24Hour Recovery Connections Part 369
No quitting on yer quit eh!
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Alberta, Canada
Posts: 3,880
"The first step in solving any problem is to define it. You should always be sure you understand a problem before you go to work on its solution." - Earl Nightingale
5:40am in Alberta, it's going to be a darn good day not to drink!
24 more for me please, and thanks...
Member
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: North Yorkshire UK
Posts: 765
The devil is in the dopamine
Some weeks ago I had felt it was time to tackle the eating situation. I didnt want to put too much stress on this primarily because I had read a few posts around here (whilst munching various snacks which prompted me to buy a compressed air canister to remove the crumb debris from my keyboard). A few peeps had said that eating had helped with their alcohol cravings so 'Hey Ho' one day at a time.
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance
"Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train.
I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs?
Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)
Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance
"Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train. I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs?
Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
Member
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 4,217
Originally Posted by soberista 
Some weeks ago I had felt it was time to tackle the eating situation. I didnt want to put too much stress on this primarily because I had read a few posts around here (whilst munching various snacks which prompted me to buy a compressed air canister to remove the crumb debris from my keyboard). A few peeps had said that eating had helped with their alcohol cravings so 'Hey Ho' one day at a time.
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance "Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train.
I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs? Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)
Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance
"Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train. I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs?
Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
Anyway, it's not easy and it really does feel the same as drinking- the constant need for more, more, more food. I binged last night on my kid's Easter chocolate and for me once I start I keep going no matter what. Then the guilt and shame set in- it's a viscous cycle. And Pam is right- it's just like drinking in that your tolerance grows and you will need more food each time to reach that same satisfaction you initially got from the same food.
You might want to also look into The Craving Cure- she uses amino acids as supplementation and has different types of craving profiles.
Can you borrow the book from the library before it arrives in the mail?
I do hope with all of my heart that it helps you. Please keep us posted...
Member
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 4,217
Good morning friends- 8:34 am here in gloomy Maryland. Got to the gym by 5:45 and so far the morning with the boys is going well. My son has his first playdate with his "girlfriend" this morning (he's 6!). I can't wait to watch this unfold!
Love to all of you, near or far. Tomorrow marks 11 months for me and I cannot wait to celebrate!
Love to all of you, near or far. Tomorrow marks 11 months for me and I cannot wait to celebrate!
Member
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,715
Originally Posted by soberista
Some weeks ago I had felt it was time to tackle the eating situation. I didnt want to put too much stress on this primarily because I had read a few posts around here (whilst munching various snacks which prompted me to buy a compressed air canister to remove the crumb debris from my keyboard). A few peeps had said that eating had helped with their alcohol cravings so 'Hey Ho' one day at a time.
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance "Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train.
I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs? Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)
Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
So the eating plan probably lasted about 6 hours and, around the same time I would normally have poured my first glass of wine, my brain was badly twitching. Whenever I got into the kitchen my brain lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of bread and my dopamine receptors were doing a dance
"Oh you like that don't you...it makes you happy" and off I went on the binge train. I read a little about lateral addiction. Replace one with another and felt I had probably gone from cigarettes/alcohol to food and possibly the food one was the first (reward good child behaviors/comfort eating yadeyadeyah.
It is bugging me now. Life is good now I dont have the alcohol in it but similar feelings of "Today will be a healthy eating day!" soon turns into a constant back and forth to the kitchen from about 2pm onwards. I am probably only keeping my daily step count up because I am carving this track, to and fro, eyeing whats in the kitchen I can nibble on. And dont get me wrong it isnt junk food. Some of it is but I can also just sit and eat fruit, nuts and seeds, yogurt, whatever! I have this constant gnawing in my head that there is something that can be fixed by snacking. Anyway not being one to throw in the towel I happened across this book. What a freaking nuisance - I've bought it and waiting for it to arrive but I can read a sample on my phone as follows:
The Hunger Fix - Pam Peeke.
"The addiction develops like this: Think of a river during a flood. The water charges over the banks, taking down trees and houses along the way. Continued dopamine flooding in the brain works the same way. The pathway between the ventral tegmental and the nucleus accumbens areas of the brain floods with dopamine again and again. The brain thins it has "too much" dopmine - so the brain to compensate for this overabundance by battening down the hatches, decreasing the total number of dopamine receptors to lesson the amount of dopamine your brain absorbs. The "down regulation" decimates receptors in a variety of brain regions, particularly your limbic system, the site of motivation and emotions.
After this down regulation, your brain demands you eat greater and greater amounts of the same foods to elicit the same dopamine "rush". You have an insatiable hunger for more and more (tell me about it Pam). But the sad irony is, the more you feed the craving with False Fixes, the less satisfaction you feel - because each time you flood the brain, additional receptors get wiped out. And the relentless hunger persists.
Ive got to wait for the damn book to arrive to do the three stage detox and recovery. (does that mean whilst waiting I can eat my weight in Easter Eggs?
Be assured sober bunnies of the t'interweb that's some weight!)Anyway I am holding out for a cure. I maybe posting on here hourly as the last few dopamine receptors i have left standing start screaming at me...and maybe when the chaos has died down I will grow new ones?
Part of me thinks, it's OK - I'm not drinking so who cares about the food. But the other part of me wants to sit with those cravings (not just cravings for alcohol, generalized carvings, generalized wanting) - to sit with them and understand what's really behind them. And what I suspect is that it boils down to a basic hunger for love, comfort, reassurance in the face of general existential dread - the whole nine yards!
BUT right now, my number 1 priority is to be sober, and if that means polishing off some sweet treats, then bingo. I think if I try to tackle too much at once, I'll weaken my commitment to staying sober. Especially as I am very aware how all-or-nothing I am about everything! So if I decide to tackle food, that will become a full time obsession. It's just the way I am.
Also interesting what you said about the workings of the brain and dopamine. Annie Grace says a lot in Naked Mind about that. How the brain compensates for the over-production of dopamine, by producing it's opposite - Dynorphin - which deadens our capacity for pleasure, not just there and then, but longer term.
Anyway, I'd say, don't beat yourself up too much over the food stuff. You can address that gradually when the time is right
Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: UK
Posts: 4,553
Oh yeah Soberista I hear you loud and clear!
In no particular order:
Alcohol, nicotine, sugar, money (earning and spending), sex (sorry guys!), social media....................
I think I tick all of the above and more!
I figure cutting out the one that deeply upsets my family and would destroy my life and everything I hold dear is and always will be top priority.
I couldn't bring myself to do a great deal about anything else for about 5 months I think. Anything that endangered my commitment to sobriety was a definite no-no. But of course that couldn't go on forever and bit by bit the rest is following.
They say the one thing we addicts have to learn to do is just "be". You know, without stuffing something in our mouths or getting some other dopamine high.
Ugh! Work-in-progress! Why can't I get myself excited about exercise and celery in the same way?
Keep us posted about your book and your progress!
In no particular order:
Alcohol, nicotine, sugar, money (earning and spending), sex (sorry guys!), social media....................
I think I tick all of the above and more!
I figure cutting out the one that deeply upsets my family and would destroy my life and everything I hold dear is and always will be top priority.
I couldn't bring myself to do a great deal about anything else for about 5 months I think. Anything that endangered my commitment to sobriety was a definite no-no. But of course that couldn't go on forever and bit by bit the rest is following.
They say the one thing we addicts have to learn to do is just "be". You know, without stuffing something in our mouths or getting some other dopamine high.
Ugh! Work-in-progress! Why can't I get myself excited about exercise and celery in the same way?
Keep us posted about your book and your progress!
Member
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: North Yorkshire UK
Posts: 765
Originally Posted by joandmelandhan
Oh yeah Soberista I hear you loud and clear!
In no particular order:
Alcohol, nicotine, sugar, money (earning and spending), sex (sorry guys!), social media....................
I think I tick all of the above and more!
I figure cutting out the one that deeply upsets my family and would destroy my life and everything I hold dear is and always will be top priority.
I couldn't bring myself to do a great deal about anything else for about 5 months I think. Anything that endangered my commitment to sobriety was a definite no-no. But of course that couldn't go on forever and bit by bit the rest is following.
They say the one thing we addicts have to learn to do is just "be". You know, without stuffing something in our mouths or getting some other dopamine high.
Ugh! Work-in-progress! Why can't I get myself excited about exercise and celery in the same way?
Keep us posted about your book and your progress!
In no particular order:
Alcohol, nicotine, sugar, money (earning and spending), sex (sorry guys!), social media....................
I think I tick all of the above and more!
I figure cutting out the one that deeply upsets my family and would destroy my life and everything I hold dear is and always will be top priority.
I couldn't bring myself to do a great deal about anything else for about 5 months I think. Anything that endangered my commitment to sobriety was a definite no-no. But of course that couldn't go on forever and bit by bit the rest is following.
They say the one thing we addicts have to learn to do is just "be". You know, without stuffing something in our mouths or getting some other dopamine high.
Ugh! Work-in-progress! Why can't I get myself excited about exercise and celery in the same way?
Keep us posted about your book and your progress!
My kind of goal-ish this morning was to remove the trigger foods so I compiled a list whilst walking the border terriers. Wheat, sugar, dairy, potatoes etc. I arrived home with the paleo diet as my first step towards waiting for the book to arrive.
And its funny that I have just read Jacks post and then yours. My brain has lit up and the chattering monkey is saying "There, see, now they all say accept yourself so go and make a piece of toast, maybe a hot cross bun huh huh huh".
This is day one of shutting that voice up! I do agree with Jack though...I am an all or nothing person too but then I think that comes from the same point as not being able to moderate. There are instances when i do love this aspect of my personality though because when I set out to do something, well cue Queen - Don't stop me now!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 28,693
Soberista- food? Hmmm.
I eat too much and smoke- although have cut back both. Consider the following..
I watched a lot of recovery comedy on u-t when I was in the recovery program. This overweight guy, whose father was a violent drunk- and himself an addict now eats a lot. A friend commented to him that he had just replaced one addiction with another, and that over eating was just as dangerous as drinking. He replied 'yeah, when I eat my second big mac- I start to hit people!'.
Life is about balance, and so long as I am not harming anyone, and I do not drink...that is a good result.
I eat too much and smoke- although have cut back both. Consider the following..
I watched a lot of recovery comedy on u-t when I was in the recovery program. This overweight guy, whose father was a violent drunk- and himself an addict now eats a lot. A friend commented to him that he had just replaced one addiction with another, and that over eating was just as dangerous as drinking. He replied 'yeah, when I eat my second big mac- I start to hit people!'.
Life is about balance, and so long as I am not harming anyone, and I do not drink...that is a good result.
Keep Going
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: England
Posts: 1,530
Originally Posted by Jack16
....I can fall into a feeding frenzy with little warning....
I suspect this is true for a lot of us, and perhaps we are shaming ourselves with food. My sponsor said something like rejecting food is rejecting our mother. "See, I don't need you!" and then craving the missing love.
I've been on a binge / starve cycle for a lifetime, up and down through the same 4 dress sizes. I can only address it because through the 12 steps I've forgiven my mother totally, absolutely and forever. I have been doing Matt Kahn "I love you's" and I can't tell you how much I cried when I first told myself that. It'll change your life.
I think I see kitchen spaces as theatres of war. I have to go right back to basics. Step 1 is learning to cook. Get a recipe. High protein, low carb maybe? And also allowing myself to eat enough at each meal to start to balance my blood sugar. I want to eat loving foods, I deserve to love myself. Feels funny typing that
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