Recovering addicts face many hurdles on the road to sobriety; from triggers that cause the behaviors to manifest themselves to the effects of the short or long-term use of alcohol or drugs; many factors can contribute to a successful recovery. One of the biggest factors that can help an addict clean up is nutrition and fitness. Think in terms of ingesting alcohol or drugs and the depletion of nutrients entering the human body. Lacking in nutrients can have adverse health effects, alcohol can prevent the nutrient breakdown in the human body, opiates cause gastrointestinal problems that lead to intense vomiting during withdrawal, while stimulants suppress appetite causing a lack of caloric intake that will affect immune systems.
Also, lifestyle is a big factor when it comes to drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Many addicts would sooner choose a drink, pill or a line before they would ever have a full and balanced meal that healthy living will afford. A growing consensus among experts is leading the charge toward nutrition as a form of therapy that will help recovering addicts stay clean and sober due to a number of different factors.
Here’s How Nutrition Helps with Recovery:
Repairing Damage
Engaging in a healthy diet will help repair the damage that addiction has caused, and some effects will be noticeable right away, while others not so much but the healing process will have begun. Nutrients will give the body energy, help restore organ damage and bolster immune systems. Recovering addicts many times have damaged organs from the abuse they have put their bodies through and a healthy diet will help restore the building blocks that will re-invigorate the body from a physical standpoint.
Boosting Mood & Energy Levels
Nutrition also plays a key role in mood enhancement, as a healthy diet will affect brain chemistry in a way that may seem foreign initially, but will pay dividends in the long run. The chemical influence on a healthy diet will also play upon physiological effects of behavior and will make one feel ‘better’ due to the increase of nutrients in the system.
What this means is recovery can have a big upside when balanced with proper nutrition. When a recovering addict, or someone going through dual diagnosis rehab treatment, is engaged in a proper diet, the benefits are that they feel better physically, they have more energy, and the nutrients are repairing the previous damage that the addiction has wrought. Mentally, the foods that are chosen as part of the diet will affect mood and put the addicted one in a better place mentally to reduce the relapse factor because the recovering addict isn’t feeling depressed or anxious as in the past.
Getting Reacquainted
Occasionally, hardcore addicts misinterpret the pangs of hunger as a craving for their personal drug of choice and inevitably relapse back into old behaviors. To combat that factor it is important to eat many healthy meals to re-acquaint the human body with food and all the benefits a healthy diet will have on the addict.
When investigating nutrition as a weapon to combat addiction, it is important to seek the assistance of a trained nutritionist to develop a diet that will be effective in combating the ravages of drug or alcohol addiction. Having a balanced diet that is tailored to a particular condition can spur recovery and return the addict to a place of peace and harmony where they can function in everyday life.
Call Beachside today at 866-349-1770 to learn more about the role of nutrition in drug and alcohol rehab treatment.