sugErspun

Candy Scratch posted that in September of 2006...just fyi..Old thread resurrected.

GG733

Vitamins and exercise cure alcoholism? Lord have mercy! Didn't Susan Powter hop on this bandwagon before she fell off the planet?

Amelie48

Im curious why you call this 'a bandwagon'. Alcohol causes specific and well documented damage to physical and mental function which we really ought to be fully informed about if we are attempting to recover from it. What's wrong with trying to repair that damage with good nutrition? We know that eating healthily maintains health. Orthomolecular medicine is only the lolgical extension of the aeons old maxim 'You are what you eat' and 'Let your food be your medicine'. It is the science of what the substances in our food actually do in our bodies - what the various bodily and brain functions need nutritionally in order to work optimally. Meetings and support groups are very helpful but they don't address the phsyiological consequences of alcoholism. It's helpful to know, eg, about avoidable mistakes such as substituting sugar, bad carbohydrates and other stimulants for alcohol -which actually feed the addiction and cravings.

Tazman53

For a real alcoholic there is no cure unless it is at the DNA level, As I was drinking my first drink at the age of 12 even though it tasted nasty I was thinking about another before I finished the first! So all this hooooey about any type of cure if you did not hurt your body to bead and if you let it heal all the way is a crock of caca for a real alcoholic.

Yes nutrition is a great help in recovery, but until they can alter my DNA there is no cure for true alcoholism.

I fully support any type of plan geared to help alcoholism and addictions as long as they are not caliming a cure, what I do find upsetting is the folks who are in it just for a buck and could really care less if some one recovers or not.

CarolD

While I too think nutrition is vital to healing
from alcoholism ...I did not embark on the
eating plan I followed as a way to curb cravings.

If it did or did not ...I don't have a clue.
My cravings were bear-able and short termed.

It did not require special supplements purchased
from a particular place ...just common sense.
That's the sticking point for me with these
"revelations" and "cures" .money making ideas.

My goal was to aid my resoration to health.
I think it did...

Time to take my daily generic mutli-vitamin and
have my juice...oatmeal and wheat toast breakfast.

Amelie48

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
Well clearly you don't believe in this solution, fundamentally. But I don't really hold with calling anybody's preferred approach 'hooey' especially when a lot of people have been helped and have stopped abusing alcohol by these methods. Respect for that. They feel they have been cured - good for them. To be honest it alarms me when people start talking in imperatives and certainties about addiction. Nobody definitively knows what a 'real' alcoholic is - the alcoholic him or herself is the best judge - but it seems fair to say that it is likely to be anyone who has an uncontrollable urge to drink alcohol - the amount or manner of becoming one are not really the core issues though it does exacerbate and entrench the addiction over time. Incidentally, your description of when you first noticed your addiction is entirely consistent with what orthomolecularl medicine has discovered. Some people are born with a latent addiction in that their neuroendocrine systems are off balance even at birth - depending on the state of health of the mother. Others will create the addiction by drinking over time. In my case I managed alcohol moderately and was indifferent to it -long periods of not drinking without even thinking about it or noticing it. I never had to 'give up'. I didnt drink when I didnt want to and I never wanted not to drink and couldnt stop myself - until I was 36 or thereabouts when something triggered a ferocious addiction. Ive met many alcoholics who have had similar experience. I can assure you my compulsion to drink since then has been as serious and obstinate as any alcoholic's Ive ever met.

I'm interested in your point about DNA. Is there science that shows the DNA of alcoholics is different? I'd really like to read about that. Would you be kind enough to point me to it? Ill try out the net myself too.

Alcohol does affect the body in various ways and it is important that alcoholics should fully understand the whys and wherefores of that in my opinion. It's really surprising that more detailed information isn't available about that, when you come to think of it. It's a great relief to have found something that explains it fully. I know now for example that my adrenal system is shot that my thyroid and other glands have been affected and the sort of damage Ive done to my liver and pancreas. Knowing all this is extra incentive and it gives me knowledge and control over what I can do to help myself to recover. The affects on the brain chemistry of alcohol and other foods are astonishing - I was amazed to realise that even certain modes of depressive thinking (eg felling apathetic or overwhelmed can be explained to deficiencies of specific hormoes and/or amino acids - that alcohol interrupts the body's natural healing and building blocks at molecular level.

I agree with you that making money out of other people's misery is questionable. On the other hand there is no harm in making one's living out of helping others - within reason. Better that than making money out of polluting the environment or whatever. Social workers and addiction counsellors make an honest living out helping alcoholics eg. Informed and educated private individuals are no different when they are dedicated and honest in what they do. I really dont see a conflict though I totally agree that there are a lot charlatans around ready to prey on vulnerable desperate people too. It's usually pretty easy to spot them though.



CarolD:

Hi
I hope I dont seem like Im here to represent Genita Petralli - in fact Im a bit fed up that my enquiries to her have gone unanswered but it would be wrong to say that she is recommending her products or services as the only way through. It's entirely possible to purchase what you need under your own steam since the nutritional and dietary programme is included in the book which I have. Let me stress, Im making no claims on her behalf. I came here to this forum as I thought I might find like minded folk who were interested in discussing another possibility.
Im just wondering on reflection if Sober Recovery is the right place for me - I mean is it exclusively for AA-style 12 step recoverers? It says that other approaches can be discussed here too. I know that dedicated AA people love AA and think it is the only answer but it's not for me - though I agree with some/many of AA's observations about alcohol, alcoholics and alcholism.

Tazman53

What I was refering to as "Hooey" was a claim to having a cure. Other then the use of the word cure! I give full support to any program that results in recovery, no matter how it is done.

Alcoholism is a disease, if they have a cure for it that means that an alcoholic can safely drink again. To claim a cure for alcoholism is at this time a falsehood.
In either the book "Under The Influence" or "Beyond The Influence" they discuss that to date there is no solid evidence of it being hereditary, but they do say there are strong indications.

They mention a study where they took children of alcoholic parents and gave them a very small amount of alcohol to see how thier livers processed alcohol, thier livers processed alcohol just like an alcoholics. They did the same test with children with no alcoholics in their families backgrounds and they processed the alcohol in the same manner a non-alcoholic would.

This research leads one to conclude that alcoholism is hereditary, but there is no posotive proof yet.

In both of these books they do site research which proves that an alcoholics liver processes alcohol differently then a non-alcoholic.

I totally agree with that.

I hope you did not take me the wrong way, the only thing I say "Hooey" to is the claim of a cure.

If some one came up with a real cure for alcoholism they would be instant billionares, they would win the Nobel Peace Prize and the world would know there is a cure and would be a far better place. Heck even the liquor industry would be happy, because it would increase the number of customers they had and the length of thier lifes!!!

CarolD

Well....
I can't discuss a book I have not read.
I have been sober for 18+ years
and can no longer read...so I will not
be reading it either.

You are free to share your experiences here
I thought that is what you are doing.
That's what I do too.

You have 3 post...all on t this old thread.
Why not begin your own thread
so more members will see your thoughts?

Yes... many members here use AA...as I do.
So Yes you will see our recovery method discussed.

Again...how can I discuss something I've not explored?

sugErspun

Me thinks someone has an interest in this book selling.

I am sure SR has a way to advertise using a more 'classic' marketing method.

Amelie48

This is absolutely not my motive at all - I have no connection with this programme which I only discovered a week or so back - but I have been interested in the idea of food as medicine for some time. To answer other critics I googled to see if there was other discussion about it in relation to alcohol addiction - which is how I discovered this site. I didnt notice the thread was old but it doesnt really matter to the conversation. In any case I thought it was bad netiquette to start more threads when the subject for discussion already has a thread? The 101 programme doesnt seem to go in much for customer service - Ive sent two emails and still no response from them so it looks like there is not much more to be said about that here.

A general discussion about this sort of approach would be very welcome. Anybody have any experience of using health food and nutrition to help them with this?

Amelie48

Hi CarolD
Thanks for this further message. I hope I didnt come across as though I expected people to feel obliged to discuss this with me - sorry if I did. I assumed that anyone interested and supportive of this approach would post and others would just leave it if it's not their thang! I appreciate your welcome and thoughtfulness to a newcomer.

sugErspun

I tried fifty different methods to recover from alcoholism. Only one has worked.

I can call someone anytime, from anywhere and they will pick up and help me out if I need it.

There are meetings every day, all over the world. - I am never alone.

Once I took care of the root of my problem, I find it much easier to eat healthy. However, I do not think one is dependent on the other (ie - my recovery had little to do with my diet.)


And I live in California - go figure.

Tazman53

Amelie I know Carol used a hypoglycemic diet in her early recovery, I focused on vitamins, I am sure they helped physically, I continue to take daily vitamins and have found that sobriety has led me to wanting to become physical fit. For me sobriety has been a spiritual journey which has led me to an awareness of the need for good health. I quit smoking in September and joined a gym a few week ago.

gypsytears

Hi and welcome Amelie48 . While I have not read the book The Cause and the Cure... I do believe diet, nutrition and supplements are helpful. It's a very vaild topic. I hope you stick around. It's always nice to have new members posting.

nandm

I will donate my 2 cents.

I tried nutritional and exercise approaches to quitting drinking.
I tried postiive thinking to quit drinking
I tried cold turkey
I tried so many other methods that I can not even remember them all
Each of these methods gave me a varying period of time without drinking.

The difference I have found between the previous mentioned ways and AA is my rate of success, my craving/obsession with alcohol, how I feel about myself, resentment, frustration, anger, my relationship with those around me, actually being able to gain some sober time, happiness, overall satisifaction of life, and spirituality.

All of the things I tried prior to AA left me obsessing/craving alcohol, I still hated being in my skin, I was frustrated and angry, my relationships were still shi*, I could not put together more than 3 months to a year of not drinking, my overall satisfaction with life was miserable, and I had no spirituality.

Today the opposite of those things is true for me. I also have the added benefit of being able to incorporate some of the positive things those other methods of stopping drinking offered me such as better nutrition, positive thinking, etc....

My personal thoughts are I know what worked for me and unfortunately it took some trial and error to find it. Everyone is different what works for me may not work for someone else. All I can share is my personal experience as well as my hopes and prayers that everyone find a working solution for themselves regardless of if it worked for me or not.

Good luck in your search. It does have some useful parts to it, I believe that good nutrition is very lacking in our society today and many problems could be significantly improved by proper nutrition, solved or cured that I don't know about but helped definately.

lovingseren

I tried many times to use other programs prior to finding sobriety with the one I use now.
There are many ways to sobriety, the more people I meet, the more I find that.
Our disease is not curable, in my opinion, it is treatable.
Abstinence, changing our thinking, our attitude, growing emotionally and spiritually is how we treat it. Living a healthy life style, eating as little sugar as possible, exercise and embracing new activities is key.
I seldom think of drinking at all, I can't remember the last time I had a craving, I am grateful to have found what worked for me.

Thanks for sharing Amelie. Knowledge is power.

Seren

Amelie48

I agree that no single thing will defeat alocholism on its own - it's a combination of factors: diet/nutrition, spiritual,psychological, emotional and physical/exercise - to name just a few. It's good to share the struggle with other people who understand and to give each other whatever encouragement and support we can. My interest in this issue of the role of nutrition is very much within that much broader overall context.

With the above very much in mind, what has fascinated me about the orthomolecular approach is the very persuasive research that describes exactly how alcohol affects brain function and neuroendocrine system. I just want to share and discuss this with as many people as are really interested. The psychology of addiction turns out to be phsyiologically based. It's now possible to know exactly how the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal system are affected and the devastation alcohol causes them: the symptoms that this causes including the compulsion to drink, depressive thought, emotional instability etc etc - these seemingly thought-based symptoms have a direct physiological explanation. For example, if we are low in beta endorphins we experience tearfulness, lack of self esteem, feeling victimised by others, sweet cravings and feeling overwhelmed by our responsibilities - unequal to coping with them. We can eat and nourish our bodies to replace and or/make beta endorphins - just one among lots of other similar factors that we can influence. It's not at all a case of being an inherently useless person. That does not mean we should not have regard for the consequences of our behaviour but we can be a lot more optimistic about how to stop that behaviour.
Basically we have thrashed our bodies' natural ability to regulate itself - to signal when we have had enough because we have created a dangerous physiological need for the alcohol in the absence of normal body function. As I understand it, that's where the cravings come from - the craving and consumption of alcohol cause our bodies to create a sort of lethally distorted mimicry of normal function so we get a temporary feel-good fix. As soon as it begins to wear off, the real physical symptoms begin to emerge and we start to crave another false fix. Long term this is devastating in every way. This cycle can be seriously interrupted by a strong assault on the pathology of the addiction via natural and healthy substances - including the best diet possible and a relatively short term and extensive regimen of high quality nutritional supplements which are targetted at the exact damage caused to the neuroendcrine system in particular. I see no difference in principle between this approach to alcoholism and the medical approach to alcoholism, schizophrenia or cancer - the difference being that natural food based substances are being used. The nutritional approach has the added benefit of being very good for the damage caused to other organs such as the liver and pancreas too. It is not an overnight treatment and anyone thinking they have found an easy way out will be disappointed. It takes as much effort and dedication as any other approach and to be as successful as possible it must be accompanied by other changes in lifestyle as well: staying away from people and situations that will encourage you to drink, adopting a constructive lifestyle including mental and physical exercise and relaxtion.

I know the pharmaceutical industry would like us all to think that the science of food medicine is quackery but most sensible people know that is nonsense nowadays. Everyone knows that a healthy diet is good for them and the opposite too. It's plain as day that there are good scientific reasons for this and when you think of all the amazing things we have discovered it's kind of humbling to realise that we've neglected one of the most obvious: exactly what substances our food breaks down into and how those substances work to keep us healthy and happy at ever level of bodily function. From what I have read it appears that the essential difference between orthomolecular medicine and pharmacological medicine as practiced by the vast majority of doctors might be described as the difference between an internal and an external cure. Pharmaceuticals try to compensate for the damage - which frequently leads to other complications and side effects - whereas the nutritional approach replaces what is lost or depleted in the body and is essentially a reconstructive approach. Nothing synthetic is used - the body is given back what it has lost enabling it to gradually heal itself as it ordinarily would.

Just as bad eating and drinking habits get you into difficulties so it is that healthy eating can be used to get you out of it - provided you have not caused any sort of permanent damage - and even then it is going to help you. This is so obvious as to be banal, and yet those who have attempted to apply the science of it are persistently ridiculed and dismissed by mainstream medicine. It's not difficult to see why: it represents a revolution in our approach to health. Each and every one of us has the potential to understand far more than we do about how to manage our own healthcare through healthy lifestyles. This represents a serious shift in power away from the medical profession and those who profit most from it - it's not a coincidence that they are the ones shouting loudest about it and doing their best to shut it down. But many doctors and traditionally trained professionals have embraced this change in approach already and it's only a matter of time before it becomes mainstream, it seems. One doctor has said that if doctors don't embrace nutrion as medicine, the doctors of tomorrow will be nutritionists.

There are also a lot of trumped up scare stories out there about the 'dangers' of nutritional and natural substances - eminating almost always from the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry. When you consider the truth about the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, this assault on food and food substances is laughable. Patrick Holford, the well-known British nutritionist says in one of his books:

"...the chances of having a toxic reaction to even the higher dose supplements available in health food shops is extremely unlikely unless you take considerably more tablets than recommended..to date noone has been reported as dying as a result of a vitamin supplement. Very rarely there are deaths due to children swallowing handfulls of their mothers iron supplements. Compare this with deaths attributed to prescribed drugs. These were the conclusions of a survey of hospitalised patients, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association

'We estimate that in 1994 over 2,216,000 hospitalised patients had serious adverse drug reactions and 106,000 had fatal adverse drug reactions, making these reactions between the fourth and fifth leading cause of death.'"

And this doesnt begin to acknowledge all the lesser adverse reactions which cause side effects which may not result in hospitalisation but are nevertheless uncomfortable and/or painful. Many people do not even realise that their symptoms are side effects of drug prescriptions.

In the context of alcoholism I find it odd for such a pervasive and socially devastating phenomenon that I've never until recently been able to get a comprehensive answer to the questions 'what exactly does alcohol do to my body and might there be a phsyiological explanation for this bizarre behaviour?' The answer turns out to be that there are very good explanations available and there is a lot I can do about it - it's not at all an imponderable question of it being some sort of mysteriously unknowable mental and physcial fate over which I have no control whatsoever. As a spiritual person I also find that sort of idea fundamentaly anti life and anti nature.

Some people say that if an approach like this works then it can only be because the person wasn't 'really' an alocholic yet a lot of people have found it works really well for them. And let's face it there are NO known treatments or approaches that can claim high success rates as things stand. I don't really hold with this 'more-alcoholic-than-thou' attitude used as justification for claiming one approach is better than another - especially when it comes to threatments that have no phsyiological element to them. Anyway, Im giving this one my best shot - will feed back to y'all as I go along, if anyone is interested.
Kind wishes to all :-)

bugsworth

Thanks Amelie a very interesting read! I agree that there are many ways to heal the body, the most important being what we put in it! Thanks again.

bonsai12

Alcoholics Anonymous
Big Book pg. 133 Now about health: A body badly burned by alcohol does not often recover overnight nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling. We are convinced that a spiritual mode of living is a most powerful health restorative. We, who have recovered from serious drinking, are miracles of mental health. But we have seen remarkable transformations in our bodies. Hardly one of our crowd now shows any dissipation.

But this does not mean that we disregard human health measures. God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitated to take your health problems to such persons. Most of them give freely of themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies. Try to remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist. Their services are often indispensable in treating a newcomer and in following his case afterward.

Amelie48

Thanks for this - great advice. I just wish that more doctors and psychiatrists would adopt reciprocal respect towards those who take the nutritional approach and stop attacking them. Like any activity that involves human beings, traditional western medicine is not infallible - it can and does regularly make mistakes - sometimes with very serious consequences. Sadly, it is seldom humble about those mistakes or its own fallibility - often relying on long drawn out legal wrangles to deter people who are adversely affected. Conversely, and despite all the known mistakes it has made - it tends to adopt a 'we know all' attitude to people like nutritionists who are every bit as serious about their work and who have spent many years studying and researching it - in the case of Chinese medicine, thousands of years.

Most of the alcoholics I have spoken to about it say that, in the final analysis, pharmaceutical drugs did not help them - anti-depressants or whatever. They feel they masked the problem but didn't tackle the underlying pathology. I know that when I was on a well known drug that I contemplated suicide in an extraordinarily detached and umemotional way - I could have done it so easily - plus I felt as if I was separate from everyone around me - it was like watching a film or something. It was frightening when I read about all of the people who had actually done it when I came off them and recalled how I had been thinking while medicated. Maybe some people are helped by docs and psychs but my advice from experienced AA people was that, when it came to the alcoholism itself they really didnt have the answers, medically and prescriptively speaking. They can be supportive and kind people but the present state of formal western medicine does not have that much to offer the alcoholic in reality, imo - it recommends AA for almost everyone to AA regardless and while AA works brilliantly for some, it does not for everyone.

It's clear the drug companies are afraid of the nutritional approach to medicine and health. From an entirely pragmatic point of view, why do not more of them see what is in front of their noses: that, even if the principle of the thing doesnt trouble them, this is a fantastic business opportunity in every way. People want to put things into their bodies which they know will be good for them. Why not direct all that money spent on researching pills and chemical koshes into researching and producing good quality nutrients and foods? There is already in existence a massive body of scientific research that proves its amazing potential. Why fight it? In their heart of hearts nobody actually wants to ingest pesticide riddled food, GM food or anti-biotic and hormone saturated meat and dairy - anymore than they want to be needlessly affected by addictive symptoms that they can treat with good nutrition. There is huge potential there merely for giving people what they really want - the first principle of good business for goodness sake! Instead we read now of governments who, at the behest of the pharmas are contemplating enforced medication - like statins for all people over 50 despite the known risks; jailing parents who think vaccines are a bad idea - and so forth. Things are really getting out of hand.

But I digress. When I can get around to it I'll let you know all the vits and supplements Im taking and what I do with diet so maybe I can compare notes with some of you good folk out there.
Slainte.:ghug