Addictions - The Road to Health Ruin

Addictions present huge health challenges to patients and practitioners alike and these challenges are not just confined to street drugs! Some of the biggest obstacles to getting well include more commonplace addictions to sugar, coffee, alcohol and wifi!

Professor Oxford defines the word “addiction” as “the condition of being unable to stop using or doing something as a habit, especially something harmful.” Addictions control the person rather than the person controlling them. The nature of addiction is such that people are less able to confront this as a problem. They use all kinds of justifications to explain away their addiction e.g. “I’m a social drinker” or “I don’t really have a problem, I can give up any time.”

When a person loses the ability to make a rational choice about whether or not to use a food, drink or substance, he or she is addicted.

The Addiction Ladder

Integrative doctor Sarah Myhill talks about “the addiction ladder”. Addiction starts early in life with sugary infant drinks and carbohydrates, moving on to chocolate, nicotine, alcohol and then maybe recreational or prescription drugs. There are different types of addictions with different biochemical mechanisms. Here are some I encounter most frequently in clinical practice:

Food addiction

When talking to patients about food allergies, invariably talk about food addiction. Allergy and addiction go hand in hand. Some foods stimulate our pleasure centres and give a feeling of satisfaction after a meal. This is mediated by endorphins, the body’s natural opiates. People learn which foods give maximum stimulation of their pleasure centres and consume more in order to feel good. Comfort eating occurs as a means of escaping mental anguish. Soon, they are hooked. If a dose is missed, withdrawal symptoms are produced. The most highly addictive foods are wheat, cows’ dairy, chocolate, caffeine and sugar.

There is a carbohydrate-addiction gene that switches on when the carbohydrate content of the diet exceeds 4 per cent. This makes the person crave carbs. The evolutionary mechanism was to store seasonally available carbs as body fat in preparation for lean winters. The problem now is that carbs are available all the year round in supermarkets in super-refined forms. The ensuing fat deposition around the middle that comes from eating too many carbs is called metabolic syndrome or the precursor to diabetes.

Some people may not regard food addiction in the same light as alcohol or other drug addictions. However, food addictions can still wreck lives. It is astonishing how many childhood allergies and addictions go undiagnosed. In children, addiction is misdiagnosed as ADHD, in adolescents as anti-social behaviour and criminality, in adults as depression, anxiety and psychiatric disturbances.

Parents are told little Johnny “will grow out of it.” However, as the allergic food continues to be eaten, the organs targeted by the allergen may change. For example, a classic milk allergy may first affect the ears, nose and throat, then the tonsils which are routinely removed, then progress to the lungs (asthma), the symptoms of which are squashed by steroids, then on to the brain (anxiety and depression), the symptoms of which are squashed by antidepressants. And the person is now on a swift downward spiral away from wellbeing.

Sugar addiction

The British Medical Journal (2005) has stated that “Sugar is as dangerous as tobacco [and] should be classified as a hard drug, for it is harmful and addictive.”  Excess sugar consumption causes changes in the brain similar to those induced by addictive drugs.  It causes the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain - the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin and endorphin hormones, the natural opiates that are the brain’s natural reward system.   

Eating a lot of sweets and foods with a high glycemic index gradually reduces the number of receptors for dopamine so that more and more sugar is needed to produce the same effects.  The more we eat, the bigger the ‘hit’ we need to produce the same dopamine surge.   As with other addictions, out bodies and brains can become rewired to use sugar and grains to temporarily alleviate anxiety, depression and other mood swings.

Nowadays, sugar has been refined to the state of a chemical-like substance -pure white crystals like cocaine or opium. The excellent book The Sugar Blues, details the similar murky histories of opium and sugar.  Most of the world’s population lives in countries where obesity kills more people than malnourishment.  The WHO attributes this fact in part to massive sugar consumption leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Caffeine addiction

Coffee follows the same pattern as any other drug. First it stimulates, then depresses and finally too much can kill you. Many people use coffee to prop up their flagging adrenal glands but this is short-term gain for long-term pain. Coffee is also listed as a potential substance that the immune system can mistake for gluten in the Cyrex Array 4 lab test.  Some people cannot process coffee well from a genetic point of view and it ends up being very toxic to their tissues. I cannot drink a cup of coffee without getting a heart arrhythmia so I don’t drink coffee - ever!  

Caffeine addiction is very common. How do you recognise it? Can you do without it or does the thought of missing a cup send you into a panic? Do you use it to get yourself up in the morning (propping up flagging adrenal glands) or to stay awake during the day?

Headache is a common neurological caffeine withdrawal symptom and usually hangs around for about four days. A friend of mine developed a massive headache while suffering from Covid. Then he realised he had not had a coffee for a couple of days. He was a big coffee drinker so he asked his wife to bring him half a cup in bed. The headache immediately went. He has not touched a cup of coffee since. 

Alcohol addiction

Alcohol is the most widely used drug in the world. There is an epidemic of binge drinking among young people in the UK and an epidemic of older people drinking too much.  Covid has exacerbated this. Remember the quip that at the end of lockdown you’ll either be a better cook or an alcoholic?  

In the UK, alcohol is responsible for 10 per cent of all deaths and diseases, and alcohol-related damages are costing England around £21 billion each year. In the US, the estimated annual cost of alcohol abuse is $249 billion. None of these statistics reveals the tremendous burden of suffering, pain and broken lives alcohol addiction inflicts on individuals and families. Suicide is around 120 per cent higher than in the rest of the world’s adult population. Even when a person manages to function at work, it is normally at home when things begin to unravel. 

Many drinkers know that their livers are being damaged by their drinking. The liver is not the only organ that takes a beating; the heart can get pretty messed up too. The most successful alcohol addiction programme is the Narcanon programme which not only addresses the debilitating effects of alcoholism abuse on the mind and body, but also helps the person to resolve why they turned to alcohol in the first place.

Smoking addiction

While nicotine addiction doesn’t affect the mind in the same way as certain foods, alcohol or drugs, it is very addictive and it can be very difficult to stop smoking. It is particularly damaging to arteries and the cardiovascular system and can lead to unwanted conditions such as lung, oesophageal and throat cancers, dementia, gum and dental infections and more. 

Smoking causes an odd sort of anaemia. Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke binds to haemoglobin and displaces oxygen. As a result, red blood cells are circulating round the body without oxygen. The body compensates by making more red blood cells.  However, the patient still suffers the symptoms of anaemia. This is not always obvious from blood tests but should be suspected clinically.

Recreational drug addiction

It is heartbreaking to lose someone you love to drug addiction. It is a parent’s nightmare. One day the person you love is caring, productive, loving, with a great future. The next, they are on a pathway to full blown addiction. For some, it may take years of abuse to become fully dependent on the drug.

When a person descends into addiction, everything changes. Money goes missing, health and relationships break down, promises to do better are broken again and again. One of the saddest things about any kind of drug addiction is that the real personality gets submerged under a wooden drug personality of blunted feelings and emotions. This is ironic as people often start taking drugs to become more creative and individual. This is a cruel deception as the exact opposite is true.

At this stage, the solution has got to be an effective drug rehab before the person ends up in jail, overdoses or loses their life inn accident or drug-related fight. Once again, Narcanon has the highest drug rehab success rate in the world.

Prescription drug addiction

At one time not so long ago, there weren’t that many prescription drugs on the market. There were some antibiotics, morphine and an opium medicine called laudanum. In the 1940s, pharmaceutical companies went into big production with hydrocortisone, blood pressure drugs, tranquillisers and antipsychotics.  As the amount of prescription drugs grew, people became more dependent on them. The trail of celebrities who have overdosed on prescription drugs continues to this day. The two most common prescription medication addictions I see in my clinic are psychiatric drugs and painkillers.

Psychiatric drugs like antidepressants and stimulants are highly addictive. They come with the highest Black Box warnings about their safety and a raft of unpleasant symptoms. Psychiatry is the only branch of medicine that doesn’t have any lab tests to guide their diagnoses.

Painkillers aren’t the harmless lifestyle pills they are marketed to be. Aspirin and other NSAIDs play havoc with the gut, showing associations with ulcers to stomach bleeds.  They can also be killers. According to the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS), painkillers were responsible for 64,354 serious reactions in 2015 and 2016, including nearly 13,000 deaths.   

If painkillers are marginally effective in acute situations, they are virtually useless at combatting chronic pain. The UK’s NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) which assesses the cost and effectiveness of drugs before they can be prescribed by the NHS, says the standard painkillers - including aspirin, ibuprofen, benzodiazepines and opioids - should not be offered to a chronic pain sufferer.  

There’s a further twist to the tale.  Studies show that acute pain may become chronic through continued use of painkillers like MSAIDS, acetaminophen and steroids as they interfere with the immune system’s ability to resolve inflammation, extending the time the sufferer is in pain. Unfortunately, I see quite a number of people who feel utterly dependent on their painkillers but are still in chronic pain.

Mobile phone/social media addiction

Nowadays it is unusual to see a young person in public without a mobile in their hand.   Many can’t eat, spend time with their families, or go to bed without their mobile.  Checking social media, emails and texts is highly addictive behaviour, because, like the slot machines, you never know when you are going to get a reward of something stimulating.   

A 2016 survey of parents showed that 59% felt their children were addicted to social media while 27% felt they were addicted themselves. A study by venture capital firm Accel and data analytics company Qualtrics found that millennials check their Smartphones an average of 150 times per day. Seventy-nine per cent sleep with their phones near their beds and check their phone in the middle of the night. 

Momentarily misplacing their mobile can plunge teenagers into a real tailspin with panic symptoms of withdrawal. Some people just can’t stop posting selfies because of the adrenaline rush that this gives. A 2017 study talks about “smartphone-induced brain drain” and reports that the presence of a smartphone on the table during tests reduces the cognitive ability of students. Not so smart then.  Perhaps this is behind the growing phenomena of spectators filming accidents instead of helping the victims.

Steps to freeing yourself from addiction

• 1. It begins with the decision and determination to break free of your addiction and regain control of your life. And the recognition that this is not going to be easy.

• 2. Optimising nutrition is a crucial foundation for preparing your brain chemistry to wean off addiction.

• 3. Certain supplements are also helpful:  NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) a potent antioxidant that penetrates the blood brain barrier and can help reduce inflammation, Magnesium, certain B vitamins and Vitamin C are a few of the obvious ones.

• 4. A tailored programme is needed to get the person safely weaned off their addiction, whatever it is. If it is prescription drugs, this needs to be monitored by an MD.  I have guidelines for safe taper down that can be passed on to GPs.  Never come off an addictive drug cold turkey. The side effects can be quite awful.  The Good Health Clinic also offers a laser acupuncture withdrawal programme delivered over three consecutive days for smoking and alcohol cessation. This helps get the person over the initial hump of withdrawal. This is done after an initial consultation to prepare the patient nutritionally.

• 5. Addressing the reasons why the person turned to their addiction in the first place is also important. Finding a safe substitute activity can also help, particularly in cases of food, alcohol or nicotine addiction.

• 6. If a person has been totally unsuccessful in addressing food addictions, they should look at any unresolved emotional issues. This is very important as cases fail to the degree that they can’t stick to an anti-inflammatory diet.

If you would like to explore any of the above issues, please email the Good Health Clinic: goodhealthclinic@outlook.com or ring on 07836 552936

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Due to the current economic circumstances, I have increasing clinic fees. New fees are now in place.

Disclaimer: All advice given out by Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic is for general guidance and informational purposes only.  All advice relating to other health professionals’ advice is for general guidance and information purposes only. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information provided with other sources.  Patients and consumers should review the information carefully with their professional health care provider. The information is not intended to replace medical advice offered by other practitioners and physicians. Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic will not be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, exemplary or other damages arising therefrom.