Understanding Addiction – How to Build A Successful Recovery Strategy
Creating a Health Body and Mind to Move Into
The keys to a successful recovery include everything from building a health body and mind to move into to greening your environment which means everything you put on your body, in your mouth and what you use around the house for cleaning and gardening. These products are known neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors and the do cause symptoms that those in recovery can too soon find themselves self medicating again.
To heal addiction, you must first understand what it truly is; neurochemical adaptation, then document the process by which it happened and the damage done by the toxin used.
Neurochemical adaptation is the process by which your survival system, fueled by the wisdom of the cells to migrate toward homeostasis, adapts to changes in its environment so that it can survive in that environment.
Neurochemical adaptation shuts down the body’s natural production of feel good chemicals that the drug is providing so that you don’t have too much of that biochemical activity going on in you because if you go too far in any direction you will die.
To use benzodiazepines as an example, benzos are GABA agonists which causes GABA, the most abundant inhibitory neurotransmitter in your body, to rise. Your body and brain will respond to this by both down regulating (shutting off) GABA receptors as well as the synthesis of GABA and then learns to become dependent on the benzodiazepine because of the now deficiency in its own inhibitory GABA.
How much time it takes you to replenish your natural GABA stores and heal the receptor damage caused by benzos is the critical key in how long you will suffer withdrawal symptoms, so the better your strategy is built around doing this, the faster you’ll feel good inside your own skin again.
Replenishing natural GABA and getting your natural receptor function back requires two things: thorough detoxification to get the drugs and other toxins out of your cells which are causing the receptor damage and optimum nutrition known to promote GABA in the brain, which means that you need to use substances that are known to cross the blood brain barrier and promote GABA synthesis in the brain.
Alcohol detox involves this process as well because alcohol is a well established GABA enhancer as well as produces beta endorphins and serotonin. So those biochemical pathways need to be addressed as well.
Replenishment of natural GABA requires an organic, whole food diet (pesticides are stimulating which causes GABA depletion), supplements that will cross the blood brain barrier that stimulate GABA and detoxification includes sauna, chelation, exercise, lymph drainage massage, mineral baths and colon hydrotherapy. It is also important to find ways to relax as much as possible throughout the day. Yoga, meditation, CES, cranial sacral and deep tissue massage are excellent treatments to add into your strategy as well as acupuncture for both its medicinal and relaxing qualities. Acupuncture is clinical proven to be effective for addiction recovery, pain management and stress relief because it can be used to promote beta endorphins.
So that, in highlighted fashion covers the replenish and detox aspect of your recovery.
You can google “Green Body and Mind basic detox” to get a basic detox protocol, however for psychiatric taper and detox, I strongly recommend working with an orthomolecular neurochemical specialist who has a proven record in addiction recovery and a licensed health care practitioner to ensure safety. The gem of western medicine comes into play here too, you should get lab tests of brain chemistry, neuroendocrine function, liver function, nutritional status and oxidative stress testing done to ensure an effective targeted nutritional therapy for your specific healing requirements. Everyone I have ever worked with in the last 15 years has had adrenal fatigue – you just can’t suffer for that long with an addiction and what it does to the body without depleting the adrenals. Hypoglycemia and blood sugar deregulation are also key aspects of addictive biochemistry. It is inadvisable to take supplements for a key symptom without getting tested first – I can give you ten different biochemical pathways to anxiety – St. John’s Wort is extremely effective for one and can be hazardous for another – sending some people into panic attacks while worsening the anxiety.
There are also the basics – you need good sun, 8 hours with your head on a pillow; good, clean mineral water and nature. The bottom line here, is that if you do not practice a healthy lifestyle, you will not be healthy and when you are not healthy you become symptomatic and since you may be challenged by your addictive history to self medicate again. You see, total recovery is not just about being drug free and sober. Today mental and physical health problems are epidemic due to the toxic world we live in and the pseudo-foods being sold on the shelf, so you must not just take drugs and alcohol out of the picture, but you have to put health in the picture.
For those of you that feel you need counseling (not everyone does as many addictions are caused by the damage from recreational use over too many years) Integral Life Practice is a great methodology for former drug and alcohol abusers because it truly delves into all of your basic “departments” and allows you the opportunity to make healthier decisions within them based on a single vision of your highest self.
Recovery is an excellent opportunity to learn how to master yourself and that is not about willpower or strength – it’s about submitting to the highest vision of yourself. Once you have cleared your head and are past the withdrawal stage (shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks), you should identify your core values and review all those “departments of yourself” and make sure they are all aligned with your core values and the highest vision of yourself. This will give you peace and it is a lifestyle that is far easier to maintain – it is a macrocosmic, social type of homeostasis – things will run smoother because they are all aligned with your intentions.
If you are going into a rehab it is likely they are not going help you identify an ongoing treatment and some support systems when you get back home to the toxic environment that you left. The greatest cause of relapse is people going back to the old patterns in diet and lifestyle that created the original addictive biochemistry and the symptoms that brought them to it when the get home. You have to adopt a healthy lifestyle, get the toxic people out of your life and create healthy support systems for yourself when you get home. You have to stop everything including coffee, diet cokes and processed foods that cause you to be over stimulated – you also need to create a lifestyle, including your work environment that is not over stimulating – this leads to cravings and temptation while you are in recovery. You need to have a homebound continued recovery strategy that includes an organic whole food diet, a non toxic lifestyle, good relationship building, recreation, exercise, a hobby, spirituality and a purpose in life. Most of the people that leave our clinics become passionate environmentalists because they have personally witnessed the power of nature in their own healing process and realize that without it we perish – they know this because they were perishing and they leave vibrant!
Grammy Award winner Mika Urbanaik’s testimonial reflecting on her stay at The BioSanctuary below demonstrates how its never just about drugs and alcohol – it’s also about the symptoms that plague people and how they derail peoples’ lives. The root cause of those symptoms have to be explored, identified and cured. If you want to be drug and alcohol free for life you will have to feel comfortable in your own skin. It’s math. Otherwise you will consciously or unconsciously be seeking relief – it is as natural as the oxygen in air!
Long term sustainable recovery is achieved by living consciously and creating a healthy life from top to bottom – it’s not just about being sober and drug free – I know a lot of people that are that and miserable. It’s about living life in its full capacity with inspiration, joy and enthusiasm. It’s about being thankful in heart and mind for this wonderful gift of life you’ve received and constantly mesmerized by all the miracles that surround you - and that can only be done through a healthy body and mind. That is the natural high and it beats every other state of mind there is.
Recovery begins with submitting to your highest self – don’t waste another day – your friends and family need you – the world needs you. Heal yourself and you help heal the planet.
Genita Petralli H.H.P., N.C., M.H.
Medical Director, The BioSanctuary, Shangri-La BioSpa & The 101 Program
www.biosanctuary.com
www.shangrilabiospa.com
www.the101program.com
The keys to a successful recovery include everything from building a health body and mind to move into to greening your environment which means everything you put on your body, in your mouth and what you use around the house for cleaning and gardening. These products are known neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors and the do cause symptoms that those in recovery can too soon find themselves self medicating again.
To heal addiction, you must first understand what it truly is; neurochemical adaptation, then document the process by which it happened and the damage done by the toxin used.
Neurochemical adaptation is the process by which your survival system, fueled by the wisdom of the cells to migrate toward homeostasis, adapts to changes in its environment so that it can survive in that environment.
Neurochemical adaptation shuts down the body’s natural production of feel good chemicals that the drug is providing so that you don’t have too much of that biochemical activity going on in you because if you go too far in any direction you will die.
To use benzodiazepines as an example, benzos are GABA agonists which causes GABA, the most abundant inhibitory neurotransmitter in your body, to rise. Your body and brain will respond to this by both down regulating (shutting off) GABA receptors as well as the synthesis of GABA and then learns to become dependent on the benzodiazepine because of the now deficiency in its own inhibitory GABA.
How much time it takes you to replenish your natural GABA stores and heal the receptor damage caused by benzos is the critical key in how long you will suffer withdrawal symptoms, so the better your strategy is built around doing this, the faster you’ll feel good inside your own skin again.
Replenishing natural GABA and getting your natural receptor function back requires two things: thorough detoxification to get the drugs and other toxins out of your cells which are causing the receptor damage and optimum nutrition known to promote GABA in the brain, which means that you need to use substances that are known to cross the blood brain barrier and promote GABA synthesis in the brain.
Alcohol detox involves this process as well because alcohol is a well established GABA enhancer as well as produces beta endorphins and serotonin. So those biochemical pathways need to be addressed as well.
Replenishment of natural GABA requires an organic, whole food diet (pesticides are stimulating which causes GABA depletion), supplements that will cross the blood brain barrier that stimulate GABA and detoxification includes sauna, chelation, exercise, lymph drainage massage, mineral baths and colon hydrotherapy. It is also important to find ways to relax as much as possible throughout the day. Yoga, meditation, CES, cranial sacral and deep tissue massage are excellent treatments to add into your strategy as well as acupuncture for both its medicinal and relaxing qualities. Acupuncture is clinical proven to be effective for addiction recovery, pain management and stress relief because it can be used to promote beta endorphins.
So that, in highlighted fashion covers the replenish and detox aspect of your recovery.
You can google “Green Body and Mind basic detox” to get a basic detox protocol, however for psychiatric taper and detox, I strongly recommend working with an orthomolecular neurochemical specialist who has a proven record in addiction recovery and a licensed health care practitioner to ensure safety. The gem of western medicine comes into play here too, you should get lab tests of brain chemistry, neuroendocrine function, liver function, nutritional status and oxidative stress testing done to ensure an effective targeted nutritional therapy for your specific healing requirements. Everyone I have ever worked with in the last 15 years has had adrenal fatigue – you just can’t suffer for that long with an addiction and what it does to the body without depleting the adrenals. Hypoglycemia and blood sugar deregulation are also key aspects of addictive biochemistry. It is inadvisable to take supplements for a key symptom without getting tested first – I can give you ten different biochemical pathways to anxiety – St. John’s Wort is extremely effective for one and can be hazardous for another – sending some people into panic attacks while worsening the anxiety.
There are also the basics – you need good sun, 8 hours with your head on a pillow; good, clean mineral water and nature. The bottom line here, is that if you do not practice a healthy lifestyle, you will not be healthy and when you are not healthy you become symptomatic and since you may be challenged by your addictive history to self medicate again. You see, total recovery is not just about being drug free and sober. Today mental and physical health problems are epidemic due to the toxic world we live in and the pseudo-foods being sold on the shelf, so you must not just take drugs and alcohol out of the picture, but you have to put health in the picture.
For those of you that feel you need counseling (not everyone does as many addictions are caused by the damage from recreational use over too many years) Integral Life Practice is a great methodology for former drug and alcohol abusers because it truly delves into all of your basic “departments” and allows you the opportunity to make healthier decisions within them based on a single vision of your highest self.
Recovery is an excellent opportunity to learn how to master yourself and that is not about willpower or strength – it’s about submitting to the highest vision of yourself. Once you have cleared your head and are past the withdrawal stage (shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks), you should identify your core values and review all those “departments of yourself” and make sure they are all aligned with your core values and the highest vision of yourself. This will give you peace and it is a lifestyle that is far easier to maintain – it is a macrocosmic, social type of homeostasis – things will run smoother because they are all aligned with your intentions.
If you are going into a rehab it is likely they are not going help you identify an ongoing treatment and some support systems when you get back home to the toxic environment that you left. The greatest cause of relapse is people going back to the old patterns in diet and lifestyle that created the original addictive biochemistry and the symptoms that brought them to it when the get home. You have to adopt a healthy lifestyle, get the toxic people out of your life and create healthy support systems for yourself when you get home. You have to stop everything including coffee, diet cokes and processed foods that cause you to be over stimulated – you also need to create a lifestyle, including your work environment that is not over stimulating – this leads to cravings and temptation while you are in recovery. You need to have a homebound continued recovery strategy that includes an organic whole food diet, a non toxic lifestyle, good relationship building, recreation, exercise, a hobby, spirituality and a purpose in life. Most of the people that leave our clinics become passionate environmentalists because they have personally witnessed the power of nature in their own healing process and realize that without it we perish – they know this because they were perishing and they leave vibrant!
Grammy Award winner Mika Urbanaik’s testimonial reflecting on her stay at The BioSanctuary below demonstrates how its never just about drugs and alcohol – it’s also about the symptoms that plague people and how they derail peoples’ lives. The root cause of those symptoms have to be explored, identified and cured. If you want to be drug and alcohol free for life you will have to feel comfortable in your own skin. It’s math. Otherwise you will consciously or unconsciously be seeking relief – it is as natural as the oxygen in air!
Long term sustainable recovery is achieved by living consciously and creating a healthy life from top to bottom – it’s not just about being sober and drug free – I know a lot of people that are that and miserable. It’s about living life in its full capacity with inspiration, joy and enthusiasm. It’s about being thankful in heart and mind for this wonderful gift of life you’ve received and constantly mesmerized by all the miracles that surround you - and that can only be done through a healthy body and mind. That is the natural high and it beats every other state of mind there is.
Recovery begins with submitting to your highest self – don’t waste another day – your friends and family need you – the world needs you. Heal yourself and you help heal the planet.
Genita Petralli H.H.P., N.C., M.H.
Medical Director, The BioSanctuary, Shangri-La BioSpa & The 101 Program
www.biosanctuary.com
www.shangrilabiospa.com
www.the101program.com
