I was very interested to read how candida could possibly be responsible for alcoholism. The reason for my interest is that the candida fungus lives off the sugars we obtain from food. Thus going on a candida diet - that is a severely reduced sugar diet - helps you not only reduce the systemic candida, but also alcohol cravings.

Systemic Candida is not easily treated. Please read:

The Leaky Gut Syndrome, by Dr Paul Ameisen

and go to page 3.

Having been an addict myself, not of alcohol, but on iatrogenic psychotropic drugs because of mental illness, I became aware of the connection of sugar and addiction a long time ago.

I studied psychology and became a drug counsellor in a prison department. About 75% of prisoners have addiction as a comorbid condition to their offences. If you add to this prisoners with other non-addictive mental health problems you finish up with an asylum full of the criminally sick people. Prisons have now replaced the old-fashioned mental hospitals. The difference is that now there is virtual no treatment for mentally ill prisoners and many are ‘punished” for being mentally ill. Our prison systems is a measure to what extent the helping industry in mental health have failed us and continue to fail us.

The reason for this sorry state of affairs is not so much, that governments are not willing to treat prisoners, but they simply do not know how to. Most treatments of mental illness still centers around medications and/or psychotherapy.

The assumption is that medication for mental conditions can "cure" mental illness, whereas they can only mask the symptoms. Thus drug therapy is palliative.

Psychotherapy cannot work if the symptoms are due to metabolic disorders. Thus we see that the model of drugs and/or psychotherapy is bound to fail to a large degree.

This is supported by a study by a group of psychiatrists who state that only 40% of patients may have SOME benefits from either drug and/or psychotherapy, leaving about 60 % with treatment resistant mental illnesses.

See:

Insel, TR (2006),Beyond Efficacy: The STAR*D Trial, Am J Psychiatry 163:5-7, January 2006 at:

Thus I tend to see alcoholism or any other form of addiction in terms of a treatable metabolic disorder, where such treatment takes precedence over psychological treatment. This means that addiction should first be treated metabolically - mainly by nutritional therapy - and then followed up with psychological treatment.

This of course puts me in conflict with the AA movement who sees alcoholism in terms of one's faith, or any other therapeutic approach that explains addiction or mental illness in terms of psychosomatic model of psychology, that claims in effect that "it is all in the mind".

I see alcoholism as a metabolic disease in the literal sense of the word, that has psychological consequences. Psychological symptoms are symptoms NOT causes of mental illness. Thus we cannot 'will away' our symptoms by correcting "cognitive" processes" as psychologists have us believe.

I believe on the basis of years of experience working with myself and thousands of clients, that most alcoholics have a hypoglycemic condition, also known as prediabetic hypoglycemia. This is a condition that can be medically tested. This means they have problems converting the sugars in food into biological energy (called ATP). This energy is required for the body to produce the feel good neurotransmitters such as serotonin.

It is fundamentally caused by insulin resistance, meaning that cells in the body do not respond to insulin and are starved of energy, despite the fact that the person may have higher than normal blood sugar levels. These blood sugar levels are going up and down, and when there is a sudden drop in sugar levels, adrenaline kicks in to raise blood sugar levels from sugar stores.

The higher than normal blood sugar levels expose the person to candida, that feeds on glucose for its survival. Hence going on a hypoglycemic diet - a high protein and sugar reduced diet - will not only starve the candida fungus, but also stop the wild blood sugar levels that floods the system with stress hormones. Alcoholism may have damaged receptors for normal neurotransmitters, but these can be rebuild with a high protein diet.

It is during the metabolic recovery stage that the person may benefit from the support of other addicts.

I don't know whether mentioning the following article is allowed here, if not you can delete it.

Alcoholism (Addiction) is a Treatable Disease