The Impact of Nutrition to Fight Alcoholism

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Alcoholism is a grave problem which is very complex in nature and need simultaneous attention to several issues. The success rate of orthodox treatment procedures is pretty poor and thus the need to look into other available options is necessary steps to combat alcoholism. In this regard, there is very little approach has been taken towards fighting alcoholism through nutrition and diet and most people are completely unaware of this technique. So, in this post I will share the impact of nutrition on treatments of alcoholism.

Hypoglycemia and vitamins play an important role in the fight against alcoholism as stated by Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Other researchers like Joan Larson (wrote the book Seven Weeks to Sobriety), also emphasized the importance of diet and nutrition in the treatment of alcoholism. In her treatment center (The Health Recovery Center) she got a success rate of 75% with alternate treatment for alcoholism.

According to Dr. Theron Randolph alcoholism is nothing but advanced food allergy and cannot be treated as mental illness. He deduced that an alcoholic person is addicted to the source of food, which the alcoholic beverage is made (barley, corn, cane or grapes) of and not to the alcohol itself. In advanced food allergy, the individual craves the allergic food. The alcoholic person has allergies to such food and as in advanced food allergy, gets addicted to the allergen. But, alcohol helps in quicker absorption of the food products further heightening their cravings for the food sources (barley, corn, cane or grapes) they have advanced allergies. When they consume the same food as such, without alcohol, it cannot produce the same effect as the absorption is not heightened.

Further data support the fact that most of the alcoholics are hypoglycemic and there is a reciprocal relationship between them. The symptoms of hypoglycemia and alcoholism are same and they include depression, insomnia, irritability, nervousness, restlessness, aggressiveness, confusion, fatigue and many more. These symptoms provoke the alcoholic person to drink more and thus when a person tries to become sober and his hypoglycemia is not addressed, he will continue to have the desire to drink more. Thus, there has always been a high risk of relapsing to alcoholism to get temporally relief from these symptoms. So, treatment of hypoglycemia is an important step in alternative treatment of alcoholism, and if done successfully can lead to higher rate of success. 

Relapsing to alcoholism is the major problem in alternative treatment of alcoholism as around 60% of the treated patient start drinking within a year. Thus, they have to be admitted repeatedly for treatment. So, long term recovery through alternate treatment is very rare. 

According to Rand Report in 1990, where they made a four year long study on 922 men undergoing alternative treatment, they found that only 28% patients were refrained from drinking even after six months of treatment. This falls back to 21% after one year of treatment and to mere 7% after four years. Considering the small size of the subgroup it clearly suggests the gravity of the relapsing problem with alternate treatment.

So it is quite clear that traditional alcoholism treatment still need a long way to go to become a major success, but it still can be used effectively in combination with authorized medication plans. Addressing issues like food allergy, nutritional deficiencies and hypoglycemia can be quite successful with traditional treatment.

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