Dear @joseph,
Great questions. I don’t smoke and it’s pretty bad for your health (including liver health) with little benefit. It was easy for me not to have this habit as smokes are super expensive here in Australia.
Marijuana here in Australia is illegal in most states, but I would guess edibles are probably a better way to go than smoking, just for the benefit to your lungs. As has been discussed before, there’s no good evidence for or against marijuana being harmful.
Regarding alcohol, I’ll repost a message I posted on HBList a while ago
According to the clinical literature I’ve seen, the cancer risk of HBV and alcohol has generally been reported as an “additive” relationship (e.g. if the risk of HBV cancer is 20% and the alcohol consumption is 5%, then the combination is 25%) rather than a “synergistic” relationship (20%+5% = something more than 25%) in most cases. In the end, it is up to you to decide if you want to take this risk or not.
That said, it’s probably best to reduce it as much as you can, even if you don’t have Hep B. There are plenty of ways around reducing your drinking at social events (which I have personally generally reduced a lot):
- As Olga mentioned, making a socially-acceptable excuse for not drinking
- Drinking non-alcoholic drinks that look like alcoholic drinks (there’s now a bit more choice in terms of low alcoholic beers and wines, some of which actually taste good!)
- Standing up and owning it by saying I just don’t feel like drinking
- Drink slower and space out the drinks with glasses of water in between
- Eating before to slow down alcohol absorption
Obviously, some options may not be available to you in all circumstances, but these may help. I’ve also realised that a lot of the effects of alcohol are from the interactions with the people around you rather than from the alcohol itself. I think if you start drinking a good non-alcoholic beer/wine (where you can’t tell much difference between it and the real version), you may be surprised about how similar it can feel to drinking alcohol (minus the hang-over).
Few studies have shown any of these having an effect on Hep B drug resistance at all.
Hope this helps,
Thomas