One major aspect you need to adjust as a recovering addict—regardless of the substance—is your diet. The food you consume during recovery plays a significant role in either strengthening or weakening your immune system.
Alcohol addiction is particularly hard on the body. You don’t just lose weight; you also miss out on essential nutrients that keep you healthy. Part of your recovery journey includes regaining lost weight and nutrients to rebuild a healthier body. So after a rehab program like the one at Jacksonhouserehab, you’ll need to focus on replenishing those nutrients and weight, thus building a more robust immune system.
The weaker your body is, the higher your chances of relapsing, which we’ll discuss further in this article. Understanding the link between food and alcohol addiction will empower you to use your diet to avoid a relapse.
Long-term alcoholism affects both your appetite and eating habits. For example, alcoholics often lose interest in eating and may only have one, often non-nutritious meal a day. The same goes for heavy users of hard drugs like cocaine, who might not eat for days, leading to extreme thinness.
The negative effects of alcohol addiction don’t stop at poor eating habits. It can also disrupt your digestion, causing further health complications like vomiting, constipation, and diarrhea. These issues ultimately lead to a decline in your overall health.
Given that alcohol addiction severely impacts food consumption, you might wonder how you can use food to prevent a relapse. Here’s how:
Addiction is a brain disorder where you have an uncontrollable urge to consume a particular substance, eventually leading to relapse. Often, people battling addiction also struggle with anxiety, depression, and social isolation. To cope, they use drugs or alcohol to boost their dopamine levels and improve their mood. Over time, this becomes a routine, resulting in addiction.
But how can food help with this? For starters, lacking essential nutrients like omega-3 amino acids can make you more prone to mental health issues such as depression. Staying hydrated and consuming a nutrient-rich diet can significantly improve your mental health. As a result, you’ll have fewer depressive episodes and less anxiety, making you more inclined to socialize.
When your mental health is in a good place, you’re less likely to turn to drugs or alcohol to lift your spirits. So if you’re a former alcoholic, maintaining good mental health through proper nutrition can help you avoid the need for alcohol to feel happy, thus preventing relapse.
Your brain produces chemicals called neurotransmitters that regulate your moods. An imbalance in these chemicals can affect your behavior, making you irritable, anxious, or giving you specific cravings. This imbalance can even lead to insomnia, paranoia, fatigue, and memory loss.
Research by Dr. Richard Wurtman shows that the kind of food you eat influences the production of these neurotransmitters. Eating a poor diet or consuming foods lacking in essential nutrients can make you more likely to experience cravings for substances like alcohol to manage mood issues like irritability or depression, increasing the risk of relapse.
Additionally, foods high in refined sugars can damage brain cells. With fewer brain cells, your brain can’t produce enough neurotransmitters to protect itself from oxidative stress.
During the detox stage of recovery from alcohol addiction, your body loses a lot of vitamins and minerals, compounding the nutrients already lost during addiction. This loss can further disrupt digestion and brain function, leading to cravings and depressive episodes that could trigger a relapse.
It’s crucial to eat healthily during detox to replenish these lost nutrients and reduce the risk of relapse. Sometimes, you can substitute food for alcohol cravings. Experts suggest using foods rich in caffeine or sugar to boost dopamine levels as an alternative to indulging in alcohol, but only under medical supervision. Substituting one addiction for another isn’t the goal; both are harmful and should be avoided.
Healthy eating is an integral part of recovering from alcohol addiction. It helps prevent relapse by reducing the chances of depression and other mental illnesses that might drive you back to alcohol. A proper diet also cuts down cravings and speeds up recovery during detoxification. However, always consult a nutritionist before implementing any meal plan to ensure it’s the best fit for you or your recovering loved one.