Cancer, Control & the Cost of Normalizing Alcohol

What I’ve learned from eight sober months, a diagnosis, and myself.

I Share This Not as a Doctor but as a Human in Process

I’ve always been health-conscious. I trained regularly. I ate well. I avoided processed foods, sugars, and toxins as much as I could. So when I was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, it felt like something in me broke. It didn’t fit my self-image.

Like many, I immediately started searching for answers. The most obvious one was genetic. I now know I carry the BRCA1 gene mutation, which increases the risk of developing breast cancer by up to 70%. But is that the whole story?

Genes are potential, not fate. And the question that wouldn’t leave me was: Why now?

The Quiet Contradiction: My Relationship With Alcohol

One part of the puzzle I kept avoiding was alcohol.

Deep down, I always knew it wasn’t good for me. I felt it. Like we all know that certain things are not good for us, hence we keep doing them.

I kinda convinced myself that I was doing enough on the other side (enough greens, enough sports, enough supplements) to somehow neutralize it. But is that really what balance is about? I’m doubting it today.

Growing up in Germany, alcohol is cheap, accessible, and completely normalized. I started drinking young.. maybe with 15. It wasn’t questioned. And while I started to take care for my body in my 20s, the alcohol stayed. A part of me kept justifying a substance I knew wasn’t aligned with how I actually wanted to live.

Looking back at my youth, I feel guilt. It was too much. Not just the drinking, but the situations we put ourselves in as young girls. Situations that could have turned dangerous. And the truth is: we didn’t care. I didn’t care.

This Is Bigger Than Me: The World We Live In Has Changed

Listening to Dr. Mark Lee recently, I was struck by how clearly he explained what’s happening at a cellular level. Every day, our bodies copy and paste DNA billions of times and small errors, or mutations, are a completely normal part of that process. The real question is: Can our immune system detect and repair those errors?

That’s its job and it’s doing it constantly. But we live in a world that makes that job harder than ever.

We are:

• under chronic stress

• sleeping too little

• exposed to air pollution, toxins, plastics..

• disconnected from nature

• emotionally overloaded

• flooded with ultra-processed food and alcohol

  
  

Our immune system isn’t just fighting infections. It’s correcting damage, managing inflammation, and scanning for cells that have gone out of control. It’s our internal quality control. And when that system is already overwhelmed, everything we add on top like alcohol, matters.

Alcohol is a known immune disruptor, it's the no 1. carcinogen. It weakens the gut barrier, fuels inflammation, and reduces the efficiency of immune cells. If our body is already under pressure, why make its job harder?

Recognizing Cancer Not Just as a Disease. But as a Symptom

Cancer isn’t just a random event. It’s a message.

A sign of imbalance: not just in one body, but in the way we live collectively. And the more I look at it this way, the more I see how many small things I could take responsibility for, even if I can’t control everything.

I’m not here to tell anyone what to do. Like who am I to do that.

But I do believe:

• we need to talk about alcohol differently

• we need to stop glorifying being “busy”

• we need to nourish our nervous systems

• we need to reconnect to joy, presence, breath, and nature

• and we need to stop waiting for a crisis to start living differently

Why I’m Choosing Sobriety and Who I Thought I Needed to Be

For a long time (or maybe even my whole life..), alcohol made things feel easier. It made everything a bit softer, even blurry. It helped me quiet the voice in my head. It distracted me. It gave me the illusion of being someone else.

After my diagnosis, I knew I want to look at my life with brutal honesty. Not to blame myself. But to ask: What now?

And one answer became very clear: I don’t want alcohol in my life anymore.

At first, this decision felt like a health choice. But the deeper I went, the more I saw it was something else: A way to reclaim myself. Completely.

Because when I really look back, alcohol was never just about relaxing. It was a shortcut to the version of me I thought people liked more:

• more talkative

• more open

• less anxious

• more present

• more fun

I used it to become the version of me that I didn’t believe I could be sober. But what if I could?

What if I am already enough? What if I don’t need a drink just because of social pressure?

And what if I don’t need to numb out my feelings, just because they’re big?

Learning to Be Me. Again.

I used to think sobriety meant giving something up. A sacrifice. A restriction. A loss of freedom.

But over time, I’ve realized it’s not that. It’s not about losing anything. It’s about getting myself back.

Letting go of alcohol is about changing the way I meet myself. And the truth is, I don’t want to be that version of me anymore. I want to be me. Unfiltered, raw, and whole. 

I’m learning to stay with myself. To notice when I want to escape. To ask myself why. And to choose presence instead of patterns.

Sometimes that means being the only one at the table without a glass in my hand. And in those moments, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I feel like I’m choosing something real.

This is the eighth month of not drinking. And sure, the past months have been tough, going through chemo and surgery hasn’t exactly made things easier.

But the truth is: without this diagnosis, I probably wouldn’t have made this decision at all. And now that I have, I want to keep going. Not because I have to.

But because I’ve seen what’s possible when I stop numbing and start paying attention.

I’m not afraid of missing out.

I’m just done missing me.