Re: Alcoholism seen as a Nutritional Disease

Chris,

Alcoholism is a 3-part disease:

1. A disease of the body, which manifests in the "craving" for alcohol. The craving is unique to alcoholics -- hence the phrase, "the phenomenon of craving." What it means is that if you are bodily different than normal drinkers because you have this condition, once you put a drink in your system, your body will continue to want more. Hence that "one drink" after work and a vow to go home for dinner turns into another long night out drinking, wondering why you could not stop. This is why we say alcoholics are physically powerless over alcohol.

I do believe the craving is a sugar/blood-sugar problem, and one that the early AA's did not know about or understand (or the doctors who advised them). Although I have always been able to stop eating sugar, but could never stop drinking after that first drink until I was out of options for getting the next one (i.e. passed out, or out of alcohol with no chance at getting more).

2. A disease of the mind. Any person in his or her right mind would NEVER drink that first drink if they knew they had that inability to stop once they had started, right? So the mind, too, is ill -- hence, the "mental illness" part of the disease. An alcoholic goes back to that first drink believing it will be "different" this time, or that he or she will be able to control and enjoy their drinking. (That is a great test to see whether you are alcoholic -- can you both control AND enjoy your drinking?) An alcoholic needs "restoration to sanity" because he or she keeps going back to that first drink, expecting a different result -- to be able to take one or two drinks, but to control it -- but the result is always the same: the craving kicks in and we have no idea how long we will drink or where we will end up. This insanity shows how the alcoholic is mentally powerless over alcohol; every earnest vow he or she takes to stop drinking or to control their drinking is inevitably destroyed by taking the first drink, leading to the craving, etc.

3. A disease of the spirit. The "spiritual malady" that ails the alcoholic is not exclusive to alcoholics. But alcoholic unmanageability manifests for the alcoholic with alcohol being a "solution" for everything -- good times and bad times, joy and stress, weddings and funerals, etc. Recovery treats this part of the disease and we believe that if you treat the spirit, the mind and body will follow. How you go about this is to develop a relationship with a power greater than yourself in order to achieve neutrality around or immunity to alcohol.
http://www.aa.org
to find a meeting near you.

Looking at one aspect without considering the others is a failure to understand alcoholism. The medical world (at least in the US) simply looks at the condition as a mental illness, as mentioned in an earlier post, and seems to stop there. I'm convinced that the Sugar craving is part of the alcoholic's craving problem, too -- and I don't doubt that other physical mechanisms are at play, like the increased need for serotonin. However, in the absence of any other definitive treatment, recovery does remain the only option for a cure that works (and which: 1) does not require any additional drugs to work; b) will provide you with amazing people to hang out with and become friends with; and c) also will rocket you into a fourth dimension (don't ask!). How can you beat that? ;) And in my opinion, the best work that can be done on the body of a recovering alcoholic is to replenish and repair through nutrition.

Good luck to you! Please e-mail me if I can be helpful to you with any other info, etc.

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