by Lisa Felding
According to the most recent large-scale study, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2009, 23.5 million people needed treatment for drug or alcohol abuse. That’s 9.3% of people over the age of 12. Of those people, only 2.6 million received treatment at an addiction recovery facility. Nearly 90%, therefore, aren’t getting this specialized help. Any person who is recovering from an addiction needs as much support as possible, and this is especially true for someone who is trying to beat the addiction without help from a recovery facility.
One way to support efforts towards recovering from an addiction is by focusing not just on breaking the addiction cycle, but also on replacing the unhealthy behavior patterns with new healthy ones, such as nutrition and exercise. This helps the addict start to focus on positive reasons for pursuing recovery, provides a framework for promoting a return to healthier habits, and gives the recovering addict something tangible they can do to improve their health on their own.
Addiction and Nutrition
The added benefit of such a goal is that many addicts have nutritionally poor diets to begin with. Coupled with the physical impact of addiction itself, poor health is a common feature of addiction. Even if the diet is reasonably healthy, the physical toll of addiction, which can include tissue inflammation and organ dysfunction, means that nutrients are not adequately absorbed from food, or properly stored in the body. Whether or not the diet is healthy, a person with an addiction is therefore likely to suffer from nutrient deficiencies that, in conjunction with the physical consequences of addiction, can ultimately lead to muscle wasting, high blood pressure and cholesterol, gastrointestinal and digestion problems, cardiovascular stress, and central nervous system dysfunction. For these reasons, it is extremely beneficial to make nutritional goals part of a treatment plan for alcoholism or any other addiction. Adding regular exercise into the mix is also highly beneficial.
Good Nutrition Helps the Addicted Body Heal
A person who is just beginning to recover from addiction might suffer from any or all of the following nutrition-related problems:
- Low blood sugar, leading to fatigue, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and poor adrenal gland function
- Inability to properly absorb nutrients
- Depletion of neurotransmitters in the brain
- Sensitivity to certain foods, such as wheat, sugar, corn, or dairy products
- Deficiency in protein, vitamins, and minerals
Avoiding processed foods, and replacing these with several servings a day of fresh fruit and vegetables, allows the body to start getting all the nutrients it needs to recover from these issues. For example, hypoglycemia—low blood sugar—is a common problem for recovering addicts, and alcoholics in particular, since many alcohols are rich in sugar. This can contribute to mood disorders that in turn can increase the likelihood that a recovering addict will relapse. Eating regular nutritionally-rich meals with small amounts of whole, unrefined carbohydrates, along with protein and healthy fats, helps to control blood sugar levels and improve mood stability—which might help stave off a relapse.
Another reason that a healthy diet helps the body recover from addiction is that some minerals—in particular, calcium and magnesium—can reduce the severity of cravings and addiction-related stress. Nervousness and irritability are heightened in people who are deficient in calcium or magnesium, because these minerals are essential for healthy central nervous system function. When the body is deficient in these minerals, it reduces a person’s ability to cope with stress, and in a recovering addict this ability is often already stretched to the limit.
The Benefits of Exercise
Starting an exercise program is another good way to reinforce the positive reasons for giving up an addiction. The benefits of regular exercise are well-documented, and when it comes to addiction recovery, are even more important. Cardiovascular exercise is, for example, a great way to reduce stress, by burning off excess adrenaline and other anxiety-inducing chemicals that the body produces. As well as this, it can help promote restful sleep, therefore helping to combat the insomnia that is a common feature of addiction recovery. Insomnia is completely normal for a recovering addict, but it can be very distressing, and stressful, for a newly-sober individual. Exercise can also help rebuild muscle mass and improve cardiovascular health, both of which are often impaired in addicts.
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