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

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

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

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 …

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

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

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