Understanding the relationship between nutrition and alcoholism is a vital component for successful recovery.

Although many alcoholics develop malnutrition and it's very important to eat a nutritious diet in recovery, this issue is much deeper than that.

 

Alcoholics are deficient in a variety of extremely important nutrients, which leads to malfunctioning or depleted neurotransmitters and a sea of psychological and physiological symptoms that often result in relapse. Thus, identifying and correcting these deficiencies is another essential step in maintaining craving-free and long-term sobriety.

The role of nutrition and alcoholism is two pronged. On one hand, alcoholism causes nutritional deficiencies, while on the other hand nutritional deficiencies cause alcoholism. Alcoholism and nutrition have a reciprocal effect on one another that often pushes the alcoholic to relapse.

A poor diet that is high in sugar, refined foods and environmental toxins and lacking in vital nutrients, that the average person consumes these days, often results in nutritional deficiencies. Contrary to popular belief, vitamin and mineral deficiencies are quite common in our society and result in numerous uncomfortable and often debilitating symptoms.

 

Symptoms and Impact

Symptoms from a deficiency in vitamins and mineral may include depression, anxiety, hypoglycemia, fatigue, irritability, hyperactivity, insomnia, cognitive dysfunction, memory problems, learning disorders, personality disorders, hypertension, heart disease, cravings for sugar, caffeine, carbohydrates, nicotine, alcohol or drugs, headaches, agitation and many more. You'll note that many of these symptoms look extremely similar to the symptoms that an alcoholic in recovery experiences on a daily basis.

 

One of the most common deficiencies found in alcoholics and the most crucial to address is amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks for neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals used by the brain to relay messages within the brain and communicate with all other organ systems within the body. An imbalance or deficiency in neurotransmitters particularly dopamine, serotonin and GABA have been found to be at the root of what causes addiction and cravings for alcohol and/or drugs. You'll want to read understanding alcohol addiction to understand this concept completely.

When your diet is deficient in the proper nutrients it needs, then your brain is deficient or out of balance in neurotransmitters. Those crucial chemicals are responsible for making you feel happy, relaxed and normal and they are not present or working efficiently. Your sense of well-being is in disaccord. You feel depressed, sad, anxious, tired, compulsive, confused, hyperactive and can't think clearly. When neurotransmitters are not balanced or deficient, then we crave things like alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sugar and caffeine to give us relief and provide the feelings we should have naturally.

Since most people are eating a diet that is toxic and lacking in nutrients, nutritional deficiencies are usually present in the alcoholic or addict prior to addiction. It is one of the things that lead to addiction. We don't have enough dopamine, serotonin, GABA or glutamate and our reward pathway doesn't work properly. Drinking or drugs, provides a temporary boost to those neurotransmitters, so it is actually giving us something we're missing. However, in the long run, the artificial stimulation of neurotransmitters only depletes them even further and leads to the much bigger problem of addiction.

To achieve successful recovery, neurotransmitters must be brought into balance. You can't have balanced neurotransmitters if you aren't getting adequate amino acids. Additionally, amino acids work in conjunction with numerous other vitamin and minerals to perform their functions adequately, so understanding the interrelationship between nutrition and alcoholism is critical for sobriety.

To make matters worse, once alcoholism is set into motion, then the consumption of alcohol on a regular basis itself leads to more deficiencies from an even less nutritious diet and poor absorption. Alcoholics often drink in place of a meal or eat very little, and alcohol damages the body's ability to absorb the nutrients it needs from the food you do eat.

Alcoholism causes vitamin and mineral deficiencies because alcohol is toxic to the liver, pancreas, stomach and digestive tract, which results in damage that prevents the alcoholic from being able to digest their food properly or to store, absorb, process, access or absorb crucial nutrients. Many alcoholics are severely malnourished.

Additionally, financial limits may cause an alcoholic to have to choose between food or alcohol and alcohol usually always win the vote. As alcoholism progresses and the alcoholic loses their ability to make good choices, they could care less about the issue of nutrition and alcoholism. Unfortunately, the body will run on alcohol alone because it gives a temporary boost to the system; however, this only deprives the body of even more nutrients and sets up another vicious cycle. Deficiencies create a variety of emotional and physical symptoms that make the alcoholic crave a drink in order to relieve the symptoms. Not only that, deficiencies themselves contribute to deterioration in the integrity of the digestive tract which results in more inability to absorb nutrients. The drink perpetuates the problem of deficiencies in a variety of ways.

 

Common Deficiencies

 

Regardless of which came first, some of the most common deficiencies found in alcoholics besides amino acids include: essential fatty acids, digestive enzymes, acetyl coenzyme A, niacin or B3, B6, B2, B12, folic acid, pyridoxal-5-phosphate or P5P, NAD, vitamins A, C, D, and K, magnesium, zinc, selenium and calcium, and have a profound impact on brain chemistry and mood. The lack of awareness around nutrition and alcoholism often results with alcoholic's in recovery who struggle to stay sober because of the need to find relief from the discomfort that deficiencies cause.

For example, vitamin B1 or thiamin is crucial for proper functioning of the brain and nerves, essential for the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioenergy in all body cells and the production of acetylcholine, the brains major neurotransmitter. A lack of adequate acetylcholine is found in disorders such as Alzheimer's. A deficiency in vitamin B1 leads to the syndrome often found in chronic alcoholics called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and is distinguished by poor memory, impaired neuromuscular coordination, visual disturbances, apathy and mental confusion. Even a mild deficiency in this vitamin can result in impaired brain function and be exhibited in symptoms such as fatigue, emotional instability, confusion, indifference or lack of interest, headaches, depression, irritability, feelings of impending doom and insomnia.

NAD is critical for burning sugar and fat into energy for the cells, and it functions as a catalyst in the production of many of the major brain neurotransmitters like serotonin.

The most severe form of niacin (also known as B3) deficiency results in the disease known as pellagra, however, even a mild deficiency will produce a host of psychological symptoms including an inability to concentrate, excessive worry, headaches, irrational or unfounded fear and suspicion, apprehension, gloomy angry or depressed perception, agitation and disruption of sleep patterns.

Acetyl coenzyme A is probably the most crucial biochemical involved in cellular biochemistry, because it's needed to power the Krebs cycle, which is what produces 90 percent of all energy needed for every cell in the brain and the body. It's also needed to produce acetylcholine, the brain's major neurotransmitter that is critical for memory, learning and concentration.

A deficiency in P5P is significant because it is the primary coenzyme essential to produce all the chief brain neurotransmitters. It's crucial to many different conversion processes in amino acids, essential fatty acids and other important vitamins like B3 or niacin and helps regulate the entry of magnesium into our cells.

All this biochemistry talk about nutrition and alcoholism can get a little technical and difficult to understand, but the bottom line is this: Nutritional deficiencies, regardless of when they originated, result in a malfunctioning brain and body that gets exhibited in a variety of undesirable and even dangerous psychological and physical symptoms. When we look over the list of symptoms that are the result of nutritional deficiencies, we see the typical profile of an alcoholic. When the recovering alcoholic understands the importance of alcoholism and nutrition and addresses their nutritional deficiencies, they can alleviate the cravings to drink or drunk and the psychological symptoms that so often lead to relapse.