Opinion: Society shuns smoking but alcohol gets a pass​on February 8, 2025 at 1:00 pm

When I was 23, I checked myself into a weeklong detox centre. I was an alcoholic with no job, no money and considerable debt. I drank from the moment I woke up to the moment I blacked out.

I have now been sober for four and a half years. It took hundreds of hours of support groups, therapy and self-help.

During this time, I began smoking cigarettes. It was a relief to the part of me that felt I couldn’t live without a substance. As a result, I am now addicted to them. My alcohol abuse went largely unnoted. But everywhere I go, people decry my smoking. My alcoholism caused mental, relational, financial and physical devastation. I had to rebuild my life from rock bottom. In comparison, cigarettes don’t hold a match.

The health detriments of cigarettes should not be taken lightly. But the effects of alcohol should be taken just as seriously.

Alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). When it comes to causing cancer, it’s right up there with asbestos, radiation and tobacco. This isn’t a well-known fact, but it’s not exactly shocking.

The active ingredient of alcohol is ethanol. Ethanol is a toxin. A toxin is “a poison made by living cells or organisms.” The fact that there is no safe amount of this poison to put in your body should not come as a surprise. Alcohol can also lead to strokes, cardiac arrest, pneumonia, fibrosis, pancreatitis, chronic immune diseases and organ damage — to name a few.

But unlike tobacco, there are no warning labels on alcohol products. Nothing to tell you it’s in the same cancer-causing bracket as cigarettes. No imagery of a bloody surgery to warn you this substance could ruin your life.

And the physical effects are only the beginning. Alcohol is a psychoactive drug. Being addicted to this drug can wreak havoc on mental health. Depression, anxiety, violence, spousal abuse, unemployment and family problems are some of the mental-health-related effects of alcohol listed by The Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction. They also report that: “intoxication from alcohol appears to increase the likelihood a depressed person will act on suicidal impulses.”

More than 40 per cent of crimes committed in Canada are associated with substance use. Alcohol is the leading force behind this number, being “responsible for the greatest proportion of crimes.”

It is considered one of the most addictive substances in the world. In Canada, it is the most common substance that people are addicted to.

I used it to help with social anxiety. I hid it in slushies, juice bottles and coffee mugs. I used it because I’d never dealt with a family tragedy that happened when I was nine. As I grew older, I couldn’t remember how to be happy. Alcohol was easy happy. I used it because I started having panic attacks before bed. I couldn’t sleep. Blacking out was good enough for me.