Solving Alcohol and Drug Addiction

In the U.S., ten percent of the population consumes half the alcohol. Many people who are either heavy users or dependent upon alcohol and sedative substances have tried unsuccessfully to “cut down” or to stop. Treatment programs and education have helped many people, but the overall outcome percentages are not impressive (sometimes under ten percent). It is little wonder that most Americans believe that alcohol and drug problems are virtually hopeless conditions. With all the scientific breakthroughs, why isn’t there a product that helps eliminate cravings for alcohol and drugs, is safe to take, has few if any side effects, evens out mood swings, decreases sleep problems, helps prevent the damage to the liver and other organs caused by these substances, and greatly improves the chances of sobriety for those who should stop their use completely? We at Nutrenergy would like to introduce you to a totally natural supplements in the Power Recovery Nutrient Paks, which can offer an answer to these questions and which has already changed the lives of thousands of people who have a tendency to abuse alcohol and drugs.

Why do alcohol and drugs injure us? Most people are surprised to find out that the long term injury caused by these substances has more to do with their breakdown products, call “metabolites,” than with the original substance itself. Some of these metabolites are called “free radicals,” and they injure tissues, cellular components, and even our DNA. This injury leads to higher rates of cancer, vascular disease, immune disorders and cirrhosis. So any supplement designed to help people who have a tendency to abuse alcohol or drugs must first of all have a wide array of antioxidants to prevent or lessen free radical injury.

If heavy alcohol and drug use have the potential to cause medical, interpersonal, social, and vocational problems, why do some people have such a hard time stopping? Alcohol and drugs, like all mood-altering agents, achieve their effects on our moods by stimulating and replacing certain natural “feel-good” brain chemicals, called “neurotransmitters.” When the alcohol or drugs are cleared from our bodies and brains, we must re-synthesize these depleted natural neurotransmitters from nutrients in our diets. For a variety of reasons, some of us don’t restore our “feel-good” brain chemistry as well as others. This persisting imbalance of brain chemistry is what causes cravings, mood swings, irritability, and sleep problems. We are then compelled to replace the deficiency temporarily by using more alcohol or drugs, which only perpetuates and worsens the problem.

What predisposes some of us to this imbalance of brain chemistry? One factor is genetics. Some of us simply don’t resynthesize the neurotransmitters as well as others, because our genes inefficiently encode for the enzymes which generate these chemicals. Some of us may have the genes to do it, but we lack the dietary amino and fatty acid precursors, vitamins, and minerals that are made into these particular brain chemicals. Some of us even have the right genes and nutrition, but we use up our neurotransmitters so fast by living high stress lifestyles that we don’t replace them in time to maintain enduring feelings of well being.  Finally, some of us have adequate genes, good nutrition, and reasonably healthy lifestyles, but we lack loving support systems to give our lives purpose and meaning. This is a special kind of stress that further erodes those neurotransmitters that are in our brains to buffer us against the occasional stress, dietary indiscretion, or isolation. Whatever the cause of depletion, the biochemical deficiency creates an urge or compulsion for an artificial and temporary solution.

In its most extreme and chronic form, this is called alcoholism or drug addiction. The compulsion can be virtually unstoppable unless the biochemistry is rapidly restored with depleted nutrients.

Since we now know that the problem is caused by an imbalance in brain chemistry, and we know which drugs deplete which neurotransmitters, and we also know which nutrient raw materials the brain uses to synthesize which neurotransmitters, the solution is obvious! Use the proper nutrients, and it becomes much easier to deal with the problem. Treatment programs that use this technology have dramatically better outcome rates than those who do not. Even if you are not in treatment, we recommend that you use the Power Recovery Nutrient Paks anyway, if alcohol or drugs are causing problems in your life. The important thing is, don’t blame yourself if you struggle to get a handle on this problem. You are not responsible for your genetic predisposition, and you probably were never told the problem was biochemical. This is not a moral issue, nor even primarily a psychological one, in spite of the fact that many people, even professionals who treat it, see it in these ways. Nor can it be corrected by replacing one destructive chemical with another. Mother Nature dictates that you can only rebalance yourself the way she says. Lucky for us, the technology now exists to correct the problem.

The third way in which the Power Recovery Nutrient Paks are helpful for overuse of alcohol and drugs is to assist in the restoration of the gastrointestinal tract. You probably know that alcohol causes major havoc in the stomach, intestines, pancreas, and liver, even in people who have no major symptoms. The Power Recovery Nutrient Paks also have a cutting-edge combination of glycolipids to repair damaged tissues, acidophillus to restore the friendly gut bacteria, and pantethine and other growth factors to get the bacteria growing. Sometimes there may be some gas, bloating, or loose stools with this product, because it is “cleaning out” the unfriendly inhabitants in your gut that had overgrown due to alcohol, stress, or poor diet. Just cut the dose down for awhile, until these harmless and self-limiting symptoms are manageable, and, as your GI flora grow healthier, you will be able to tolerate a higher dose.

Remember that the health of your digestive tract has a lot to do with your overall health and sense of well being. If these symptoms occur, notice how good you feel in spite of them. The elimination of toxic microorganisms generally makes people feel healthier in the long run.

Article written by Dr. Chas Gant, M.D., Ph.D.

The suggested product is not intended to diagnose, prevent, cure, or treat any disease. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Consult your healthcare provider before taking nutritional supplements of any kind.

 

Quit Smoking Naturally

Nicotine addiction

Quit Smoking Naturally, Painlessly, and Successfully

Dr. Chas Gant, M.D., Ph.D.

Nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes, is one of the most powerful poisons on earth. If by some accident a child should ingest even a small amount of the substance through a nicotine patch, he or she would almost immediately go into convulsions that would in all likelihood be fatal. It’s so toxic that as few as two or three drops of pure nicotine applied directly to the skin of an average person will kill him or her within minutes. In lower doses, nicotine can cause high blood pressure, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, heart palpitations and irregular heartbeat, tremors, convulsions, and central nervous system overstimulation. There is no known antidote for nicotine poisoning.

How is it that so many people habitually use such a powerful and potentially deadly toxic substance on a daily basis? Moreover, how is it that smokers who are addicted to nicotine are given prescriptions to the very substance they’re hooked on in order to stop smoking?

The answer to both questions lies in the way our brains work. And by the way, so does the answer to the question, “How can I quit smoking without resorting to using nicotine (and other stop-smoking drugs) and without risking further negative health consequences?”

Brain Neurotransmitters

Our brain cells, or neurons, communicate with each other by means of small molecules, called neurotransmitters, that they manufacture directly from nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. When neurons exchange these molecules with each other, they enable us to stay focused and alert, to be able to deal with stressful situations, and to block out pain, among many other things.

When sufficient amounts of nutrients are available to our brains so they can produce and exchange these chemical neurotransmitters in adequate amounts, we tend to stay on top of things, to remain relaxed and happy, and to get pleasure out of everyday life experiences. However, when our brains don’t have enough of the nutrients they need to produce neurotransmitters in sufficient quantities, we can become irritable, unable to focus, angry, even depressed. If neurotransmitter shortages continue for longer periods of time, we begin looking for ways to deal with them.

Among the most common solutions many of us find to this problem is to take up smoking. That’s because, simply put, nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes, changes the way our brains work. It artificially interrupts the normal process of manufacturing and exchanging several different types of neurotransmitter, temporarily making us feel “normal” again.

The problem is that once the nicotine is used up, our brains are once again unable to produce the neurotransmitters we require to feel good, and we need another cigarette. If you’re a smoker, as you continued to smoke, your brain got used to using nicotine as a substitute for its normal production of neurotransmitters, and you began to rely more and more on the nicotine and less and less on your brain’s natural ability to keep you focused, alert, and happy. Presto! A habit was born.

The real problem in trying to quit, though, is not the cigarettes themselves but the fact that most physicians don’t have a good understanding of how our brains work. They’re unaware that there is a very straightforward way to rebalance our brain chemistry so that we no longer need nicotine.

Power Recovery Program

It’s so simple, in fact, that even folks who have been smoking cigarettes for years find that within 24 to 72 hours of using a revolutionary new strategy called the Power Recovery Program, their cravings are diminished, and even disappear. Best of all, you don’t have to stay hooked on nicotine, or take any other addictive substance, to stop smoking. What you do need to do is to take measured doses of several key nutritional supplements, which are likely in short supply in your body. Doing this makes key nutrients available to your brain and enables you very quickly to resume producing the neurotransmitters you need to overcome the craving for cigarettes and to begin to feel normal again without them.

Quick Start For Smokers To Quit

There’s a special Quick-Start for Smokers stage in the Power Recovery Program that enables you to understand exactly which nutrients are in short supply and have led to your needing to use cigarettes to make you feel better. Quick-Start for Smokers explains exactly which nutritional supplements you need to immediately provide your brain with the nutrients it requires to jump-start the production of the neurotransmitters that can reduce or eliminate your cigarette cravings and get you off on the right foot toward recovery. Best of all, with the Quick-Start nutrients you have the choice of quitting smoking right away or tapering off the use of cigarettes gradually.

The Quick-Start for Smokers nutritional supplement formula consists of the amino acids L-Glutamine and L-Tyrosine, 5HTP, lecithin, vitamin C, and a combination of other vitamins and minerals that are available by purchasing any one of a number of national brand name multi-vitamin, multi-mineral capsules.

Bottom line: If you are a smoker who has struggled with quitting and feel that you’re hopeless, take heart. The Power Recovery Program approach has had unprecedented success with helping people overcome addictions of all types, including cigarettes. You can do it too!

Helping Those Who are Constitutionally Incapable of Recovery

Dr. Chas Gant, M.D., Ph.D.

Alcoholics Anonymous

“Constitutionally Incapable” is the term used in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous to describe a person who can not recover from addiction. In other words, some individuals are thought to be so morally and physically “bankrupt,” that providing treatment and AA for them is a waste of time. Because of serious flaws in their psychological makeup (mind), their physical/medical condition (body) and/or their disconnection to anything greater than their own selfish interests (spirit), they will find it impossible to stop abusing alcohol and chemicals or establish authentic sobriety.

The founders of AA, building on the work of physicians like Benjamin Rush (1) for over 200 years, offered a window of hope for those who are Constitutionally Incapable of recovery, predicting that someday, when science has advanced far enough, the physical cause(s) which explain(s) why some individuals who appear to be hopeless, will be discovered, and rational, science-based, medical interventions will become widely available. They envisioned that those who seem to be Constitutionally Incapable of recovery will be treated properly and “reformed” into people who are indeed Constitutionally Capable of making a complete recovery.

Age of Neuroscience

That hope basically entails putting the recovery of “body” into the promised recovery of “mind, body and spirit.” Until very recently, the “body” part of that triad was not available. However, the Age of Neuroscience has to come into vogue, and the brain mechanisms explaining the symptoms of mental disorders, such as addiction, depression and anxiety, can now be explained. This phenomenon has been popularized on top-of-the-charts TV crime shows like bones and CSI, where laboratory science investigators collect DNA and other data at the crime scenes to determine the perpetrator.

This technology has recently become available, and now we can realize the vision of the founders of AA and provide laboratory-based, scientific data about brain chemistry imbalances which undoubtedly cause the symptoms of craving, depression, insomnia and anxiety. Armed with this data, intelligent, rational interventions can be devised to abolish such post-abstinence symptoms. Those who were once Constitutionally Incapable of recovery are now perfectly able to recovery like other “less damaged” addicts and alcoholics. An analysis of outcome data regarding long term abstinence when these technologies are provided suggests that no longer is anyone Constitutionally Incapable of recovery.

Biochemical Risk Factors

Thousands of peer-reviewed, university-performed studies have virtually proven that these biochemical “risk factors”(2) for addiction can be found and reversed, which leads to astonishing outcomes (3). Insurance-covered, diagnostic tests are readily available to test for these risk factors which when corrected, can transform Constitutionally Incapable addicts. Some are food allergies (4), heavy and toxic metal poisoning (5), amino acid deficiencies (6), neurotransmitter turnover (7), essential fatty acid deficiencies (8) and many other imbalances, toxicities and nutritional deficiencies. Consumer friendly books (9) are available which introduces readers to this science.

Unfortunately the science has moved so quickly that most physicians are not trained in the biochemistry related to brain disorders, nor do they know how to order appropriate testing panels to determine the causes of addictions, or how to interpret the tests or how to devise science based interventions.

Generally, the best that conventional medicine and psychiatry have to offer are replacement drugs, which merely cover up symptoms with other, equally addictive psychotropic chemicals, and which do not address the root cause of the problem. Amassed studies strongly suggest that a failure to reverse these root causes of addiction, will trap those who are Constitutionally Incapable of recovery to remain in an endless spiral of addiction.

Functional Lab Testing

Diagnostic testing not only uncovers the root causes of addiction, allowing clinicians to intelligently reverse them. Diagnostic testing also helps to bring a profound change in the psychosocial and spiritual perspective of a recovering individual. Addiction has been recognized as a shame-based disease . Addicts have been prosecuted as criminals, treated as psychiatric patients with psychotherapy and psychiatric medications, and generally given the message that there is fundamentally and shamefully something wrong with them.

Once I lay out the functional lab testing results for an addict or their family, a different message comes through loud and clear – that certain biochemical risk factors unique to each individual are the actual cause of the addiction, and not any of these other moralistic or psychosocial excuses. Patients tend to forgive themselves immediately, and their families forgive them too. The shame is lifted. The self- and other-loathing, which contributed to the condition of “Constitutional Incapableness” melts away. The vision of AA’s founders, scientists and physicians throughout the ages is now attainable. Very few if any addicted or alcoholic people are constitutional incapable of recovery when they avail themselves of these marvelous diagnostic technologies.

References

(1) A signer of the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s personal physician, strived to make freedom of religion and freedom of healthcare inalienable rights. He was an advocate of treating mental disorders as diseases instead of as moral or religious problems.
(2) Any medical condition can have risk factors which predispose a person to have that condition. This term is best known when applied to heart disease, which has certain risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes etc. Reverse the risk factors and the chances of succumbing to the disorder are lessened.
(3) Gant CE (2000) Functional Medicine:The Missing Link in Addictionology, JOURNAL OF ADDICTIONS NURSING, Volume 12, Numbers 3/4, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
(4) http://www.metametrix.com/content/DirectoryOfServices/0075IgG4FoodAntibodies90-Serum
(5) http://www.metametrix.com/content/DirectoryOfServices/0022NutrientToxicElements-Erythrocytes
(6) http://www.metametrix.com/content/DirectoryOfServices/0010AminoAcids40-Plasma
(7) http://www.metametrix.com/content/DirectoryOfServices/0091OrganixComprehensive-Urine
(8) http://www.metametrix.com/content/DirectoryOfServices/0040FattyAcids-Plasma
(9) Gant CE (2009) End Your Addiction Now. Square One Publishers.
(10) Bradshaw J (1988) Healing the Shame that Binds You, Health Communications Inc, Deerfield Beach, Florida (available on Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Shame-That-Binds-You/dp/0932194869#noop

The Third Leg of the Stool

The Third Leg of the Stool: Nutritional Support for the Addicted Brain

By Christina Veselak, LMFT

The American Medical Association has long understood that addiction is a brain driven, bio-psycho-social  illness. Traditional treatment programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous have done a great job developing effective approaches to the psychological, social and spiritual aspects of addiction. However, for the most part, these programs do not teach their clients the skills necessary to address or manage the biochemical and brain imbalances that drive addiction. Thus relapse rates are chronically high, and even when people do manage to stay sober, they are often plagued by ongoing depression, anxiety, irritability and insomnia. This leads them to seek relief by going to psychiatrists whose tool-boxes are generally limited to the use of psychotropic medications, thus rendering patients dependent upon them for lifetime prescriptions. Many addicts and alcoholics go into treatment to get off mood altering substances, only to leave treatment on more drugs than they entered with. Furthermore, many of these drugs are toxic, have serious side effects, or stop working effectively after a while. Just as importantly,  these drugs do not address the root causes of brain imbalance. Fortunately, 50  years of research supports an alternate approach to addressing the chemical imbalances underlying addictive behavior. By learning to feed their brains and bodies the simple nutrients required for optimal and balanced functioning, many recovering people are empowered to create a stable and enduring recovery and a vibrant  life.  Imagine a three legged stool: if this stool has only one functioning leg, it will fall over immediately; if it has two legs, the person attempting to sit on it may  stay upright for a short while, but only by staying focused on maintaining strict balance.  Once distracted, they fall right over. However, bringing  in  the  third  leg  of  the  stool  allows a person to easily find balance,  and  move on with life.

This “bio” approach is based on two premises: keeping blood sugar very stable through the day by never, ever missing a meal, avoiding simple sugars and starches and eating protein every 3­‐4 hours; and quickly replenishing the malnourished addicted brain with the nutrients necessary for its optimal functioning. These nutrients are ideally found in a well-rounded, whole food, “pro-recovery” diet. They include amino acids, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats.

However, by the middle and late stages of addiction, most addicts and alcoholics are profoundly nutrient deprived, and have developed serious digestive issues. Therefore, we  have found that using supplements which contain these crucial nutrients, often effectively jump starts the repair process and frequently leads to dramatic decrease of  withdrawal symptoms and cravings, quickly improving mood and  sleep.  These supplements can be found at any local vitamin store and can be taken as needed without a prescription.  Treatment programs which utilize this approach, and bring in the “third  leg of the stool” have been shown to have a much lower relapse rate than programs which  don’t.

Finally, these treatment programs have identified underlying physiological disorders which many people self-medicate by using mood altering chemicals and behaviors. These disorders include hypo- or  hyper-thyroidism, adrenal dysfunction, food intolerances, and genetic polymorphisms such as issues with the MTHFR gene or Reward Deficiency Syndrome. These disorders can be easily identified and treated, again leading to a more serene recovery. For further information, read: Seven Weeks to Sobriety, by Joan Mathews Larson, PhD; End Your Addiction Now, by Charles Gant, MD PhD; and The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, MA.

Please  contact the author, at 303­‐888­‐9617  or christinaveselak@gmail.com for references, or go to www.transformingaddictions.com
Disclaimer: The information contained in this document is for educational purposes only and it should not be followed without first consulting with a healthcare professional who is knowledgeable about CAM (Complementary/Alternative Medicine), Integrative and/or Orthomolecular Medicine. If you have any known medical or psychiatric disorder you should first follow the recommendations of your healthcare professional before taking nutritional supplements. The statements contained in this document or presentation have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).