suggested, was a threat to the industry’s “health halo.” At another 2016 conference, Jim McGreevy, president of the Beer Institute, an industry lobbying group, said of public health advocates, “We can’t let them gain traction.” He did not respond to a request for comment.
Pinkwashing
Alcohol companies have tried to persuade consumers they can help fight breast cancer by purchasing “pinkwashed” products that benefit cancer charities, obscuring alcohol’s proven breast cancer risk.
For more than a decade, the alcohol industry has bulldozed long-standing public health regulations designed to reduce harmful consumption. It has mounted successful campaigns to allow the sale of liquor in supermarkets and on Sundays and to loosen restrictions on the hours liquor can be served in restaurants and bars. Not surprisingly, alcohol consumption per capita in the United States, which hit a 34-year low in 1997, has shot up to levels not seen in two decades.
Alcohol companies are enormous multinational corporations. AB InBev controls nearly 50 percent of the US beer market, including the all-American brand Budweiser. Jernigan analyzed Nielsen data and estimated that the industry spent $2.1 billion on advertising in 2016, a figure that doesn’t include online ads or those in stores. It also spent $30.5 million last year to lobby Congress. The Distilled Spirits Council, which alone spent $5.6 million on federal lobbying last year, holds whiskey tastings on Capitol Hill attended by Democrats and Republicans alike. “Alcohol is the drug of choice of the people who make the laws,” observes Jernigan.
While other countries are considering World Health Organization recommendations to impose steeper alcohol taxes, the tax law President Donald Trump signed in December further slashed US alcohol excise taxes, which, thanks to inflation, were already down as much as 80 percent since the 1950s.
Under the Influence
Alcohol industry spending on lobbying
Source: OpenSecrets
Koob, the NIAAA director, has attended events at the Distilled Spirits Council and met with its representatives, according to documents obtained through a public records request. He gets holiday party invites from the Beer Institute and meets with its CEO. In 2015, Koob and the NIAAA’s director of global alcohol research appeared in a promotional video for AB InBev’s “global smart drinking goals,” filmed at an AB InBev Global Advisory Council meeting.
“We went through the normal procedures here at NIH for approval, and we were given approval to do it,” says Koob. “Under no circumstances are we promoting alcohol beverages or any product. That’s not our nature. But if people want to help prevent alcohol misuse, we’re all for it.”
Boston University’s Siegel counters, “The whole idea [behind the campaign] is that if you drink properly, not to excess, it’s okay. That’s not true. If you drink moderately, you’re increasing your risk of cancer, and that’s the part of it they don’t want people to know.”
After I had surgery to remove my tumor, my oncologist sent me to see the cancer dietitian last June. The dietitian outlined a joyless regimen so complex it required a spreadsheet for compliance. Along with more fish and flaxseed, she recommended five weekly servings of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, as well as loads of beans for additional fiber. She put the kibosh on bacon and sausage—processed meats are considered carcinogenic. She instructed me to eat natural soy like tofu at least three times a week but not processed soy like that found in garden burgers because it can boost cancer-causing estrogen levels. And she sternly admonished me to lay off the cream in my coffee.
Not once did the subject of alcohol come up. “There’s more data for counseling you to decrease alcohol than to eat broccoli or tofu,” says Noelle K. LoConte, an oncologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin. But she says the message about alcohol and cancer hasn’t gotten out, even to cancer doctors, which may be one reason not a single one of my doctors raised the issue with me before or after I was diagnosed.
To address this problem, in November LoConte co-authored a statement from the American Society of Clinical Oncology that officially declared alcohol a cancer risk. (The society also commissioned a poll, which found that 70 percent of Americans had no idea alcohol can cause cancer.) In its statement, the group called for policy measures to reduce alcohol consumption and prevent cancer, the same ones recommended by the US surgeon general, the federal Community Preventive Health Task Force, and the World Health Organization. They’re similar to strategies that brought down smoking rates: higher excise taxes, limits on the number of outlets selling alcohol in a particular area, stricter enforcement of underage drinking laws, and caps on the numbers of days and hours when alcohol can be sold.
There’s a huge body of research supporting the effectiveness of these policies, yet there is not a single public health group in Washington lobbying for any of them. The few groups that once battled with the alcohol industry have abandoned the effort in recent years. The American Medical Association, which used to focus on alcohol-related harm and campus binge drinking, stopped working on alcohol policy in 2005. The Ralph Nader-linked Center for Science in the Public Interest stopped during a budget crunch in 2009. That same year, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which for decades had been one of the biggest funders of efforts to reduce underage drinking, largely pulled out of the field.
“It’s astounding that one of the leading causes of premature death and illness is ignored by almost every foundation that works in the health area,” says Richard Yoast, who ran the AMA’s alcohol programs until they ended in 2005.
Pop Culture
In the early 2000s, the alcohol industry sought to attract new drinkers—often young and female—with “alcopops,” sweetened drinks in bright childlike colors. The industry has also tried to brand alcohol as healthy with ads featuring athletes.
Government funding for alcohol harm reduction has also dried up. In 2009, the Justice Department budget for grants to states to enforce underage drinking laws was $25 million. By 2015, it was zero. At the request of the Obama White House, Congress also eliminated an Education Department program that combated underage drinking, among other initiatives.
Without independent funding for public health work on alcohol policy, the industry has filled the void, creating nonprofits to promote “responsible” drinking. Industry groups have used these to respond to the news about alcohol and cancer. When I asked the Beer Institute to comment for this story, a spokesman sent me a link to a report from the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking, a nonprofit funded by the world’s largest alcohol companies, and quoted one line from the report: “The most clear association of cancer risk is with heavy drinking, particularly regular heavy drinking over extended periods of time.”
Mark Petticrew, a professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, recently published a study finding that many alcohol industry websites and nonprofits have actively misled the public about the link between alcohol and cancer. They suggest that only problem drinkers have an elevated risk of cancer and present long lists of other risk factors to confuse readers, particularly when it comes to breast cancer. “Female consumers are more health conscious than male consumers,” Petticrew explains. “The female consumer is seen as part of the alcohol market that needs to be marketed to more. The female drinker is the last person you want to be a fully informed consumer.”
Over the past 30 years, breast cancer survivors have become a powerful political force in their own right, raising millions of dollars for research and education. But wine tastings are a staple of breast cancer fundraising events. The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University has been holding a “women and wine” fundraiser annually for breast cancer research for more than a decade. “Brews for Breast Cancer” events have proliferated. In October, the American Cancer Society threw its 40th annual Wine and Spirits Industry Gala in New York City “to support the Society’s mission of eliminating cancer as a major health problem.”
In response to questions from Mother Jones, Dr. Richard Wender, the chief cancer control officer for the American Cancer Society, says alcohol is much less risky than tobacco. “Our goal is to find the right balance that allows companies to engage with us, while staying true to our values and our public health mission,” he says.
The more I looked into the conflicts of interest among those responsible for informing the public of alcohol’s health risks, the more I began to recognize my own industry’s entanglement. The press, which starting with Morley Safer has flooded readers with stories declaring that drinking is good for your health, has repeatedly accepted alcohol companies’ largesse. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal sponsored a party with the Distilled Spirits Council at the Republican National Convention. In April 2017, the council and the Beer Institute helped pay for a “Toast to the First Amendment” party with RealClearPolitics.
In 2016, the president of the Distilled Spirits Council, Kraig Naasz, wrote in an email newsletter that the group had recently treated writers from a wide range of publications to cocktails at a New York bar during a lunch briefing on alcohol and health. On hand to chat up the journalists was Zakhari, the former NIAAA scientist. “The presenters underscored that moderate alcohol consumption can be incorporated into a healthy adult diet,” Naasz reported.
The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility, funded by companies such as Bacardi and Diageo, paid for journalists to attend workshops last year held by the Poynter Institute, the self-appointed watchdog of journalism ethics. “The conflict of interest is so big it makes me gasp,” New York University nutritionist Marion Nestle told Health News Review when it broke the story on Poynter. “The alcohol industry wants journalists to extol the (purported) health benefits of drinking alcohol and to minimize the risks.”
Kelly McBride, Poynter’s vice president, says the foundation’s involvement did not affect the content of the workshops and the institute may collaborate with the foundation again. “They are a non-profit foundation that promotes responsible consumption of alcohol,” she said in an email. “They funded workshops where we taught journalists to apply the skills of fact-checking to scientific research. That seems like a consistent overlap of purpose.”
Susan Sontag once wrote that telling people about your cancer diagnosis tends to fill them with mortal dread. But when I’ve disclosed my illness to friends and told them that alcohol can cause breast cancer, I’ve never invoked enough mortal dread to deter anyone from ordering a second drink. Most women have no idea drinking causes breast cancer, and they really don’t want to be told that it does.
Marisa Weiss, a breast oncologist and the founder of BreastCancer.org, gives talks on college campuses, where she explains to young women the cancer risks they face from drinking. “I see the same people get completely trashed that night,” she laments. But she understands why. “It’s because life is a bitch,” she says. “We work long hours, and alcohol becomes like self-medication. It’s relaxing. It’s fun.”
I get it. But you know what’s not fun? Watching your 10-year-old daughter keen and hyperventilate after you tell her you have cancer. Or having six-inch needles full of radioactive dye plunged repeatedly through your nipple, without anesthesia, so a surgeon can see if the cancer has spread to your lymph nodes. Or leaving work early while awaiting biopsy results because your hands are shaking so badly you can’t type. Cancer isn’t fun, in ways far beyond the obvious. And in relative terms, I’ve had it easy so far. I’m still alive.
A few months ago, I plugged my data into the National Cancer Institute’s breast cancer risk calculator to see what my odds had been before I discovered my tumor. The bare-bones assessment showed I had a 1.1 percent risk of getting breast cancer in the next five years. The calculator doesn’t account for my alcohol consumption (or the protective effects of exercise and breastfeeding), but the experts I’ve spoken with say booze probably bumped up my risk.
I’ll never know for certain whether alcohol caused my cancer. There are so many factors: Just in December, a Danish study found that being on birth control raises the risk of breast cancer more than previously thought. What I do know is that cutting back on drinking, particularly when I was young, is virtually the only thing I could have changed about my lifestyle to try to prevent this cancer if I’d been fully informed. Now I’ve mostly given up alcohol to hedge my bets against a recurrence. I can’t be sure I would have done the same thing if someone had told me when I was 15 or 20 that drinking could give me breast cancer. I’d like to think so—I never smoked—but there’s no guarantee I wouldn’t have been just like the students Weiss talks to. At least they have a choice—they’ve been told the risk they’re taking. Like most women, I didn’t have that choice, and a powerful industry worked to keep it that way.
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If I were to paint a picture it would look like today. Love, contemplation, gorgeous colors, kindness, loneliness... I could have painted it all. It was such a perfect day so I get out of London.... Wimbledon and Mosley to be exact. I hop on a train and then another and I end up in the quaint little town of Wimbledon. Now everything I know about the tournament has always been huge. Martina, Chris, Federer, Murray, Venus, Serena, Macenroe and Bjorg to name a few. I mean, I watched Bjorn and John live in their crazy match back in the day and still do during the rain delays now as it is a favorite of the BBC and tennis lovers everywhere. The thing that struck me about this town is that it was small. Also... for such a huge tournament, the venue is fairly small. According to Keith, who takes only me on a tour of centre court, it will never expand because it is to the maximum height that you can still see the ball. Keith is a delight. He gives me all the information about the court that I have watched so many times growing up. The history is incredible and the thing I find most fascinating is that they hire a hawk for the tournament to keep the pigeons at bay. His name is Rufus and according to Keith, he has his own name badge as well. His wife works in that department so he knows and tells me about the whole process. He is fantastic and since I'm the only one lets me walk around a bit in the restricted areas. I ask all the questions especially, "where does Johnny Mac sit?" He shows me. I see the royal box and Keith quite thoroughly tells me how they set up for filming once he knows that I'm into tech stuff. He is so kind and lets me also spend more than the allotted time, filling it all with stories and knowledge. I had skipped breakfast this morning so I go up and have strawberries and cream with tea and a mint water at the club. It is very appropriate given where I am. I finish up and take it all in one more time. The green is the most absurd green you will see (with the exception of Ireland), the strawberries are bright red and perfect while the sky is so crisp and blue. All the colors of a gorgeous painting. I spot Keith again who comes and instructs me on how to get to Mosley by train. I hop on the Southwest trains and end up in Mosley, U.K. Most known for Hampton Court, home of many royals, but most notedly known as the palace of Henry the VIII. Now I'm obsessed with Henry's reign but more specifically this castle. The history of it is incredible being a Tudor castle and then being built onto in the Victorian and Baroque styles by William the III. I must walk miles while there. My barometer is my poor broken toe, but everything here is sooooo full of history and the gardens are some of the most spectacular gardens I have ever seen. I also go check out the largest grape vine in the world as well as the royal tennis courts. Such a treat because there are two gentlemen playing during my visit. It ends up being a mix of tennis and racquetball based on how they can hit the ball. As I have walked forever I get a bit hungry so stop for a pie and mash in Henry's kitchens. Fully satiated I then go tour Henry the VIII's historical kitchens which are spectacular. I also go peek into Henry's section of the mansion one last time, including the hall that wife, Catherine Howard ran down begging for her life. I do believe in energies and this part of the castle feels a bit congestive and uncomfortable so I leave. I head out through the gardens stopping once again to see the grand building at the gates, before looking for a pint. My toe is killing me so I duck into, The Mute Swan just across the road from Hampton Court Palace for a pint. First they are playing one of my favorite songs of all time, "I Need Your Love So Bad, by Little Willie John. Second I get the most delicious damn beer. Church End Brewery's, Goats Milk Ale. Third... yes there is a third, the most adorable cocker spaniel flutters across the room to nuzzle up to me. I must have died and I can admit when I am wrong, there is in fact a heaven. This is it. I finish my pint but can't possibly leave right now. This. Dog. Needs. Me. & My. Toe. Hurts. The man at the bar recommends a gin and tonic. Now... in the states ordering a gin and tonic is hit or miss. Here it is an art form. As important as the gin (Silent Pool in this case) is the tonic. Their tonics are on another level. So far I have seen a large variety. Just now I also notice that the bartender is upset that the beer I got is now gone. Apparently this is one in demand and in small quantity. I finish up my drink. It has given some relief and go get on the train back to London. It is dinner time/rush hour here. The pubs are rumbling with patrons. I sit down for a small bite and a pint of, "London Pride." It is pretty pedestrian so I follow it with a Guinness. It is really good I'm leaving tomorrow as I cannot keep up with this pace. I don't have a place to sit so Nigel offers me a seat at his table. He starts talking about movies, books, philosophy, politics. I listen. To be honest I"m just hungry and want to eat this bit and go back to the hotel. We talk for a while before another younger gentleman named Michael comes over and interrupts us. After a bit Nigel leaves and I talk to Michael. Somehow we get to talking about the Daily Show for a while (all the while I really just want to go rest my foot). It is fine. One thing I have noticed on this trip both in people as well as myself is that we are all just trying to get by in this world. If the person is good they are just trying to do their best. If they are bad they typically hurt people. So if there is someone (now another guy that I think is named Smith, but looks Swedish) wants to talk, sometimes they just need to be heard. I can do that. For the entirety of this trip I have scanned pubs, the streets and everywhere else. I see a lot of people either lonely or too scared to talk to people. I wonder what their story is. What made them this way. I know on my own journey a lot of the time I'm ok to go it alone and I'm really good at it, but I know I prefer to be in the company of people, especially when they are good. That is why I keep the small circle of people I do. Just as it is easy for me to paint myself as a loner, running from those that pay too much attention to me while doing my own thing, the type of painting that will challenge me is letting those in. So tonight I try. I know the thought in the back of my head is, "what do you want from me?" As my experience has been negative for many years, but I know this is very important to let those in. Like tonight I figure out when Nigel needs to move along, that Michael is very kind and even gives me a contact and invites me to join he and his friends while Smith is very young and while he is flattering I know he will find his way, just probably not right now and not with me. I leave the company of these people feeling better that I took a chance. I didn't run. I am still ok and I had a lovely night out having conversation with locals at the pub. This is the thing I miss most about London and why I keep coming back. Pub culture is a way of life here. I love how all the pubs here fill when work lets out and eventually spill out into the streets. All of them have street ledges because they know this will happen. It is civil. It is proper. It is London. I head home and crawl into bed with my clothes still on. I'm so exhausted and my body is worn. Pain from my toe has worked its way up my foot and into my ankle and heel. So much for starting back doing yoga when I get home. I must be missing Chicago because I put on, "The Fugitive," to watch (different from my regular drag queen banter I usually fall asleep to). I drift off midway through the movie. MJ comes in. I assume she has a fantastic night. I might be sleep walking. I don't remember much but I apparently plug in my phone, crawl back into my fluffy bed and drift off to sleep. See you tomorrow Chicago. London you have been proper and posh as ever.
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