A good friend of mine is in recovery from alcoholism. It’s interesting to me how well he and I connect on the matter of healing. There are simply so many parallels between recovery from addiction and recovery from mental illness based in gut dysbiosis, among them:
- symptoms (depression, anxiety, social phobia, etc)
- sensitivity to what is ingested
- issues appearing to be psychological, etc
- need to commit 100% to abstinence from a triggering substance
- positive response to dense nutrition
I do suspect addiction to be largely based in gut dysbiosis. Issues often blamed for triggering addiction include low self esteem, poor sense of self worth, anxiety, depression, lack of self control, etc, but after many years of therapy, which was indeed helpful, the variable that actually removed these from my own life was GAPS. It may not be a coincidence that my friend and I connect so well on journeys that appear on the surface to be different from each other. Indeed, I suspect they are not.
I’m looking for fellow AA’ers on GAPS, but this would be a taboo topic at meetings and in our social circles. I’ve been sober 17 years in AA. I’ve come to believe that most or perhaps even every single person in Alcoholics Anonymous is suffering from GAPS.
After 36 hours on the diet, all of my mental troubles evaporated. The specter of depression that had haunted me since my earliest childhood memory vanished, never to return, not even for a moment. That was a year and a half ago.
GAPS has given me more than what AA ever promised me. At AA meetings, I have to bite my tongue and sit on my hands – I see and hear GAPS in every person’s sharing, but I’m obliged by our traditions to carry the AA message only, not to bring an outside message like the GAPS message to the meetings.
I’d like to be placed in contact with fellow alcoholics, addicts, 12-Step members, etc., who can relate to GAPS.
Wow, Gerald! This is exciting to me!
Ideas for connecting…
1. In the GAPS support forum, type ‘addicts, 12 step members, etc’ into a subject line of a post. Few people are able to read all posts, and this will grab the attention of folks on a similar journey.
2. Offer to be a phone or email contact for people in addiction recovery. You could be added to our group’s phone support list in that context, and/or I could list you on my blog’s “support” page.
3. Use wordpress.com to create a simple webpage or site, offering your experience. I could link to that on my blog’s “support” page.
All my best,
Baden
Hi Gerald,
I am so excited to find your response because I am in an extremely similar place as yourself, and have been hoping for so so long now to connect with someone.
I will spare my full on story, but briefly I have dealt with fairly severe emotional – mental problems since I can remember that worsened at puberty, and recently have taken new turns. In the past 2 years I developed an eating addiction ironically alongside my research into food-mood connections and what is actually nourishing to our minds & bodies, but it seemed every new eating change I tried to make I could stick with for a short time but then get overwhelmed and the pendulum would swing way in the other direction and I would fall into bingeing – overeating like crazy.
In the past 6 months, I started realizing how much this food addiction was starting to affect every aspect of my life.
So I’m trying to heal lifelong emotional-mental imbalances, a very unhappy gut, as well as overcome this food addiction. Needless to say I’ve been a little overwhelmed, but slowly finding my way to what I need to heal. I believe GAPS is one more crucial piece in my puzzle, as well as just this week joining a 12-step overeaters anonymous group. I’m feeling more stable than I have in maybe forever, but still hesistant and feeling very isolated from friends & family in these new lifestyle changes. I see so many people around me, including as you saw in AA I see in all the other overeaters, that I believe are suffering from simliar gut unhappiness, but yet I cannot bring any of this healing wisdom to them unless they want to hear it. I suppose the best way to do so is to give my own personal example, and I am really just getting started on what I know will be a long, lifelong journey.
It’s very inspiring to read your words of recovery, it would be great to be in touch.
Laura
I’m doing GAPS for my family right now- just started a month ago. Have a close friend who is struggling with mental illness and drug addiction- I know it would be perfect for him – I may have to start attending Al-anon if I can’t let go a bit more. I’m wondering if Gerald or anyone else on this thread has established a place for those using GAPS for mental illness, depression, and addiction.
TIA!
Alison Murphy
I would love to hear more in this vein. I recently joined Overeaters Anonymous and plan to use GAPS as my food plan.
Mary E.
Hi Mary E,
Not a lot more info coming through on this yet, but please do look at Dr Natasha’s FAQ page under the subheading ‘Addictions’.
One caution – In GAPS healing, it is very important to not restrict our quantities of food. Especially during intensive healing phases -intro, die-off, etc- the body often requires enormous amounts of food. It is important to honour the body’s needs in these phases and to not view this as ‘overeating’.
All my best,
Baden
Hi Mary, Alison,
You’re following good paths.
I’m on Yahoo’s GAPShelp forum all the time. My handle is sundaesandapplepies.
There are other OA’ers and at least one other AA’er.
Actually, the topic seldom comes up, but I am looking forward to the day when I can chat at length with other AA’ers who can relate to the experience that I have had.
Unfortunately, GAPS is an unacceptable topic in AA meetings. I wish there were a place for AA GAPS patients to meet up, however, I’m not sure that there are very many of us in the world … but I would be happy to talk to anyone on this journey.
I am convinced that all alcoholics and addicts suffer from GAPS conditions to some degree, most to a very large degree.
I believe I understand why so few newcomers actually make it and also why true peace of mind can remain elusive for so many old-timers – it’s the food we’re eating, the complex carbs! as well as the other problems with our diets (low fat) and pharmaceuticals, etc..
All of the riddles and unanswered questions from my 15 years sober in AA have been answered to my satisfaction. All the dots have been connected. This is exciting!
Gerald
Gerald, Mary and Alison,
Just wanted to say I’m really happy to be seeing active discussion on this particular topic!
All my best to all of you,
Baden
Thanks, Gerald. Good to hear from you. I’ve seen you on the GAPS list and was wondering if it was the same Gerald. I’m not fully on GAPS yet. I really do want to start out with Intro. I’ve included many of the principles of WAPF in the past few years – ferments, good fats and such. I’ve transitioned to low-carb for now and will ease into Intro in a month (granddaughter is coming to visit soon, and I don’t want that to coincide with starting).
Also easing into OA. Reading up, attending meetings and soon to get a sponsor – she does not know much about GAPS but is open and supportive of the food program I choose. Don’t know how much you know about OA, but it is about using the 12 steps to overcome compulsive overeating. We even use and read from the big book. “Abstinence” in OA means whatever you decide you must abstain from — for me under GAPS it will not be about limiting quantities, but about abstaining from those foods that are not GAP legal — which of course, are all the foods most people in OA call their trigger foods, like sugar and simple carbs. I know what you mean about not being able to talk about it. We can’t even mention the food plans we’ve chosen at the meetings.
I’m really hoping that healing my gut and confronting my addictions to food will at last help me to see food like a normal person.
Mary E.
Mary,
I’m certain you will overcome food addiction with GAPS and OA and I’m certain your gut will heal.
Yes, I know how in OA each person defines his own food plan, and I understand that there is pretty much common agreement about the “trigger foods” like white flour and table sugar.
However, what GAPS makes clear is that if a person has a problem digesting one type of food that is high in polysaccharides (wheat flour) or dissacharides (table sugar), then that person has a problem digesting _all_ foods that are high in polysaccharides and disaccharides.
I think you are very lucky to have the GAPS perspective going in to OA.
Yes, I cannot talk about this with AA’ers. I’ve tried, but they just don’t “get it.” In AA, food isn’t even _the_ problem, right?! So it’s very hard to convince AA’ers that starch & sugar causes us gut problems and malnutrition that in turn cause us mental problems like depression, anger, fear, etc. – the very problems AA’ers try to solve through the 12 steps.
I’ll look for you on GAPShelp,
Gerald
I am so excited to stumble upon this discussion! I have been searching for information about GAPS and addictions for a family member. I myself am on GAPS for physical reasons but always thought it would be very beneficial for anyone struggling with addictions as well as other mental issues. I hope someone will take Baden’s suggestion and start a personal blog and get a link to it on this site.
My question to those who are using GAPS to overcome addictions: Are fermented foods helpful for you? I believe that there is a small amount of alcohol generated during fermentation. I read once that alcoholics might guzzle a bottle of vinegar for the alcoholic content. So I’m wondering whether ferments might be a trigger. I wouldn’t want to recommend something to my relative that could be harmful to recovery.
Best wishes to all of you on your GAPS journey!
Yvonne
Yvonne,
I am a recovering alcoholic (5 years sober). I do not experience natural vinegar or other fermented foods like sauerkraut to trigger alcohol cravings. I am hyper-vigilant about my sobriety and would do nothing to risk going back to drinking. I don’t even have vanilla extract in our home as they often have alcohol in them. If an alcoholic were to be tempted to guzzle vinegar I would wonder if it had alcohol added. I use naturally produced organic apple cider vinegar. And I make my own sauerkraut. Becoming well educated on how food products are made as well as making your own foods from scratch is essential to protect sobriety.
I appreciate you asking the question. It’s wonderful that you are supportive in this way to your relative.
I also place a lot of hope in GAPS for healing the damage from abusive drinking. Just beginning so I can’t say from experience.
Gel
Thanks so much for your response, Gel. It’s good to know that cultured foods seem to be safe for you. I would be interested in hearing more about your adventure on GAPS. My hope is that standard treatment for addictions and other mental illnesses will begin with diet in the (near?) future. I know there are some treatment facilities that stress the importance of diet, but they don’t yet seem to realize the importance of gut microbes and that they can be influenced more quickly by adding cultured foods and probiotic supplements to an otherwise healthy (high fat) diet.
Yvonne
Hi Yvonne, Gell,
Me, too, recovered alcoholic sober fifteen years by 3/2009, when I took out all the Illegals on the SCD. On GAPS since 7/2010, basically anti-Candida this whole time.
I’m certain dysbiosis of the intestinal flora and the resultant malnutrition was the cause of my lifelong depression. Perhaps they’ll find some day that my alcoholic reaction to alcohol (i.e. the “physical phenomenon of craving”), which non-alcoholics cannot experience, is actually due to some particular pathogenic microorganism or a lack of some certain beneficial microorganism. Who knows what science will uncover in the future?
I’ve found in GAPS’s (and the SCD’s) hypothesis of “carbohydrate maldigestion” an explanantion for all of the mental and emotional disturbances that riddle the extended families of alcoholics. Most commonly, relatively few members in a given family will be _real_ alcoholics, yet so much of the rest of the extended family will be shot through with any of various other physical, mental, and emotional problems: food addiction (read “carbs addiction”), other eating disorders, mental illness/ severly impaired interpersonal relationship skills, obesity – and skinniness, diabetes, and on and on – let’s not overlook Depression …
From GAPs I learned that all of these seemingly unrelated physical, mental, and emotional illnesses actually have a common cause: dysbiosis, carbs maldigestion, malnutrition.
This is the common thread that weaves its way through the generations in alcoholic families. This is how it “skips” generations. This is why only certain family members become _real alcoholics_ but so much of the rest of the family can be ill in many other ways. This also explains the previously unexplainable phenomenon of the lone alcoholic in an extended family of non-alcoholic and otherwise very functional people. Once in a blue moon we encounter real alcoholics who do not derive from a typical alcoholic househould, which is generally moderately to severely dysfunctional. The hypothesis of carbohydrate maldigestion can explain the appearance of such a “black sheep alcoholic.”
Getting the Illegals out on the SCD cured me of the depression that had haunted me since early childhood, long before I took that first drink, and remained with me during all my years sober despite the my successes in sobriety. I have not spent one moment depressed in the past 36 months! The sober and spiritual way of life I’d been living hitherto could not do that for me. What I learned through this dietary journey is that my mental and emotional disturbances 1) were not of my own making, 2) could not be cured by any kind of “moral psychology,” and 3) were entirely physical in origin – i.e. nutritional.
I firmly believe that all addicts are suffering from some kind of malnutrition. The biological (e.g. genes), religious, and dysfunctional family explanations failed to completely satisfy. Now I know why. But to get society at large to see it this way? I’m not sure about that because that would be going against the tide of the past 10,000 years of agriculture and civilization …
Hi Yvonne, Gel, Gerald,
It’s always exciting to me to see this conversation resurface! I’m so inspired by everyone speaking here.
Gerald, you’ve got such a great handle on the nutritional issues. It’s so good to hear all these words.
Exciting, inspiring stuff!
All my best,
Baden
Hi all, Glad to see this thread revived also and would like to keep it going in some manner. I have been plagued by depression, drug, food & alchohol addiction my entire life. Have been drug and alcohol free for years, but still never felt “right” and kept searching for balance through spirtual practices, yoga, vegetarian diets etc. While the spiritual practices definitely were positive, nothing has made me feel whole and well as much as the full gaps diet. It amazes me and while the diet is difficult and a bit socially limiting, it is much more manageable than than being depressed and addicted. Do you think addicts need to stay on a lifelong form of the diet? Dr. McB mentions in the book that this could be the case for those with eating disorders. thanks.
Hi Donna,
Great post!
My intuition is that most people struggling with addiction will need to stay on GAPS lifelong. I don’t think this is specific to folks with addiction to alcohol or drugs, though. I believe many adults -because our systems were overloaded by stress and poor nutrition for too many years- will find optimal health only through a GAPS or mostly-GAPS diet. Children, on the other hand, may well renew their bodies’ capacity to more effectively process a wider range of foods.
All my best,
Baden
Hi Donna,
Your experience is like mine: “While the spiritual practices definitely were positive, nothing has made me feel whole and well as much as the full gaps diet.”
As for addicts staying on GAPS lifelong, I believe I will stay on a low-sweets, low-starch GAPS (anti-Candida GAPS) and/or a high-fat Paleo with ferments for the rest of my life. After a few months on anti-Candida GAPS, I lost all desire to eat any of the starchy and sugary Illegals, my lifelong sweettooth was cured, and I developed a sourtooth. My carbs addiction was broken, and now I am repulsed by the Illegals, whereas at the beginning of the diet, I dreamed that some day I could bring some Illegals back into my diet. It is easy to see myself eating this way for life.
Short ‘n’ sweet, this is what I have come to believe: agrarian foods (GAPS/ SCD/ Paleo Illegals) differ from pre-agrarian foods basically in two ways: 1) high in complex carbs, 2) low in nutrients, possibly high in “anti-nutrients.”
I believe that physiologically & psychologically modern man enjoyed superior physical & mental health for 40,000 years before the invention of agriculture (but this in no way implies that pre-agrarian man was intellectually or morally superior to agrarian man.) I believe that the starchy and sugary Illegals make humans physically and mentally ill. The greater the proportion of agrarian foods in a human being’s diet, the greater the likelihood that he will develop one of the “Diseases of Civilization,” especially addictions like alcoholism and food addiction (read “carbs addiction”).
I am eager to meet recovered alcoholics/ addicts who hold similar opinions.
Gerald
Gerald,
Have you tried attending a meeting of a local WAPF chapter? Or a NAMI meeting? Those are two places you might be able to talk openly about your experience with GAPS and addictions. Since the number of people struggling with addictions is so high, there would be a good chance of finding others there who are using or are interested in using GAPS for healing. Another possibility, if you live near a large enough city, would be to post something on http://www.meetup.com/ .
I am considering attending WAPF and NAMI meetings to let people know about the incredible healing power of GAPS!
(WAPF is Weston A Price Foundation http://www.westonaprice.org . You can find info about local chapters on their website. NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness http://www.nami.org. They also have info about local groups on their website.)
Would it be considered out of line to become an AA sponsor and then tell your friend about GAPS?
Don’t give up! The world needs to learn about GAPS as soon as possible to relieve suffering.
Best wishes,
Yvonne