Jill: The support slice is building that spiritual program so what we come down to is looking at the approach to treating the addiction as treating the mind, body and spirit. We have talked about nutrition, medication and medicine, this program today we are going to start looking at what the spiritual program can be built when it comes to recovery and what we are recognizing is that this is a pluralistic society and there are many ways to reach out for a spiritual connection and many paths that people try and we are going to take a portion of that whole pluralistic society and most is Judeo-Christian and with AA being founded on those principles, we will talk about building that program from the eyes and words of maybe a Christian program. So we will look at that today and we will also have time next week to look at other types of programs that a person can build for themselves also. We are at the end of this segment and I want to remind you that this is a call in show and I know you could be formulating questions or ideas so the number you can call is 770-226-0920 again it is, 770-226-0920. Now if you would like to listen live on the computer www.920wgka.com and hit listen live. Stay with us and we will be back talking about another aspect of the spiritual program and try to get some of these questions answered. Stay with us.Commercial Break

Grady: What an interesting time to speak of it. For those who watched the Saddleback forum in politics, that church is where it began with Rick Warren. It was started in 1991 by Rick who wrote the Purpose Driven Life and John Walker and in that church alone out of that one church over 7000 people have gone through this program. Success is just tremendous.

Jill: Grady I thank you so much for calling us and giving us another interesting resource, I think that a lot of people don’t know there is something like this out there to help not only with addictions but with life problems, so we really do appreciate it and I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks again for calling in. Jeff, in just talking about the resources, when people do come to you and are talking about you know how they are struggling with alcohol and I feel like I can’t talk to anyone else about this, what is the first thing that you start with as a pastor

Jeff: Usually we start with a, well, going back again to formation of beliefs to come to a place where you understand that you are loved that God does love you and find you acceptable through Christ that you know, we talked a bit about self-worth and the saying is that something is worth what someone else will [pay for it and from a Christian perspective we have been bought with a price and so we can always look at this as this is who I truly am and God dictates what I am worth. So this way you know that you are not a hopeless loser, you are a beloved child of God as a believer in Christ.

Jill: So this is something someone could find in their own church and go to a pastor or lay leader and ask for help with this type of need.

Lois: Many churches have their own counseling centers that are Christ centered and are there and reach out to not only members of their own denomination but the community, and uh, explore the spiritual need that they have and the spiritual hurt.

Jill: Looks like we are at another break so what I would like to do is give the number 770-226-0920 and if you uh, want to call and comment or ask a question we would love to hear from you, so stay with us we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Jill: We are back and the number is 770-226-0920, Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, and we are talking about approaches to helping a person or yourself in recovery we have been talking about the perverbial addiction or addiction addiction treatment pie and this is not a cooking show as I stated earlier but the pie has segments of or facets that need to be addressed the physical, the psychiatric, the psychological and the support and we haven’t even gotten to the family slice of the pie and we do that many times in this show about helping families address dependencies and addictions in their family and how it effects the family as a whole but also the family can act as a support system for the person going through an addiction, when we came down to it we started talking about the support slice and how building a spiritual program can many times address a very big part of how a person can get through recovery and stay in recovery and so we have asked Pastor Jeff Earle today and Dr. Lois Dutton is also my co-host. We have been talking about how you build a spiritual program in recovery and for many people there are many different views and today we are coming from a Judeo Christian viewpoint and so Lois at the break we spoke of pain and when someone is in pain they are much likely to seek out and that may be could be through someone in the church or a pastor you know uh, talk about how that may happen like hypothetical situation.

Lois: Many times what we see in this whole beginning to recognize the throws of addiction that people start down this journey as a result um, the pain that the addiction has caused in their lives and it is not only the physical and the psychological but the pain they feel deep inside in their spirit and that is generally in all of my years of experience is what I see being the most likely catapult into addiction treatment is when they are hurting enough spiritually inside and negated so many important relationship like family and those with friends with that basic basic support system and they really are needing a kind of conversation that will help them heal and they will very often turn to their church and when they do they will go to the pastor or to a leader in the church or some friend and um, those that’s usually the first step.

Jeff: What I have found is that a lot of times it can work the opposite. Some will feel as if they don’t want the pastor to know and then he will have a dim view of them that he might well, so many times there is a performance based track and we put up the mask and the appearance of everything being right and although there is spiritual and psychological pain no one will ever know. And so the last thing they want to do is reveal it to the church so they hide it which causes it to magnify even more inside because then they become hopeless, they ask where to go or where to turn

Jill: Would you tell someone to talk to their pastor?

Jeff: Well yes, in certain cases

Jill: Really, because some come into our program that are like not wanting anyone to know what they are struggling with and for many people I will tell them that they are here and they are getting their addiction treatment needs addressed, but it is interesting that that could weigh on them if they don’t get into a truthful situation with someone.

Jeff: A lot of times it is driven by a, for a lack of better words, a lack of trust in the pastor, they are afraid and don’t think they can reveal this thing that is going on inside of them because of the appearances and they don’t trust him enough to lovingly embrace them and say I understand and let’s find a solution and correct your belief processes that have brought you here.

Lois: It really does Jeff, it goes back to what you said of them having bruised and battered self image and the sense of self worth that it is difficult to open your heart and lay it out for scrutiny um, even by the people who are in the strongest spiritual positions in our lives like the pastors and counselors and like our family members. It is very difficult to open up, it is easier to have Jill look at my liver enzymes because those are factual kinds of things I can have excuses for but if I come to you and speak of my shame and degradation that I feel and the remorse and the regret and how nobody could possibly love me because I don’t like who I am, I have violated everything that is important to me my sense of integrity and character all of those deep inside me for which our psychiatrist is not going to have a prescription for but the prescription is going to lie in the way that I handle that deep hurt and that would be coming to someone like you Jeff that I know will not judge me and not condemn me,

Jill: Well that is a wonderful way to put it Lois, I think I understand now, you know what someone is dealing with on the inside, there are so many things not just to heal the liver but heal what the spirit is going through too. That is one of the reasons we have found that this is a complex situation cause there are so many ideas and thoughts about a spiritual program and today we are looking at this from the Judeo Christian aspect and I hope that you are getting something out of this and when we come back we will have a few more questions for Pastor Jeff and let him go back to Acworth. Stay with us, 770-226-0920 we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Jill: I like to look at it as the self medication for those deep down hurts and also the self medication for anxiety and co-occurring problems, and at Breakthrough if someone requests a spiritual approach to helping them you know we want you to know that we will uh, recommend resources in the community your church if that is something that you want to pursue. Sometimes Jeff is called on and he is a wonderful pastoral counselor and I think that you have really made a difference in people’s lives by being available to those struggling.

Jeff: Thanks

Jill: I want to say um, with such a complex issue as this there is a lot of emotion and passion that surrounds this I think it is just going to have to be looked at and then you start to find the person that can help you build that program and it doesn’t have to be a cookie cutter approach,

Lois: That is one of the things that sets Breakthrough apart, as each person comes in we don’t give everyone the same pill and tell them to sin no more kind of thing, we try to take the time to really pick apart what the person needs and we have a whole year of a program and our aftercare program is around for a year and we don’t make any promises to people and we just can not do that and we have learned that is not the way to approach people.

Jill: I have seen amazing response to that approach for the time I have been at Breakthrough. So, we tried to tackle it Lois, we tried building the spiritual program and you can always call us in Norcross at 770-734-8091, check the website. We will be back next week.

AUGUST 16, 2008

Brian: Welcome Atlanta to the Breakthrough Addicition Recovery Hour, I am Brian Fujii your host for the hour and hope you are having a wonderful day. There is a lot of activity in Atlanta today and hope you are keeping yourself safe and we have a wonderful show set up for you and today we are going to be talking about spirituality and recovery. You may wonder what that has to do with recovery but you will learn a lot today of how spirituality plays a critical role in staying clean and sober. My guest today is Leslie and she has a lot of recovery under her belt and so we have her to talk with us about the topic. Welcome Leslie,

Leslie: Thanks so glad to be here

Brian: We will be discussing how our spiritual component, we get confused sometimes between religion and spirituality, how do you look at it?

Leslie: Well, I think that it is different for everyone but I don’t think um, in recovery spirituality is looked at as a path um, and I would like to preface before speaking that I am not an expert on recovery or spirituality and this is my experience. Um, I don’t think that religion is necessary for recovery but it can certainly can be integrated into recovery, I believe recovery promotes spirituality because of the open ended path that allows for each person to have their own unique experience with their religion or how they relate to a higher power and how they come to believe in a higher power where it is a little less dogmatic and a little less close ended because the nature of alcoholics and addicts is that they are very defiant.

Brian: Yes, in that area of denial and minimizing, you know I read an article that said an addict still using has a strong tendency toward self centeredness. Everything is about them, everything is revolving around them. Then at some point they have to realize that that kind of thought process really begins to interfere with the significant relationships in their lives. As you begin looking at recovery, it is trying to realize that there are others in your world and how they need in some way to begin re-integrating themselves back into those meaningful relationships. Many times in addiction treatment a lot of our clients will say that they know they have a problem but I have a problem with trust. The big thing is that their family has no trust in them anymore and there is a void a huge gap and I think spirituality helps address the concept

Leslie: It is said often that believing in something bigger than ourselves. If I am the center of the universe then that doesn’t leave me very open to build relationships and look outside of myself for any purpose. For family or for job or my community anything like that so I think that what that does more than anything is that it really gets people to if they have a connection with God it is much easier in my experience to have a connection with others.

Brian: I think that idea is a real key component because we find that people through boredom, isolation or lonliness has nothing to do with connectivity and as a result the tendency to self medicate and feel better. This is a call in show and we would love to have your opinion and this may be a topic that you would like to talk about and give us a call and participate and the discussion, 770-226-0920 again that number is 770-226-0920 and if you are outside the Atlanta area it is 888-920-2625. We are learning here about connectedness and I think that is certainly one of the major issues in addiction is that more and more a person moves into addiction the more and more isolated they become.

Leslie: Yes, that is my experience,

Brian: Do they feel more depressed? More anxiety?

Leslie: For me, I felt a lot of anger, um, for me when I was isolating myself and getting into the depths of my alcoholism and addiction and it was more about handling everything myself and being independent and fixing all of my own problems and I didn’t need anyone. My family is extremely supportive and loving and I didn’t want anything to do with them on that level, but I think a lot of that comes from shame and I know for me a lot comes from shame because the principles I had before drinking and using had gone away by the time I was in the depths of my using. I was ashamed of that and everyone around me that knew me before could see that in me, so I did not want them around and so it was a lot of anger and that is actually what ended leading me to my spirituality because in the beginning people would say try relying on God for that for little and big things, I would think that couldn’t work, I did try anyway and tried to look at others lives that had their act together. That happened over and over until I started to believe it myself. I would rely on God for something because it had worked in the past so maybe it will work again, and now I know that it will work,

Brian: It becomes a part of you right. As we begin to experience that relationship and the ability to communicate and connect with that spiritual component of ourselves, we really begin to have a confidence and the ability to have that inner peace that comes about when you have that because you don’t feel as if you carry the burden yourself.

Leslie: Absolutely, I talk about it being the hustle in my head when I am trying to figure out if what I want to do is in my own will or if I want to do God’s will and when I stop that arguing back and forth trying to justify it and find an excuse and have that sense of inner peace, then I know that it is God’s will.

Brian: This topic may be hitting a nerve so give us a call, 770-226-0920 or outside our area, 888-920-2625. Today our friend Leslie is with us discussing spirituality playing a role in recovery and she has a lot of recovery time under her belt and has gone through the throws of moving from isolation and abandonment and guilt and shame and so we do know it deals with self esteem. We are getting close to the break so let’s take a look at that piece of how guilt and shame impacts a person’s self esteem and how that sometimes moves them to self medicate to feel better, ok? The number here is 770-226-0920 and give us a call we would love to have you as a part of this discussion and we will be right back after the break.

Commercial Break

Brian: Make sure that if you try to get into the park today that you go to the Celebrate Wellness Pavillion and go by our booth, later on in the show, my co hort there is going to give us a call and an update as to what is going on at our booth. So, if you are on your way to the Celebrate Freedom stop by and look at some of the items we have there. Ok, Leslie, I appreciate again you being with us, spirituality and recovery we were at the close of the first break what we had talked about was the feeling of guilt or shame that one feels so many times when they are using and I know that many times tied to that is this feeling of perfectionism. I have got to be good enough and I know that many times the people I work with have that feeling that they are not good enough or smart enough and can’t do things well enough and therefore the guilt or feeling of low self esteem creeps in and until they can address that what we find out is that they move to self medication. Take a look at this idea of recovery and then having that spiritual component to help redefine us because after all we are a complete human being when you look at that.

Leslie: For me growing up I never felt good enough and I could not tell you why I didn’t because it did not come from my family I briefly in my teens started going to church on my own and the way I interpreted it was that I needed to be perfect and that was not the churches fault, it was a wonderful church it was just they way I had interpreted it and I have always been very resistant to asking for help and so when I found drugs and alcohol not that long after I started having trouble interpreting what the church was trying to teach me and it took away that feeling of needing to be perfect and then I didn’t care but getting sober I still again that feeling of not being good enough returned and I could not tell you what good enough was and I knew I did not feel that way. So, the way and this is sort of come to me over the years, um, and just to let people know um, I have not had a drop of alcohol since December of 1994 and no drugs since April of 1995. It has taken me quite some time to get to this point of how I believe but the way I believe about spirituality and God now is um, I believe that if I do my best and I have to be reasonable with myself on what my best is, but if I do my best in every situation I learn from it and try to do different next time and I feel I have approval from God and no other approval is bigger for me. I believe that with all of my heart and I believe that in my gut and what I believe in my head that I am trying to get into my heart and gut is that God loves me and approves of me all the time no matter what. Right now it is in my head and I don’t know why it is in my heart

Brian: That is a perfect example of how differences between and real healthy spirituality and in contrast to what we may call toxic faith where so many people have this preconceived notion that all that their spirituality consists of is just the injection whereas where you have genuine spirituality we realize that it is acceptance and love and understanding and compassion.

Leslie: And I do think that that is the teaching of many religious practices but I believe it is interpreted a bit askew from the love and acceptance or how you can achieve that.

Brian: When you think like what you said initially that when you yourself feel you are not good enough or smart enough, then those particular feelings of rejection and non acceptance really is something fabricated from within because we don’t feel good about ourselves, not because of our spiritual component but reality is that many times when we don’t feel good about ourselves we ascribe those attributes to someone else that we consider is judging us rather than liking us just the way we are,.

Leslie: I have a friend that says God thinks she is the coolest thing since sliced bread and I love that.

Brian: Hey, we have Jill on the phone from the festival,

Jill: Hey Brian the traffic getting here was not as bad but it is huge! They have got all of the bands going on there are people everywhere and the special Wellness Pavilion is amazing with exhibitors um, people are everywhere Brian and it has been an exciting day.

Brian: Do we have a lot of those people coming by?

Jill: You know when someone walks by they stand there for a minute then all of a sudden say how they would like to share something about a friend or a parent. It opens up all sorts of doors to talk about people with the struggle of addiction and there are so many here where it touches their lives in one way or another.

Brian: Being out there and exposed I think to know that we are a resource for this area and those that are struggling is probably an eye opener and a lot of folks don’t know how addiction treatment can be provided.

Jill: WGKA has a huge booth out here and they were doing some live shows and the morning drive guy Joel was talking and it was kind of exciting and 104.7 FISH, Mercy Me and a lot of great bands, if you are heading this way, ignore the traffic and come on out for an evening of free music and come by and see us at our booth here in the Wellness Pavilion.

Brian: What are the hours for the event?

Jill: Actually it started early this morning they had a huge crowd because Third Day played early and now it will go to about 10 or 11 tonight. So if you come down now listen to WGKA all of the way and it is going to be fun because it is getting more and more crowded as the day goes on and it is a light happy atmosphere and they are having fireworks after the concerts.

Brian: Well Jill we are at the break and I just know that we will continue to let people know about the booth and it is right there in that pavilion. I will keep pushing it.

Jill: We are giving away some music cds for folks in recovery with some encouraging music. It helps in the journey, so come on down everyone.

Brian: Thanks for the call.

Commercial Break

Brian: What can we focus on in our last few minutes? Let’s ask you to come back after the break what one or two of those values you have found very important to you personally to maintain sobriety. 770-226-0920 we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Brian: Welcome back to Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, my name is Brian Fujii and we are sharing on the topic of spirituality and recovery. You know before that last break we had a call from Jill Mattingly at the Conyers Horse Park where they are celebrating freedom, so if you are on your way, join us at the booth and I know Jill would be so happy to hear from you. Leslie, as we came to the break you read off a wonderful list of qualities that I know many people struggle with in their areas of recovery because going back again to values, one of the things we have seen in addiction treatment is that as people move into addiction many times their values are compromised and then their relationships also and so many times people come in to addiction treatment and they are feeling so bad because you know now they are either struggling at home or at work and children can feel detached and alienated and so this list that you read about recovering some of the key core values are so critical in helping people to re-establish their own feelings of self esteem because we know that when people are in this area of addiction, self esteem gets diminished. How did that list that you read could you share one or two that are significant.

Leslie: Well I think the first one for me was really significant was honesty because not only was I lying to others but the person I lied to the most was myself and in trying to get better in anything that I was trying to accomplish if I wasn’t honest with myself I was not from a realistic platform and not looking at what the problem really is then how am I ever going to work on it. Um, so for me that was a huge one. The other was my favorite was humility and I have um, a great quote about humility “Humility is an honest appraisal of who and what we really are followed by sincere attempt to become what we could be.” That is something I keep in mind on a daily basis most days.

Brian: We have to have that vision of what we could be and strive for it, I know that is certainly one of the areas or the major is humility when people are in the throws of addiction it is truly as in the beginning essential self centeredness as if the world revolves around the addict and until then when they realize that there are others in the world to help us and support us and give us that sense of well being that we know we can have, we isolate ourselves from the real source. 770-226-0920 again, 770-226-0920 is the phone number to call and get in on this engaging conversation.

Another area Leslie is you know, what is security, we talk about people saying that they do not feel secure or feel like they are floating they don’t feel anchored especially in addiction when individuals are trying to find a sense of centeredness and the way they feel that they are in some way um, anchored instead of feeling that they are just scattered. I sense a scatteredness and in that there is a desire to try to find focus and without focus we find people using in order for them to get that focus. When you look at the word security it comes along with part of the list you gave to us, um, I am wondering what it is that when people look at security are they afraid of it being destroyed or what is it? Are they afraid of clean and sober?

Leslie: That is where the honesty comes in. My security is based on the knowledge and belief that I have that God is always there for me. Um, you know and that God is excited when I am excited and if I am kind of strained from what I know is the right thing for me to do, he just waits for me to turn around and ask his help. I think the only thing that could destroy me is if I turn my back on God and I know that it is very difficult for people to in recovery but I have seen people survive deadly diseases and I have seen people survive disaster and people losing their children in recovery and then stay sober through all of these things.

Brian: How do they do it. It is so difficult when a life circumstance and they feel victimized and in that victimization they feel that something or someone has done it to them again and so in that victimization how can we help our audience maybe to realize that you know problems do occur whether you are drinking or drugging or not. One of the things I share is that just because you stop does not mean life’s problems go away, in fact they could get more intense because of your sobriety.

Leslie: That is where a lot of people get off track because of the intense and immense grief, and a lot of addicts you know we don’t want to feel um, and so very strong feelings like that I can see how they can be overwhelming and what get’s them through is faith.

Brian: We are coming to the break Leslie let’s dovetail on that because faith comes from within and not without and it is something that we must realize is an inner resource, 770-226-0920. We will be right back.

Commercial Break

Brian: Again Leslie, recovery truly is not an “I” program it is a “We” program because many think they can do it on their own and they have tried their best to do it that way and I would say to the audience that you need to stop doing it that way, it doesn’t work so try something else. A community that is in recovery you have a support group as we do called Smart Recovery on Thursdays from 6 – 7 pm and it is a growing amazing group. They are supportive and call each other on the other stuff. It is a wonderful experience and also many as they come through the program to understand the addiction and the medical aspects of their addiction and how their brains have changed it has changed lives because information is powerful, so as we take a look at this whole concept of recovery and we understand that people need to turn back to the core values that is going to be a key as people take that as one other component helping themselves stay clean and sober. We are at the end of our show and so to our audience what would be one thought you could leave with them to help someone that is struggling today.

Leslie: I think that God is with us all the time we just have to call on him.

Brian: Thank you very much and I hope you have gotten something out of our program. If you are on I20 headed to the Horsepark go by and say hi to Jill at the Celebrate Wellness Pavilion. We will be back next week. Take Care.

AUGUST 9, 2008

NUTRITION AND RECOVERY

Jill:  Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, My name is Jill Mattingly I will be your host today and joining me once again is Dr.

Lois Dutton, welcome

Lois,

Lois:  It is so good to be here, a beautiful day, I did my 6 miles on the trail and it was gorgeous!

Jill:  You just made me speechless, that brings me to the first item, the Olympics.  You could be a speed walker right? 

Lois:  I… don’t think so (laugh) I didn’t say that I split the concrete, I just said I walked.

Jill:  Well, Dr. Dutton who I will refer to as  

Lois, we are going to talk a bit more about nutrition and I was speaking with

Lois and our engineer Gene and we had the Olympics on in the studio and how the whole world tuned in to see the Bejing opening ceremony last night,  did you see it

Lois?

Lois:  No, I didn’t

Jill:  Well then the whole world saw it and you didn’t.  (laugh)  Ok, well I just I am an Olympic freak

Lois:  I blew that one out of the water huh?

Jill:  Ok, you and me Gene.  Anyway back in 1996 I was an EMT at the Olympics and got to work the Georgia Dome, maybe I shouldn’t say this being in

Atlanta and someone may hunt me down for this but I did hang from the rings on the gymnastics floor.

Lois:  Really? 

Jill:  Do you know how high those rings are?  A guy had to lift me and I looked like an elephant being hoisted up to the rings, they had to hoist me and I hung from them and got my picture taken and I hung from the uneven bars, but I don’t think the paramedics were supposed to do that but we had a blast

Lois:  I tell you Gene, these are the things memories are made of

Jill:  I did not sleep for 2 weeks that summer, it was so much fun.

Lois:  You really are a freak when it comes to the Olympics

Jill:  I watched the first gold medal ceremony this morning and we won the first one for fencing and a female and it was a sweep.  The females from the

US won the gold, silver and bronze and I was so proud.  Anyway, we are going to get back to our subject today at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, we are talking about nutrition and how it applies to the care of someone that is struggling with a addiction on a substance such as alcohol or other drugs, a lot of times much of the things we look up on the internet about nutrition and addiction focus in on alcohol and there isn’t much that talks about opiates but we are trying to make this as general as possible so that it will help anyone that is struggling with addiction because it is tied back into brain chemistry and that is something that relies heavily on adequate nutrition. 

Lois:  Most any kind of toxic substance Jill, we know has the same kind of short circuiting in the brain chemistry and as such one of the natural ways to try and help replenish and restore and get back on an even keel is through good solid nutrition

Jill:  That is why we devoted the shows last week and this week to nutrition.  If you have someone to call and tell them to listen to what we have to say and you can call in and get in on the conversation and ask questions, call 770-226-0920 that number again is 770-226-0920 hold on to that number because later on we will give something away, I am in the Olympic mood, not my gold medal from 1974

Lois:  Not a stalk of broccoli or cauliflower

Jill : I would love to give something away, keep the number handy and I will be hopefully giving something away later on today

Lois:  Just give us a call

Lois:  That is a good ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS term.  Yes,

Jill:  What we would like to do is get further into deconstruction of how nutrition needs to be approached and construct a good understanding of how nutrition effects addiction recovery.

Lois:  To recap quickly, we know the basics that the body needs in order to nourish itself and stay healthy and alive and it’s most of the building blocks have not changed over time and they are still the ones we knew when we did the pyramid and the basic three and now we look at some six or seven different building blocks we need to stay healthy, and the number one is water and it is the universal solvent we need it in the system and an adult needs two or three huge gallons of water every day.  It’s not you can’t take a six pack of pop and get the same amount of hydration that you need with good solid water,.  The other three are carbohydrates, protein, fats, and vitamins, minerals and special supplements that we get through our intake many of these substances Jill are the things that we need to take naturally in our day to day food content and

Jill:  What are the percentages, many times they throw out how much of each you are supposed to have, just start foundationally what are the normal percentages someone should take in to get the right amount of protein fats and carbs.

Lois:  We have come up with in our research, we are like 20% of our intake should be protein, 30% fat and 50% carbohydrates, most of which needs to be complex carbohydrates and we will talk more about that when we return from the break.

Jill:  We are going to break and I want you to call this number to get in on the nutrition discussion, 770-226-0920, that number is 770-226-0920 call in let’s talk.

Commercial Break

Jill:  Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, that number for comments or questions is 770-226-0920 and at our break we were watching more of the Olympics and I was catching some slack for being an Olympic freak and if you are one you can call and commiserate with me, cause I think we have a lot of people that don’t catch the flame if you will, ok?  I actually was a fencer in high school and I quit because my teacher was French and would slap we with the saber when I messed up so I quit.  I could have been holding the medal!  Ok, so we are back talking about nutrition and addiction and I have to get my head wrapped around nutrition

Lois,

Lois:  I don’t know where we go from here, we just can not top talking about Jill being a fencer when she was a youngster and you know I know her as this um, very accomplished high powered and never knew you were a fencer,

Jill:  Yes, ninth grade won a big trophy and everything,

Lois:  I can see that concentration and piercing kind of demeanor that you have sometimes

Jill:  Gene is typing En guard on the screen.  Ok, we are back with nutrition and we stopped last segment with the building blocks and the percentages that are needed so let’s bring it home and talk about how does this apply to substance addiction specifically alcohol and other types of drug addiction and what I usually like to talk about is starting off with malnutrition, malnutrition means bad nutrition and there are a couple types of mal nutrition there is primary malnutrition when you are not taking in any type of nutrition at all, you have stopped eating or have a disease process that doesn’t allow you to eat but nothing is coming in, the secondary is actually the fact that you just can’t use what you are eating and this is what we see many times when people come in for addiction treatment and usually a person that is into malnourished state because of liver disease or something like that you will see them at the hospitals and find out that they are in advanced stages of the disease and you can have secondary malnutrition by being a long term alcohol dependent person and having liver involvement which means that the liver which is so important for so many functions especially the metabolizing of the food that you were just talking about.  When the liquor is not working you are not breaking down and metabolizing what you are eating correctly.  And therefore it is useless to you.

Lois:  Absolutely, even though each of these building blocks, the proteins the cars, the fats, have various mechanisms involved in the metabolism ultimately they all end up in the liver and the liver is the workhorse and is the primary organ that kind of makes the discerning hum decisions if you will of how it will utilize and what it will do with the foods and substances you put into it. 

Jill:  We see all of the important chemical actions going on in the liver and we also see that when the liver starts to fail so many other places in the body fail also and one that you would never think is the brain.  You can actually develop alcoholic dementia or what we call a wet brain because of liver failure because of long term alcohol use.  Most think of cirrhosis and that is a whole subject that is tackled during our day addiction treatment we talk a lot about liver damage just about 75% of those that come through the door go through our medical intake and have the blood work done we find elevated liver functions telling us that there is a process underway in terms of the liver starting to throw up the red flag to say there is an emergency and many times once you stop the offending substance such as alcohol you will see the liver enzymes or the labs we look at start to correct themselves very quickly

Lois:  It is a very forgiving organ to a point and beyond that point however, she and we call her “she” because she is complicated and does a lot of work

Jill:  We are talking about the liver,

Lois:  Carries a lot of weight, from womb to tomb the liver is always there and if she is out of sorts then everyone else is, so it is extremely important that uh, people understand and what we do in our psycho education is disease management concept, the more information we can give everyone about the process that they are undergoing the better able they are to manage it as they go down the road. 

Jill:  The number to call is 770-226-0920 I am giving it out because I am thinking of a friend that was speaking of her father that struggled with alcoholism and was hospitalized with liver failure and thank God he went through uh, program got away from the alcohol still had enough of his liver functioning that he was able at least to have another 10 to 15 years of life and what is so important is to understand that there is liver damage that is going on under the radar and if you do have a loved one that is drinking daily and they are drinking at the amounts that we talk about here on the show which does lend itself to addiction encourage them to have a doctor that they see regularly watch those liver functions because they will probably do more sensitive testing on the liver also possibly an ultrasound to determine if there is any other damage and ultimately a liver bIntensive Outpatientsy to find cirrhosis and it reminds me of her saying that she wanted to call us.  He was malnourished because his liver was not functioning properly, you know the way a person looks when they are struggling with liver disease, they look like they have a huge stomach, huge, and you think they look plenty nourished but if you look at their extremities their arms and legs are stick thin and usually what this is is not just liver disease and enlargement and shrinkage but it can be a fluid build up in the abdomen and because they gain weight doesn’t mean that they are becoming nourished.  So that is a scary thing if you see someone with that type of body structure and a heavy drinker they need to be seen and watched by their physician.

Lois:  We are talking though Jill about individuals that are long term users and have addictiond the liver for quite some time the early part of that I think is also important to talk about and you do a good job of that in psycho education about alcoholic hepatitis and the ultimate which is cirrhosis, would you mention a bit about that.

Jill:  Just a few minutes ago we talked about the elevated enzymes and those give us the first clue that something might be going on here, it can go into fatty liver and you start to get the fatty tissue laid down within the liver that can be seen by ultrasound and when you palpate you can feel that the liver is enlarged and that tells us something needs to be done now before continuing into the next phase which is alcoholic hepatitis which is an inflamation of the liver and you can create that by having a diseased liver from alcohol addiction, when you get to this you can see the jaundice and all of the other things that go along with hepatitis and after that

Lois, it is pretty much a progression into cirrhosis and is pretty scary

Lois:  Up to that we can reverse but beyond a certain point it is that point of no return.

Jill:  770-226-0920 if you have a question about liver disease and maybe it has affected you or a loved one, we will try to answer that and how it pertains to alcohol use and nutrition.  770-226-0920, stay with us we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Jill:  Welcome back, 770-226-0920 it is the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour and I am with Dr.

Lois Dutton and we are helping people understand a bit about nutrition and to give the disclaimer, we are not registered dieticians or nutritionists, we have gathered information from amazing people and want to facilitate some knowledge.  We have a great book that we have worked from called Seven Weeks to Sobriety and we will talk about it in the next segment.  We have a call this is Dari in

Atlanta, how are you,

Dari:  My mom, I am from

EthIntensive Outpatientia and she lives there and has fatty liver problems what nutrition is good for her?

Lois:  Is you mom a drinking?

Dari:  No, and she is not smoking.

Lois:  There are different kinds of liver problems and one is nutritional in and of itself, what we put into our bodies sometimes the liver will respond and become unhealthy as a result of the intake the foods and that kind of thing, but we have got some um, kinds of supplements in the vitamins that we use at Breakthrough that we give our clients that are very helpful in helping to reverse some of this and we could recommend to you that we do some things like um, the B-complex vitamins and what is very important is an element called selenium, and a natural product called milk-thistle that has a substance that is extremely helpful with the liver and we would recommend that you try the B-complex and the selenium and the milk-thistle and all of those are easy to come by so it is not like you have to search and search to find them. 

Dari:  Thank you so much.

Lois:  You are quite welcome.

Jill:  That is a good point, fatty liver is a manifestation of liver disease and it doesn’t have to be in combination with alcohol.

Lois:  We know a lot of individuals who develop cirrhosis that is nutritional and have never consumed alcohol but have had some type of faulty metabolism or bad dietary habits.

Jill:  What we wanted to touch on were the building blocks from earlier and what goes on with each one of those when they are not used, or have been put into the diet, and what can happen when you addiction a substance like alcohol and even though you take those things in you don’t use them correctly.  The first is protein, obviously if you don’t take in protein you will see wasting away of the body.

Lois:  It is the body building of our intake and protein the amino acids that are in particularly animal protein are so vital Jill to keeping the whole biochemistry in the brain going because many of these amino acids at least three of four we know for sure are precursors to the neurotransmitters that we need in the brain that we know substances have a tendency to destroy. 

Jill:  Right, think about it, neurotransmitters like serotonin, or dopamine, if you are not taking in the right amount of amino acids in your diet, protein one of the building blocks, you are not going to be able to build your own neurotransmitters, so we can see how that will be related possibly to um, wanting to use a substance to substitute or to help the dopamine along.  Some of the psychiatrists, I went to a really good presentation on neurobiology of addiction and he talked about L-Tyrosine which is a type of amino acid using a supplement at GNC to help you with formation of dopamine.  Now I don’t recommend you go out and buy L-Tyrosine   but you could ask your doctor about it and you don’t want to take it if you are on an antidepressant it would be interesting to research it and talk to the doctor about it.

Lois:  One of the other things we know is that if something as simple as tryptophan it took a beating a while back because of the way it was constructed and marketed.  It is the precursor for serotonin and it is found in milk, a few years ago one of the things we would recommend for insomnia is a warm glass of milk.

Jill:  Why warm?

Lois:  Because it would trigger the tryptophan and it is also in turkey meat and it is an important amino acid as a precursor for serotonin.

Jill:  That is one of the most interesting thing, how we get it in our food source.  What about the supplementation, one of the things at Breakthrough is that we want all those coming through the door what they should be taking in to help with recovery.  We have five things to talk about when we return from the break and it is what we give our clients nutritionally and we give them great education too.  We will educate you when we come back, 770-226-0920, stay with us.

Commercial Break

Jill:  Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour an we are talking about nutrition and addiction and some of the things to think about when dealing with addiction to a substance like alcohol or any other kind of drugs there are nutritional addiction treatments and a lot of this information does come from a book titled Seven Weeks To Sobriety, the proven way to fight alcoholism through nutrition.  Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D. has some very interesting things to say in this book and it looks difficult because there is a lot to it when you talk about supplementation and

Lois:  Her entire program is based on natural supplementation to treat addiction

Jill:  That to me is something that is turning the addiction world around, or the addiction treatment world and they are listening to this.  What does the body need to stop craving and needing the substances they take in such as alcohol or opiates or amphetamines.  There are some things that you can look at nutritionally that by replacing them or making sure they have proper nutrition it can reduce alcohol cravings.

Lois:  One of the things she says that makes us chuckle is that this is a physiological disease and we all accept that we go into psychotherapy and try to talk our way out of it when in fact if it is a physiological disease we need to respond to that part of it.

Jill:  So if you took a diabetic and said we will sit you in a room with a therapist and talk you through your dietary needs and so that speaks volumes.  We are looking now in addiction addiction treatment at another part of the body which is the nutritional.  At Breakthrough we don’t load folks down with tons of supplements

Lois:  If we did we would give them 500 a day or a bucket of vitamins

Jill:  What we do especially for a alcohol detoxer and people that are early in their recovery, we have five different supplementations that we really encourage a person to use and we try to educate fully on.  Those are the B-complex vitamins, your anti-oxidants, calcium, magnesium, essential fatty acids, Omega 6, 3 and 9.  Liver cocktail, selenium and milk-thistle.  Those five different areas are the ones we concentrate on and we try to teach you why these are important and we don’t want to bog you down with huge horse pills in the morning. 

Lois:  People respond to these because the B-complex which is thiamin riboflavin niacin and folic acid all of those really important vitamins, the depletion of that particular set of nutrients it really wreaks havoc on the nervous system and the function of the brain.  Alcohol robs the body of the B vitamins and the B  vitamins are absolutely essential to get back that functioning pretty close to normal for um, the brain. 

Jill:  Exactly, and why you know you have to look at your B-complex and make sure you do have the appropriate B vitamins and some people do separate them out and have a B12 and a thiamin, etc., but what we try to do is help you to narrow it down so that it is not a huge amount and is manageable and you know why each element is in that complex.  The anti-oxidants, vitamin C, A and E, we try to teach about each one.  Vitamin C, it actually helps with uh, reversal of addiction states now, you know there are a lot of different ways to look at vitamin C and in addiction has not come to their minds. 

Lois: We also know that vitamin C helps in the metabolism of tyrosine and the tryptophan which are the amino acids needed to help restore the dopamine and the serotonin in the brain, so vitamin C is the building block. 

Jill:  Vitamin A and E, and once again you can get an anti-oxidant vitamin in the right combination also Alpha lypolic  acid is an awesome anti-oxidant and I used to work with an internist that really believed in that.  As we come to the end of this segment, I do want to say that I felt this morning when we came in that I wanted to give something away, because that is radio(laugh). 

Lois:  What, your fencing mask?

Jill:  Ok, stop.  Anyway, I would like to give away a copy of Seven Weeks to Sobriety by Dr. Joan Larson and the first caller to call will get the free copy and if you want to talk to us and then Gene will take your address and phone and we will definitely get this to you.  It is a fantastic tool, if you would like to have it.  Also that number 770-226-0920, here they come!  I hope someone does call for the give away, 770-226-0920.  Call in and get a free copy of Dr. Joan Larson’s Seven Weeks To Sobriety.

Commercial Break

Jill:  I feel like Laura Ingram the lights on the phone are lit up!  Our first caller is

Florence, how are you?

Florence:  Good Jill

Jill:  You are our first caller and we are sending you the book and it is excellent

Florence:  Thanks so much.  What a great program and it is my first time to listen and I am so glad I could call in.

Lois:  Thank you

Jill:  Thanks

Florence and Gene will get your address, let’s see Frank on line two.  How are you today.

Frank:  Good,

Jill:  Looks like you are the second caller, are you interested in the book?

Frank:   Absolutely, I have been researching this and I am 16 days clean

Jill:  Fantastic, we are going to send you a book ok?

Frank:  Awesome.

Jill:  Do you have a question

Frank:  I didn’t get all the supplements, B complex, Antioxidants, Calcium and what else?

Jill:  Well we will talk with you while others listen, the essential fatty acids the Omega 3, 6 and 9.  Ok. And then for the liver problems, and you know most people are struggling with alcohol addiction usually have a liver that is not probably telling you it isn’t doing well but if you researched it and saw lab reports and ultrasounds you would see it is so we add in selenium and milk-thistle. 

Frank:  Can I get these over the counter.

Lois:  Health Food Store Frank and look for a good balanced B because basically that would be all of the B-complex and certain like milligrams, so much of this and that, so a balanced B will give you a really good influx of all of the B vitamins. 

Frank:  Excellent, I was already given B complex to take and also I was directed toward this gluten diet?  I may have celiac disease, I originally thought it was colitis and when this hit me physically and it was scary and I was asking anyone to help me follow up .  I have copies of blood work and I don’t know what it means.  But they read it and had some big red flags,

Jill:  You have a good physician?

Frank:  Yes, I have referrals to a good GI person

Jill:  They will take an ultrasound take a look at the liver and we see those numbers quite often with people coming in that are new in recovery and once you stop the offending agent you will visibly see that going down and those are the enzymes that I spoke of early in the show, so the best thing you did was to stop the alcohol.  Then what you need to do is start adding nutrition which is what you have been lacking, your liver will reward you for this and you will see the numbers coming down and it is great that you are researching and getting on top of this, you are almost there.

Lois:  Remember what your mother told you is a fact, the fruits and the vegetables are what you concentrate on and make sure that you eat three meals a day with some snacks and do not skip breakfast and it is very important to keep going with that ok?

Jill:  Thanks for calling and what a great show

Lois, this has really been something, we have made some headway into helping people understand.  Breakthrough Addiction Recovery, 770-734-8091 to get your free consultation if you are struggling with addiction or addiction.  That finishes the show and we will be here next Saturday.  Take Care.

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 whe