Building a life of sobriety requires a reshuffle of priorities that focuses on mental and physical health. What you eat daily can significantly aid or hamper your efforts in recovery.
Many recovering addicts may understand that their addiction may have been behind their poor food choices. However, understanding how important good nutrition is in recovery can motivate you to start thinking more deeply about the fuel you are providing for your body.
Just like a car needs the correct type of gas to function well, properly fuelling your body will give it the energy and raw materials it needs to repair and heal itself.
It's important to note, at Reset My Future, we strongly encourage to keep up your sugar intake during the early days of withdrawing from alcohol. Alcohol has a lot of sugar and so you do not want to be withdrawing from sugar at the same time.
How Addiction Ruins Your Appetite
Everything you put into your body can have a healing or damaging effect. While eating nutrient-poor foods is one thing, substance abuse can have a deeper, more profound influence on your nutrient intake.
Many substances can suppress appetite, reducing your desire for food. Other substance abuse issues can make you forget to eat and impair you in other ways that trick your brain into not eating. For example, frequently engaging in alcohol or drug abuse can form a habit of regularly skipping meals.
Substance abuse can lead to organ damage, most of which have roles in processing nutrients and making them available to the body. The longer these organs remain compromised, the harder it can be to achieve good nutrition.
Alcoholic drinks are often high in calories, which can trick your body into feeling satisfied and leave you with no appetite for a healthy meal. For example, a margarita contains more than 700 calories, which is the equivalent recommended calorie intake for a women's dinner or lunch.
How a Healthy Diet Helps with Sobriety
Detoxification often results in sometimes debilitating side effects such as fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, all of which can play havoc with your nutrient intake.
Balanced nutrition can improve your mood and health and make you feel better. Here are some tips to help ensure you support your sobriety with good food:
Consider supplementing poor nutrition with vitamins and nutritional supplements. Your doctor may be able to prescribe these.
Select foods easy on your stomach to reduce nausea, such as yogurt or vegetable soup.
Foods high in fibre, like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, can help prevent constipation.
Many recovering addicts complain of food cravings during recovery, which can lead to poor food choices and weight management issues. Reduce the influence of food cravings with the following strategies:
Don't stuff yourself - stop eating when you feel satisfied.
Eat when hungry, but don't wait until you are starving.
Get plenty of physical exercise.
Track your emotions to see which ones are linked to your cravings.
Eat in moderation
Nutrition and Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to form new connections and rewire old ones. It often occurs in response to injury, disease, or environmental changes.
The onset of addiction is one example of neuroplasticity as the brain's reward centres respond to and adapt to the presence of drugs or alcohol.
Brain imaging studies show that once the addiction has forced changes in the brain's wiring, neuroplasticity is compromised, and sobriety becomes more challenging to achieve.
Fortunately, improving your nutritional habits can help restore plasticity to the brain.
Carbohydrates are the body's primary energy source, but they also help with serotonin production in the brain, a neurotransmitter essential for a stable mood, healthy sleep, and reduced cravings for drugs or alcohol.
Amino acids: Without enough amino acids, the brain cannot produce enough dopamine, which results in more severe cravings, negative mood changes, and greater aggression.
Dietary fat: Regeneration of neuroplasticity requires dietary fats that assist with inflammation reduction and protect the integrity of cell membranes in the brain.
Omega-3s: Omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation and help the brain increase neurotransmitter uptake.
Omega-6s: These fatty acids support neurotransmitters' function by increasing brain activity levels.
Reset Your Future understands the role of good nutrition in sobriety. Not only will a healthy diet provide you with vitality and energy to get you through the day, but it also helps to restore normal brain function so you can make sound choices that help with your recovery and keep you on the road to sobriety. If you would like to find out more about our 12-week online program for substance abuse issues, book your free consultation here.
