What To Expect From Medication-Assisted Treatment For Addiction

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Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), represented typically by Suboxone and methadone, is used to treat opiate addiction and appears to be useful in reducing overdoses and decreasing transmission rates of HIV and hepatitis C. The short term benefits of MAT begs the question, as to what the long-term perspectives are. What happens when the addict needs to come totally clean and face what life without any drugs feel like? Considering that most people admit to feeling numb on any amount of drugs after prolonged time. Being numb will eventually itself lead to depression, thus MAT is only temporary.

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Being over- or underweight is a symptom.

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And every symptom brings with it a lesson. Until we learn the lesson, the symptom remains. So instead of attacking it, we need to create space to understand what it is, that we are supposed to learn from this symptom. Many of us have this idea, that any body fat is a bad thing. Body fat has an essential role for optimal health and absolutely crucial for female mental health and hormone balance. So when we talk about weight being a symptom, we are talking about a fat percentage below 21% for females or above 30%. For men it is a health concern, if it drops below 14% or rises over 25%.

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What is Pitta in Ayurveda?

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Summer is Pitta season - pitta is also one of the 3 personal constitution types in Eastern medicine: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Each roughly corresponds to what we in  Western medicine call serotonin, dopamin and GABA dominant natures. Pitta imbalance is often seen in overeating and binge patterns.

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Omega 3 from plant vs. marine sources

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In recent years, a "myth" of sorts has sprung up, where people who avoid animal foods believe they can simply consume plant-based omega-3 ALA to meet their needs. But this isn't true and the science doesn't support this assertion. Omega-3s EPA and DHA from marine animal and plant sources are NOT interchangeable. Plant sources that contain omega-3 ALA do not provide the same benefits as the omega-3s you find in marine sources. 

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Do toxins play a role in addiction?

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Addictive behaviors, such as certain eating disorders like binge eating, overeating and addictions to sugar, alcohol, smoking, chronic masturbation, sexual addictions, etc. all have their root in the brain. A toxic and nutritionally deficient brain is far more prone to addictive behaviors. Heavy metals like mercury can totally screw up our dopaminergic system and make us more likely to engage in addictive behaviors unable to quit them. 

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Full fat. vs low-fat dairy

Keeping our blood sugar balanced is absolutely crucial to avoid cravings triggered by simple blood sugar dips. This is also why we need to pay attention to getting our facts about fat right. Fat is the buffer that protects our blood sugar from the aggressive spikes and dips. When we combine fats with otherwise high glycemic foods, it neutralizes the effect and instead gives us a slow release of energy.

In a study published in March 2016 in the journal Circulation, researcher’s evaluated 3,333 adults aged 30-75 for the relationship between full-fat dairy consumption and the risk of diabetes.

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Start where you are

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Our current state of balance, can change yearly, monthly, daily and even minute-to-minute. Knowing our current state of balance is an essential tool for figuring out what needs attention right now. We can then feed those needs, rather than continue in a state of suppression and denial - all of which only leads to further imbalance and built-up. You don't fix needs by ignoring them, you fix needs by listening and caring for them.

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Your body has memory.

One of the most undealt with aspects of recovery is how to release trauma in the body. Our previous thoughts, self-destructive ways and negative past all reside within our body. Our body has memory. Our cells in change send of messages of health or disease based on this mental energy that takes on a physical aspect. Genetic research has demonstrated that the matrix composing our bodies' cells (DNA) possess a complex information storage system. This also explains why happiness is tied to health. People have less disease when they are happy. 

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Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?

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Nest time you feel like you are about to do something that you have promised yourself not to do - ask yourself this simple question: Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? This is one of the most easy tools to begin to replace bad habits, step by step. So simple that many refuse to do it - because "it is just too easy" and thus a waste of time, because everything else in life seems like a battle. This is the lie we tell ourselves to NOT take action: if it is not hard, it must not work. Yet it is the simple things in life that works best.

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Balancing the aspects of recovery

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Recovery involves a personal recognition of the need for change and transformation. Recovery is a process through which we gradually achieve greater balance of mind, body and spirit in relation to other aspects of life, including family, work and community. Each person’s recovery process is unique and impacted by cultural beliefs and traditions. Our cultural experience often shapes the recovery path that is right for us. The take-away here is that no one single thing is enough to focus on, not the abstinence, not the trauma, not the nutrition and not the spiritual aspects of connecting with self, others and God. Recovery is complex and requires us to focus on all aspects simultaneously in order to get all the legs on the stool stable.

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Is recovery the same as abstinence?

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Recovery is not just about quitting past destructive behaviors and addictions. We might like to think that recovery is simply being abstinent - being clean, not engaging in bad habits and not taking xyz. Recovery that lasts, however, is not passive. It is not us sitting it out, waiting for the craving magically to just disappear over time. The most frequent relapse happens, when we think our recovery is about focusing on just NOT doing that or taking that. This will simply exhaust our willpower over time and we will give in. We will give in to the craving, because we are not creating a space for the recovered new self, we are just abstaining - and life feels empty when we go about it this way.

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The no. 1 fat that detox toxins and emotional stress.

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Our emotional health is closely tied to our physical health. For every emotion there is a biochemical equation. As an example, when we are under stress, we store fat and crave sugar, carbs and stimulants. We also store “molecules of emotion” in our fat cells. 

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Why you might want to give up cheat days

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I am not a big fan of so-called cheat days. And anyone with a history of addiction issues likely want to avoid this black-white pattern of planning their eating schedule as well. Cheat days easily turn into binge days. And this leaves us in a mental state of feeling like a failure - we went overboard, we felt like we lost control and allowed our impulses to completely take-over. This is a red flag situation for anyone to relapse back into their primary type of addiction. Simply because our MINDSET is now one of "whatever", "I can't control myself" so "I might as well xyz". 

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