Kava vs alcohol: the pharmacology they don't want you to know

One of these substances kills 140,000 Americans every year, damages your liver, impairs your judgment, and creates physical dependence.

The other has been consumed safely for thousands of years, doesn't impair cognitive function, and has an adverse event rate of less than 0.02 per million doses.

Guess which one you can buy almost anywhere and which one got our business kicked off Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, and locked $2,000 of our revenue for four months?

This is the story of how alcohol gets a free pass while kava gets labeled "high-risk" ~ and why that has everything to do with lobbying and nothing to do with science.

 

TLDR: Kava is safer than alcohol by every metric, but payment processors treat it like a controlled substance while alcohol flows freely. The 2002 liver scare was debunked - it was poor quality extraction, not the plant. The alcohol industry spends millions on lobbying to maintain dominance. Our kava blend Altared is retail-only due to payment restrictions - contact us to request it in your area.

 

What alcohol actually does to your body

When you drink alcohol, it absorbs quickly through your stomach and small intestine, straight into your bloodstream. From there, it goes everywhere. Your brain, liver, heart, every cell.

The brain

In your brain, alcohol acts as a depressant. It enhances GABA (the neurotransmitter that slows things down) and suppresses glutamate (which keeps you alert). This is why you feel relaxed, uninhibited, maybe wobbly.

But while you're feeling that relief, your prefrontal cortex goes offline. This is the part responsible for decision-making and impulse control. This is why drunk people do things sober people wouldn't. Your judgment is chemically compromised.

Chronic alcohol use literally shrinks your brain. It kills neurons, disrupts neurotransmitter balance, impairs memory formation. Long-term use increases your risk of dementia.

The liver

Your liver is working overtime because alcohol is literally a toxin. Your body has to break it down into acetaldehyde (which is even more toxic), then acetate, then finally water and carbon dioxide. This process creates oxidative stress and inflammation. Over time, it damages liver cells, causing fatty liver, hepatitis, cirrhosis.

The nervous system

Initially, alcohol lowers cortisol. But as it wears off, cortisol spikes. This is why you wake up anxious after drinking. The rebound effect we talked about earlier. Over time, this pattern dysregulates your entire stress response system.

Sleep architecture

Alcohol might knock you out, but it disrupts REM sleep. That's the phase where your brain processes emotions and consolidates memories. You wake up foggy, less sharp, irritable. Your body didn't get the restorative sleep it needed.

The hangover

Dehydration. Inflammation. Acetaldehyde poisoning. Blood sugar crashes. Your body is literally recovering from being poisoned.

According to the CDC, excessive alcohol use causes approximately 140,000 deaths in the United States each year. It's linked to over 200 disease and injury conditions. Cancer, heart disease, liver disease, mental health disorders. And it recently came out that there is absolutely no amount of alcohol that is "good for you," despite what previous reports claimed.

And yet, you can buy it at any grocery store, charge it on any card, and have it delivered to your door.

What kava actually does to your body

Kava comes from the roots of Piper methysticum, a plant native to the South Pacific. Pacific Islanders have been using it for thousands of years in ceremonies, conflict resolution, social gatherings, and relaxation.

When you consume kava (whether as a traditional water-based beverage or a tincture), the active compounds are kavalactones. Six main ones. They work primarily on GABA receptors, similar to alcohol in that sense.

But here's where it diverges completely.

Mental clarity remains intact

Kava doesn't impair cognitive function the way alcohol does. Multiple studies show that kava provides relaxation and anxiety relief without affecting mental clarity, reaction time, or judgment. You feel calm, but you're still present. Still yourself. Still capable of good decisions.

Your mind stays clear. Unlike alcohol or benzodiazepines, kava doesn't cloud your thinking. You're not disconnected from yourself ~ you're just softer, more at ease.

Social ease without sloppiness

Kava reduces social anxiety without making you out of control. You're still you, just a more relaxed version. This is the effect people describe at our events: they soften, they connect more genuinely, but they're completely present for it.

No hangover

No dehydration. No inflammation. No waking up foggy and regretful. No "what did I say last night" panic. You just wake up. Your body didn't have to process a toxin, so there's nothing to recover from.

No addiction potential

Kava doesn't create physical dependence the way alcohol does. You can stop using it without withdrawal symptoms. Your body doesn't crave it. There's no tolerance build-up requiring you to consume more to get the same effect.

Your liver is fine when you use quality kava

And this is the big one everyone asks about, so let's address it head-on.

The kava liver scare: what actually happened

In 2002, Germany and several other European countries banned kava after reports of liver toxicity. About 30 cases were documented. One death. Four liver transplants.

Panic ensued. Kava got pulled from shelves across Europe. The narrative became: kava damages your liver.

Except it doesn't. Not the way people think.

Here's what we know now, backed by a 2007 World Health Organization review and subsequent research:

The problem wasn't kava

Traditional kava (prepared with water, using only the root) has been consumed safely for millennia. The European issues came from commercial products that:

• Used aerial parts of the plant (stem peelings, leaves) which contain toxic alkaloids not present in the root • Used acetone and ethanol extraction methods that concentrated harmful compounds • Were contaminated with mold toxins like aflatoxin and ochratoxin • Involved people taking kava alongside medications or with pre-existing liver issues

The incidence rate was incredibly low

Researchers estimated less than 0.02 cases per million daily doses. For context, that's far lower than the liver toxicity risk from acetaminophen (Tylenol), which most people take without a second thought.

Pacific Islander populations tell the real story

If kava were inherently hepatotoxic, we'd see widespread liver problems in populations that have been drinking it daily for generations. We don't. Pacific Islander populations don't show elevated liver disease rates.

Germany reversed the ban

In 2014, Germany's Federal Court reversed the ban. They ruled that liver damage from kava was so rare it was negligible, and that early claims linking kava to deaths were a gross misrepresentation of the data.

The WHO report concluded that water-extracted kava products, when made from quality root material, have very low risk of causing liver problems.

So why is kava still on restricted lists for payment processors and platforms?

Because these systems operate on liability, not science. Once something gets flagged as "potentially dangerous" (even if that flag is based on outdated or debunked information), it stays flagged. It's easier to ban something than to do the work of understanding nuance.

Why we got kicked off everything

When we were still a catering bar (not even selling products yet, just offering a service), Stripe sent us an email. Our website "promotes illicit substances," they said. Account terminated.

That was 2024. We weren't selling anything. We were just showing up at events with plant-based elixirs, helping people connect without alcohol.

But kava was in our blends. And kava is on their restricted list.

Later, when we did start selling products, the dominoes fell. PayPal said no. Venmo blocked us. One by one, every major payment processor rejected us.

Then came Shopify. I got an email saying Shopify Payments and Apple Pay had been deactivated due to products against policy. They didn't say which products. I had to inquire. When I finally got clarification, they'd locked my Shopify Balance account. Nearly $2,000 of our money (revenue we'd already earned from customers who'd already received their orders and were happy with them) held for almost four months.

The message said it was "part of a security check." But I knew what it was. Shopify Balance is powered by Stripe. And Stripe considers kava high-risk.

By this point, I'd already done my research. I knew kava was going to be an issue. So I'd found a high-risk payment processor before things got worse. I looked up options, submitted an inquiry, and Heather at AltruPay responded. She was awesome. They understood that we're a legitimate business selling a legal product. They looked at our low chargeback rate, our customer reviews, our commitment to quality. And they said yes.

God bless AltruPay.

But working with them costs more. Higher transaction fees. More paperwork. More hoops to jump through. All because we sell a plant that's been used safely for thousands of years.

Meanwhile, alcohol flows through every payment system on the planet without question.

The double standard and what's behind it

Here's the part that doesn't make sense unless you follow the money.

Alcohol is available everywhere. Gas stations. Grocery stores. Restaurants. Bars. Airports. You can order it online, have it shipped to your house in most states. Pay with any credit card, any digital wallet, any payment method you want.

Alcohol: • Kills 140,000 Americans per year • Third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. • Causes cancer, liver disease, heart disease, brain damage • Highly addictive, creates physical dependence and withdrawal • Impairs judgment and motor skills • Costs the U.S. economy $249 billion annually in healthcare, lost productivity, and criminal justice expenses

Kava: • Used safely for thousands of years • Doesn't impair cognitive function • Doesn't cause hangovers • Isn't addictive • Doesn't damage your liver when prepared properly • Extremely low adverse event rate (less than 0.02 per million doses)

And yet kava gets labeled high-risk while alcohol gets a free pass.

Why?

Let's talk about lobbying

Lobbying is when industries spend money to influence lawmakers and regulators. It's legal. It happens at federal and state levels. And it's how established industries protect their market position.

Between 1998 and 2020, the alcohol industry spent $541 million on lobbying in the United States. That's just direct lobbying expenditure, not counting campaign contributions, which add hundreds of millions more.

In 2023 alone, the alcohol industry had 303 federal lobbyists and spent nearly $30 million. Many of these lobbyists are "revolving door" former government employees who now work for the industry.

What do they lobby for? Primarily to oppose tax increases (which reduce consumption and save lives), to expand where and how alcohol can be sold, and to resist regulations that would limit marketing or availability.

Here's what lobbying accomplishes: it keeps the regulatory environment favorable to established players. It makes it harder for alternatives to gain traction. It ensures that outdated restrictions stay in place for competitors while loosening rules for the dominant industry.

I'm not saying there's a grand conspiracy. I'm saying there's a system that protects the status quo ~ and when you have half a billion dollars to spend on influencing policy, you don't need a conspiracy. You just need lawyers, lobbyists, and a willingness to play the game.

Plants like kava don't have lobbying budgets. Small businesses like ours don't have lobbyists in Washington. We're not making campaign contributions. We're not former government officials with connections.

We're just trying to offer people an alternative.

And the system makes that really hard.

What this means for Altared

Our blend Altared is kava and damiana. It's a nervine. Supports the nervous system, helps ease tension, elevates mood. It's flavor, feeling, and function. People love it.

But because of payment processing restrictions, we can't sell it online. At least not easily. Not without jumping through hoops that most small businesses can't afford.

So we made a decision. Altared is available retail-only now.

And honestly? It aligns with our values. It's more sustainable. It supports shopping local. It gets people out in the world, connecting with their communities, discovering new places.

We're not trying to be Amazon. We're trying to build something different.

But if you want Altared and it's not available near you, reach out. Contact us and request it in a store in your area. The more people ask, the more retailers will carry it.

What this means for you

If you're reading this, you're probably curious about alternatives to alcohol. Maybe you're sober-curious. Maybe you're navigating social anxiety or burnout. Maybe you're just tired of how alcohol makes you feel.

Here's what I want you to know.

Kava works. When we bring our elixirs to events, people soften. They connect more genuinely. The shift is palpable. Not because they're intoxicated, but because they're regulated. Their nervous systems relax ~ and they're still present, still themselves, just more at ease.

Kava is safe when sourced properly. Look for products that use noble kava varieties (we source ours from Vanuatu). Look for water-based or glycerin-based extractions. Avoid products using stem peelings or aerial parts. And if you have liver issues or take medications, talk to your doctor first, like you would with any supplement.

Plants are not alternative medicine, they're the original. Our ancestors knew how to work with plants for wellbeing. That knowledge was passed down for thousands of years. Just because pharmaceutical companies can't patent it doesn't mean it's not legitimate.

You deserve options. The way we gather, celebrate, and care for ourselves is ready for reimagining ~ and in a culture that glorifies alcohol and numbing out, we're offering an alternative rooted in presence, pleasure, and plants. Explore our blends →

The future is functional. And we're not going anywhere.

If you have questions about kava, our sourcing, safety, or anything else, reach out. We're still small enough that I personally respond to every message.

in peace + purpose, Yas ☾

PS: want Altared in a store near you? Contact us and let us know where you'd like to find it. The more requests we get for a specific area, the more likely we can make it happen.