Edition 45: Adopting a Healing and Recovery Mindset
This week I discuss 8 Key Principles on overcoming and working through addictions with food and other substances.
With gratitude,
❤️ Stephanie 🧠✨🤸♂️🌱
The Freedom to Live 5 things Friday
Every Friday, 5 things of value from the integrative health sciences.
The best of the best functional medicine, educational resources, research, quotes, books, tips, advice etc. all from the key pillars of the integrative health system.
1. What do these 6 substances have in common?
When I polled my audience this week, many answered:
Inflammation
Lower Immune function
Causes/Contributes to intestinal impermeability/leaky gut
Makes us feel sick and tired
Speeds up the aging process
All True. But I was looking for a specific answer. They are all:
Highly Addictive
When dealing with any type of mental illness, depression, anxiety, ADHD, Addiction, there are 2 main causes:
Psychological and Biochemical factors and recovery typically requires a very multidisciplinary and holistic approach.
I used to always separate drug and alcohol addiction with food based addictions as being totally different beasts. But I feel like there isn't a difference, there's variation and levels to addiction, but it's still an addiction.
I outline here today 8 principles of an overall recovery and healing mindset to conquer any type of addiction:
Admit and Acknowledge your addictions. Do you have control and power over the certain external substances such as: drugs, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, gluten, dairy? Do you have full control and willpower to say NO? Have you tried abstaining? 75 days, 30 days, 3 days, 1 day?
Know your WHY. What are the deep reasons WHY you want better? Better health, a better body, a better life, greater purpose? WHY change.
Start with ONE DAY. Don’t think of forever. Just focus on winning the day!
Feel to Heal. To go without is to go within.
Put in the work. Daily.
Acknowledge a force of healing and recovery greater than yourself.
Continue to seek guidance, support, and help along the way.
Heal yourself, Heal Others, Change the World
2. Six Nutritional factors that may be responsible for addiction, dependence, anxiety, depression, and mental illnesses overall.
Melvin Werbach, M.D., author of Nutritional Influences on Mental Illness , wrote that these six nutritional factors play a big role on anxiety, elevated levels of lactic acid, and mental illness overall:
1. Alcohol
2. Caffeine
3. Sugar
4. Deficiency of the B vitamins niacin, pyridoxine, and thiamine
5. Deficiency of calcium or magnesium
6. Food allergens
Source: Werbach M. Nutritional influences on mental illness: a sourcebook of clinical research. Tarzana, Calif.: Third Line Press, 1991.
3. Adopt the ONE DAY mindset
Check out this episode here.
We can do anything for ONE DAY.
If you can do it for ONE DAY you can do it forever.
But don’t think about it forever.
THINK about ONE DAY AT A TIME.
Put in to practice something for ONE DAY and keep going.
Within a short period of time you have multiple days, multiple weeks, multiple months.
What you get is the accumulation of consistent action.
Low calorie diets, restrictive eating, and extreme diets where you are eliminating one of the 3 key macro nutrients long-term perpetuate a falling off the wagon, binging, spiralling behaviours, and just feeling deprived and miserable. Many do not thrive on diets.
Within the context of healing and recovery, eliminating and abstaining from certain addictive substances for a period of time takes on the goal of getting to the root cause of addictions to things like alcohol, drugs, sugar, caffeine, baked goods, or other behaviours.
After a set period of time you need to assess your ability to sustain a healthy relationship with these substances and if the desire is there to yes reintroduce these substances and/or behaviours or to possibly continue abstinence.
One Day at a Time.
Classic 12 Steps of the 12 Step Addiction Recovery Programs
4. To Go Without is to Go Within (Feel to Heal)
As I woke up on day number 42 of my latest 9th attempt of the 75 hard program realizing that I forgot to read my pages, WOW! Really Really!?
Feeling like the worlds biggest looser and a fraud. I just sat with it. I processed it for an entire week. Don’t be too quick to jump back on the horse.
Sit with it. Process it. Ask WHY. Meditate. Go IN.
I had lost way before day 40. I had been sneaking bits of forbidden foods the whole time. Principle #1 admit and acknowledge your addictions. So today I’m day 7 being CLEAN (the six substances) No Alcohol, Drugs, Caffeine, Added Sugar, Gluten, or Dairy. None of it.
I feel great. I feel clear and I have no interference.
But it's still not easy.
Identify your triggers: stress, emotions, mental state.
Feel to heal. Sit with the discomfort. Sit with the hunger and the cravings.
Learn and adapt to go without. Eliminating these substances contributes to healing your inner biochemistry.
Build and Strengthen your mental muscles: willpower, saying NO, abstaining.
5. The G word.
I can’t think of one single recovery and healing story where there wasn’t the presence of the G Word. GOD. A higher force outside of yourself. A higher level of consciousness, prayer, inner knowing, inner wisdom, inner knowledge.
Sometimes we have to eliminate something to get to the life god intended us to live. A life of meaning and happiness.
I hope you enjoyed this week's newsletter/blog and don't forget to check out our brand new podcast version of the Freedom 5 weekly.
If you would like support over the next month, 3 months, 6 months, contact us today to get started on a personalized plan to rebalance your health.