AUGUST 3, 2008

Nutrition and Recovery

Jill: Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, I am Jill Mattingly and I will be your host on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, it is hot, no other term, just like the music we were playing, it is hot, I am absent my co-host Brian Fujii who is vacationing and so I have dragged in our Dr. Lois Dutton, our wonderful Jack of all trades or she does anything you can imagine and she is an addiction counselor, an R.N. with a Ph.D in education and teaches our day addiction treatment and an amazing lady

Lois: I am already here you don’t have to bribe me,

Jill: Dr. Dutton, in the future I will be calling you Lois,

Lois: Absolutely

Jill: We are talking about new issues in addiction, Brian and I have been discussing family recovery and had some amazing calls, King Baby and Queen Baby and if you don’t understand that you can check them out on the website. Also, domestic violence and we have had a lot of information with families in recovery and how they are effected when someone is struggling with substance dependency, and today we are turning over a new leaf and to give you a snapshot we are taking this month to focus on issues and how they weigh in on addiction and substance addiction. The one we are hitting today is nutrition. It is an important component, to use Brian’s words, of (laugh) addiction addiction treatment. If you are not eating correctly or not taking in the nutrition that you need you can have problems with recovery

Lois: Or don’t utilize what you do take in which is another piece of the nutrition deficit.

Jill: There are addiction treatment facilities that that is all they do, they use no meds, psychiatry or cognitive therapy they just concentrate on nutritional deficit, Dr. Joan Larson uses some of these in her addiction treatment and we will be discussing her work in this area as it pertains to addiction to alcohol and to depression and she has tied it to depression. We will spend two Saturdays on nutrition and one Saturday we will hit exercise and there are some exciting new studies showing that recovery is much better accomplished through exercise and they have connected exercise to brain changes and brain healing and we will be talking about a new book out called Spark. We will also hit spirituality and that is huge. There are support systems out there like ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and Celebrate Recvoery atheat weight in heavily on spiritual recovery. An exciting month coming up and for the first time on the air and you will hear more about this. We are heading into September which is National Recovery Month and we have some amazing shows that month and we are attempting a remote radio show broadcast from our Breakthrough Offices in Norcross and you can come see Brian and I and Lois and watch us do the show and see why we are on the radio and not television. (laugh)

Lois: I am excited about the possibilities that we have in the next few months to share with our audience a lot of information not necessarily talking about the destruction of addiction but things that anyone can do to live a healthy lifestyle and with this information we can walk through to be healthy.

Jill: Facilitating knowledge is something I have believed in and you can apply it every day and get the help to identify a problem. If you want to call and join us the number is 770-226-0920 once again, 770-226-0920 you can tune in with us on the internet at 920WGKA.com and click listen live and you can hear the show or call us on that line or an outside line for a toll free it is 1-888-920-2665 anyway, thanks for tuning in and we are now going to hit the ground running and first of all why is the nutritional information, why does that fit so well into the philosophy we have a Breakthrough

Lois: Our philosophy is that addiction is a systemic baffling destructive disease, it involves all body systems and we don’t believe that it is a matter of willpower and white-knuckle yourself into sobriety nor do we believe that it is a matter of character defect, we believe that once you get into the pattern of excessive use that eventually leads to addiction that what we have then is a physical disease. It effects the nervous system and every part of the body and the way we address it is not just talking people into being well like the psychobabble it is not just a psychological illness at this point and it has become a physical illness and people can eventually feel pretty well and get through this to get to the point where not only have we helped them to replenish themselves psychologically physically but to reverse the damage that has been done and to help restore them to a healthy state.

Jill: No two clients are the same and these dependencies never take the same pathway, and to say that one is with alcohol and you go through this door, it is never like that it is always changing and communication going on to find out what it is about and sometimes the client doesn’t even open up and tell us what is going on. This is a marathon and not a sprint and we can get to the bottom of the problem. When you come in it is not a matter of deconstruction it is the layers of problems and falsehoods you believe, you deconstruct those to reconstruct to those that are true. If someone believes they do something because of childhood, deconstructing that to see the real truth, maybe a problem with sugar metabolism and not childhood, so it is a real adventure and there is a lot of diagnostics that go into it and there is a lot of time to be spent with this, so when we return we will talk about nutrition and recovery and how it can keep you from succumbing to certain addictions. 770-226-0920 is the number to call, we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Jill: We are talking about nutrition and how it effects substance addiction and addiction and your recovery once you decide to leave alcohol or drugs behind. We will focus on alcohol today and how it robs the body of certain types of nutrients. First, I have to do a disclaimer and neither Dr. Dutton or I are registered dieticians even though in her nursing experience and my experience as a physicians assistant we have had nutrition courses and tried to eat well ourselves (laugh) however, we are compiling information as it pertains to addiction and trying to give this out in such lay terms and understanding where we understand it also, so at Breakthrough we do a whole um, session devoted to nutrition where we look at the blood work of the client and talk about diet as it was before entering the program and try to look at how it can be changed and what supplements can be added and what is missing and try to you know put in an individual spin on each nutritional situation,

Lois: We kind of see Jill the people coming through the door they are themselves unique. Um, an alcoholic is not necessarily an alcoholic we see various and sundry things change even though they use the same substance and we try to treat everyone individually and on e way we do it is by trying to discern what we are really dealing with here and what are we going to do to put together a sustainable long term recovery plan for this individual so they can succeed.

Jill: Since we are not registered dieticians I thought most out there aren’t either so what we will do is start by just giving some specifics to understand the nutrition and what needs to come into the body to remain healthy and then how that is a little bit different for someone that is let’s say drinking a bottle and a half a night, what is going on with them. F of all looking at the building blocks of what is the outlook for your every day,

Lois: Absolutely, basically 7 really stable um, building blocks that we all need to keep in mind as we um, go through life and the big three that we are all familiar with are protein, fats and carbohydrates. Proteins are very essential because that is where we get the tissue building and the kind of thing in our bodies and is recommended today that some 15% of our intake every day should be in the protein category. The reason that that is so important is because the protein we take in mostly animal because that is a complete protein, um, the reason that is so important to us is because of amino acids that are in the proteins because those are the building blocks and for us it becomes particularly important because there are a group that we know are precursors to um, the neuro transmitters that get depleted in addiction and those are extremely important to us. Then the carbs, now carbs to be healthy need to comprise 60% of dietary intake, however, um, most of those need to be complex carbohydrates in that it takes more to digest to get them into our system and this is our energy fuel and it is immediate and simple sugars, alcohol being one of them when we take in simple sugars they start to process of getting into the bloodstream before the stomach so carbohydrates are important for energy and fuel and they are short lived however, that is why we need balance. We talk about fat Jill and I have had this discussion with you that fats have taken a bad rap here lately and it is like nobody wants to eat it because it ends up on the stomach or hips, but in order to be healthy we have got to have a balance of fats in the diet about 25% and most of those probably need to be um, unsaturated and hopefully when we get further down the road we will talk a bit about it and our understanding of what constitutes saturated and unsaturated and why they are important and will talk about essential fatty acids needed and those are the big three. The biggest one of all however is water. That is the basic body solvent,

Jill: But I am drinking 12 beers a day I get water!

Lois: Right, water is very essential, 60% of what we are is water, um and a diet coke or a cup of coffee or even green tea doesn’t cut it. We need to have just basic good solid water in our system to keep everything operating as it should

Jill: That is what I see you know hospitals that is one thing they do when you get there they plug you into the iv because that will change everything because of fluids

Lois: Alcohol leaches the body fluid and you really do get dehydrated even though 12 beers a day may send you trotting constantly to the depository you still dehydrate

Jill: It looks like we have a call on line 1, Ken in Sandy Springs, hey

Ken: Well, I think nutrition is important to recovery but one reason I called was I am just astounded after 20 some odd years of recovery how insidious the disease is and I have just briefly seen three friends I came to recovery with and one was a counselor at one of the hospitals in Atlanta so she was totally versed in recovery and she herself is back at it again. And I just I am so taken back by this this kind of condition people who have been recovered and if you don’t stay close to recovery and keep up with the maintenance part of it it will get you

Lois: You better believe it will Ken, it is the words that you use are some that I use it is a cunning baffling all consuming systemic illness and um, part of what we need to do is just to stay constantly in the best health that we possibly can if we are going to combat the disease,

Ken:: If you maintain good nutrition and stay well fortified and other tools to use in staying recovered it will do you good but you have to do this or you will go down so quickly if your nutrition is not good

Lois: This is true of anything not just addiction but any illness or any um, state that you find yourself in if you

Ken: The vulnerability of your recovery

Lois: You are right

Ken: The other thing that I am equally astounded by and I am not where you are but I have been trying to bet one of my friends in alcohol detox and into some ki8nd of rehab program and she has no insurance and her life is down the tubes and I have tried but she is not going into recovery. I have spoken to Georgia Crisis and several like St. Judes,

Jill: Is she interested?

Ken: Yes, absolutely

Jill: She is in a place of wanting to do it but you keep hitting the walls? If you would like her to call us and we can hook her up with a counselor maybe she can brainstorm with her to figure out a program to match her to, it is difficult when you get to the point of no monetary ability when you have uh, you have you know are having to work and can’t leave work, all of these things make it very difficult to enter into addiction treatment and that is one of the things we talk about , do something now while you have the insurance while you have the wits about you and the ability to get into a program

Ken: It is a tragedy when you can’t

Jill: There

Ken: It is possible she could die of alcohol poisoning

Jill: Even more so we can definitely talk with her and give her some direction and help her find something that would work for her.

Ken: What do I call

Lois: Call our number at Breakthrough

Jill: Breakthroughaddictionrecvovery.com and she can talk with someone 24 hours a day. The number is 770-734-8091, it is about getting them help when they are ready, thanks Ken for calling, people are listening and hearing what you have said and may get help because of it.

Lois: Thanks Ken

Jill: We are coming to the break Lois and we will talk more about nutrition in recovery when we return. 770-226-0920.

Commercial Break

Jill: That song with KT Tunstall, she was at Botanical Gardens last night, we sat on a blanket and with too many people and it was really hot but I tell you what those gardens outdoor concerts, Tom Waites, Lucinda Williams, they are really neat and if you are an Atlantan and want something to do I think there are only a few more left but,

Lois: We do things like that outside of the perimeter too.

Jill: Well I am an inside/outside but that is too much to explain, so anyway, KT Tunstall was a firecracker. Um, we are talking about nutrition and addiction and the two do have something to do with each other as we just got from the caller he brought out a great point and that is if you don’t take care of your body you will fall into the trap that this disease sets for you.

Lois:; And when we talk about um, the whole relapsing part of this disease it has to do with not taking care of yourself and allowing the little tentacles of this disease to get into the picture when you are not really taking care of yourself. Let’s keep going on the building blocks, we have talked about the big three and water which is the international solvent for all going into the body and then we have this whole array of vitamins and minerals and special supplements that um, we in America really need because we have such a wholesale de-neutering of our basic intake but those are the building blocks of keeping us healthy and helping us to make it year to year without some of these basics that come in Jill we will find ourselves in a little bit of a deficit posture

Jill: Then you throw in alcohol that steals the nutrients out from under us and that is something that many don’t understand but in order to understand nutrition you have to understand malnutrition and mal means bad, bad nutrition. There are two types of mal nutrition first is primary, you take nothing in and your body will slowly die because it is stealing the nutrients from itself and you will eventually steal enough that your heart gives out and your brain stops functioning

Lois: In third world countries

Jill: Yes, then there is someone walking into a addiction treatment facility in wealth, they suffer from secondary malnutrition where someone has damaged their body in a way that they are not able to use the nutrients that they take in and that sounds crazy but it really does happen here in America that we damage ourselves to the point where we do not use the rich wonderful foods we take in. Now we are at the end of this segment and I want to talk about secondary malnutrition and how it pertains to the liver, so if you have questions call 770-226-0920, stay with us.

Commercial Break

Jill: Welcome back, nutrition and addiction, we stopped last segment with mal nutrition and most know the signs of someone having primary malnutrition they are wasting away they look terrible and could even be brought on by anorexia where you take in nothing as a matter of fact, that song came from that movie, The Devil Wears Prada, remember the girl that wouldn’t eat but one cheese cube, so we will leave that and come to the secondary

Lois: I am forever overwhelmed at

Jill: My knowledge

Lois: Music with whatever you do,

Jill: Yes, well my next job will be Broadway star, anyway, secondary malnutrition has a lot to do with the fact that you can not use what you are eating or drinking and what or how in the world can that happen in a world that we live in we have so much nutrition at our fingertips, this morning at the farmer’s market in Piedmont Park, I saw the plethora of vegetables, they were beautiful the things available to us and yet people even though they are partaking of those foods are not getting any nutrition, so how does that happen, well, when the liver becomes damaged it is not able to do what it was destined to do and that is to be one of the most important tools of those building blocks and one of the things people don’t sometimes understand is that they are important for the processing and storage of our vitamins. There is no way we can hold on or create the molecules we need to create brain tissue and have the neuro transmitters we need to crate the tissue to heal portions of our body if your liver is not working properly and you can eat and drink but if you can’t process it is an empty factory.

Lois: The liver is our bodies workhorse no question about it and when it is not functioning properly it makes us sick in all kinds of different areas.

Jill: What usually is tied into liver problems is heavy alcohol use you know when someone comes into the program we look at what is going on already and most people do have some signs of liver problems it doesn’t mean that the liver is shutting down, the liver is a workhorse and wants you to survive so it can take a whole lot even though it is stressed it has a long way to go before throwing in the towel, so what we need to do when people come into the program is understand where they are with their liver function now. Do they need further testing or is this just a problem because of the drinking every day and once you stop the offending agent the liver says thank you and returns to normal. What a forgiving organ

Lois: Up to a point however

Jill: Secondary malnutrition can come from liver damage. Now, secondary malnutrition can come from faulty understanding of what a person actually needs in order to heal or recover from something like long term alcohol dependence. I know that there are certain things that a person in recovery from alcohol dependence absolutely needs and that goes into picking out the building blocks we were talking about. What strikes you as the most important to be replenished once the alcohol or offending agent is gone

Lois: The most important in the process is the B complex vitamins, they have such facility in our bodies and that is the thiamin riboflavin niacin and B12 all of these that are absolutely essential for normal nervous system function. They are relaxation and anti stress vitamins and our anti-fatigue vitamin and the deficiency of these vitamins lead to um, insomnia to loss of appetite anemia and reduced immune function so that whole complex of vitamins and deficiency that big big stumbling block that we need here in our vitamins is absolutely critical for us to make sure that we get those and we always tell the client that to buy a good basic balanced B to take daily as part of that recovery process is important.

Jill: That really is a building block, I hate to keep using that but it keeps coming up and it is important to recovery and getting those vitamins back on board. One thing we do know is that you end up excreting uh, much of the nutritional things you take in and B complex or the thiamin and B12 are lost exponentially when you drink. Let me say this too, if you are drinking daily and you think it really doesn’t cause a problem and won’t be seen and it is nothing and not hurting my health and you go to the doctor and they look at your labs and macrosytosis you have large red blood cells and they are going to look at you and ask if you drink alcohol and that signal on blood work which is on your CBC which is a study of your blood cells will tell a doctor that you are drinking heavily and you are losing essential things like thiamin and B12 that allow for your red blood cells to be formed normally in your bone marrow, so don’t be surprised if the blood work gives you away even if the liver is great

Lois: The same is true of the kidney function we see dehydration and things like that that show up in the urinalysis and give us a kind of a warning and

Jill: And so it looks like we are at the end of the segment, let’s talk more about protein, fats and carbohydrates, and other important vitamins when we come back, 770-226-0920 call in and stay with us.

Commercial Break

Jill: 770-226-0920 is the number to call for the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, my name is Jill Mattingly and with me is Dr. Lois Dutton and it is already the end of the show and we are on the web at breakthroughaddictionrecovery.com and there is so much information on our website and if you want to get more about treating dependency you can start there and truly if you would like to talk to us and get a free consultation we are located in Norcross and you can call us on our office phone at 770-734-8091 but right now our call in number is 770-226-0920, when we left last segment the B complex that is not a place in a person’s condo association (laugh) the B complex if you are just tuning in is thiamin, B12, niacin and they are very important and we know that alcohol use can deplete a person of some of the most important B vitamins especially if you are doing daily use, um, I want to get to at least one other of the supplements before the end of the show and we can continue next week. What is another important one?

Lois: If we were going to choose one that is critical we would have to go with the calcium/magnesium combination because it is the anti stress mineral and it relaxes muscle and does all kinds of things and is very important and there was a time we used magnesium in combination with calcium as part of the alcohol detox process and we know that alcohol causes tremendous amounts of these minerals to be leached out of the system and they in combination regulate heart and muscle contraction and nerve conduction and their deficiencies cause tremors depression irritability and insomnia with hypertension and so these are extremely important minerals to be replenished in the whole process of recovery

Jill: That is something that we do also when we alcohol detox a client we add the supplements to their regime. Just not medications because many need to be on medications coming through and some more than others, but there are supplements and vitamins minerals that they need to have while alcohol detoxing. Magnesium is one of them, if the symptoms of magnesium deficiency are depression tremors hallucinations hypertension, that is like explaining withdrawal

Lois: Absolutely, maybe not so much the toxicity as it is the depletion of some of the vitamins and minerals that some don’t have.

Jill: Replacing these very important minerals and vitamins are so important during that process, and it is hard to know chicken or the egg in that position it takes time to all shake out and you can see what was causing the problem and we can easily adjust that,. The other thing that I know we won’t have a lot of time for but is the anti-oxidants, to me the vitamin A, C, E, all of those are very important also when coming through withdrawal or trying to recovery too. We are coming to the end of the show and this is why we are doing nutrition next week. We will get a little bit more into specifics about what happens when you addiction substances and how the nutrition outlook of your body is effected and what you can do for recovery, wwwbreakthroughaddictionrecovery.com, you can go there and get the information you need. Lois, thanks so much for being here and I will look forward to seeing you next week along with Brian. We hope everyone has enjoyed the show today and when we return next week we will learn more about nutrition and after that exercise. Thank you for joining us today, keep cool.