Drug and alcohol recovery is the time where we as recovering addicts learn about our destructive habits. We learn about our counterproductive mental and emotional habits and eventually, if you are in a quality substance abuse treatment facility, our poor dietary habits as well. Each one of these aspects has a direct impact on our ability to successfully and effectively recover from our addictions. While the connection between the mental and emotional aspects may seem more obvious to most, the nutritional aspect plays an equally important role as well. While giving up illicit substances is a fantastic thing without question, if we continue to poison our bodies with simple sugars, trans fats and other chemicals, our ability to remain on the path of drug and alcohol recovery becomes that much more difficult.
Simple Sugars
Let’s start with the simple sugars. Simple sugars have a similarly intoxicating effect on the pleasure centers in the brain to that of opiates and other chemical substances. What that means is that when you ingest simple sugars, you experience a high and of course subsequent crash, emotionally, mentally and physically like you do when coming off of a drug like heroin for example. While you may not experience the vomiting and diarrhea many do when withdrawing from heroin, it’s still very common to experience equally detrimental symptoms like anxiety, sweats, dizziness, nausea, depression and anger. Anyone who’s gone through drug and alcohol recovery in the past can tell you that ingesting substances that can affect your mood the way simple sugars can is just not a smart move.
There are hundreds of ways out there for all people to maintain a healthier lifestyle through diet. They can range from the simple to the routine-altering. The simpler the change, the more likely you are to continue it, and therefore the more dramatic impact it will have on your overall health which includes your drug and alcohol recovery. For example, eat breakfast! ‘Break the fast’ as nutritionists say. Not only does eating a healthy breakfast help stabilize your blood sugar hence helping control your mood, but research has shown that eating a healthy breakfast helps control your weight too. It’s also important to be aware of the too good to be true diets that promise to make you lose 10 lbs a week as long as you only eat one thing and nothing else. These sorts of diets wreak havoc on your insides and set you up for extreme hunger followed by a binge, which is equally shocking to the system.