Nutrition for a Strong Recovery from Alcohol Addiction

Congratulations on making your first steps toward a healthy recovery from alcohol addiction. If you’re reading this post, you’re likely well on your way toward a strong, lifelong recovery, and you should be incredibly proud. If you’re just starting out on that road to wellness, you are making excellent progress by educating yourself on the whole-body aspects of recovery, as nutrition, lifestyle, and exercise are incredibly important aspects of recovery but are often overlooked by individuals and treatment programs.

So what does nutrition have to do with recovery from alcohol addiction? Quite a bit, actually. And though vices like coffee, sugary snacks, and even cigarettes are commonly known to go hand in hand with recovery programs, each of these actually produces stimulants in the brain similar to those produced by alcohol, which may increase a person’s likelihood of relapse.

You may be interested in: ‘Healthy Challenges: Embracing a Healthy Lifestyle’, an article reviewing the steps we are taking in our own treatment programs to incorporate a healthier lifestyle with a focus on nutrition and fitness.

While sugar, nicotine, and caffeine produce similar sensations in the brain to those produced by alcohol use, there are also many healthy foods which will not only support your long-term recovery, they can actually help to repair past damage to your body and organs that was caused by alcohol overuse.

Dr. Maura Henninger, a board-certified Naturopathic Physician, included these foods in her list of the holistic foods for early recovery in an article published on the Huffington Post:

• To Stabilize Blood Sugar (avoiding the fatigue, anxiety, and mood swings caused by sugar):
  • Avoid sugary snacks and beverages.
  • Eat complex carbohydrates, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
• To Repair Tissue & Restore Organ function:
  • Increase your intake of lean proteins such as nuts, lean meat and fish.
• To Minimize Anxiety and Insomnia:
  • Reduce or eliminate caffeine.
• To Ease the Strain on the Liver:
  • Eat natural, organic, non-processed foods as often as possible. The already-taxed liver has to work harder to break down chemicals and preservatives.
• To Improve the Body’s Own Detoxing Functions:
  • Incorporate into your diet the vitamins that support the body’s adrenal system (which naturally rids the body of toxins). These include Vitamins B3, B1, and B5.

Read the full article at the Huffington Post.

Disclaimer: WestBridge, Inc. has not performed any research on these dietary recommendations in our recovery programs, and we have no affiliation with Dr. Henninger; however her reasoning is valid and the foods listed as recommendations are all nutritious and part of a well-balanced diet. We leave the decision to you, the reader, as to whether you feel these foods will strengthen your own recovery.