How To Break Your Sugar Addiction Cleveland Clinic
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Reducing your sugar intake can be a positive step toward improving your overall health. It can help with digestive issues like irritable bowel and acid reflux, but that’s not all. Eating less sugar can also improve anxiety and stress, reduce fatigue, ease joint pain, and cut down on headaches and migraines. According to the American Heart Association, 8 out of 10 adults are trying to reduce the amount of sugar they eat, but it’s not easy. For people who’ve become chemically dependent on sugar, it’s even harder.
Your body needs to right itself as quickly as possible, leading to sugar cravings. Alcohol and poor eating can stop your liver from releasing glucose into your blood. This can lead to low blood https://ecosoberhouse.com/ sugar, also known as hypoglycemia. In this article, we’re going to go through the causes for your sugar cravings. We know that it can be challenging going from craving one substance to another.
Psychological Effects
This element warrants attention from addiction treatment providers. Eating disorders themselves can overlap with mental health disorders, making journeys to recovery particularly difficult. Even in cases where they don’t, eating disorders by themselves can significantly inhibit rehabilitation. In this specific exploration’s context, an eating disorder can exacerbate sugar cravings beyond alcohol abstinence itself, discomforting the individual immensely. Finally, eating sugary foods can help to boost serotonin levels in the brain, which can help to reduce cravings for alcohol and can help to improve mood.
When you consume alcohol, your body’s blood sugar levels drop rapidly. This can make you feel tired, irritable and hungrier than usual. Moreover, excessive alcohol intake can damage the liver’s ability to regulate blood glucose levels by reducing insulin sensitivity. Consequently, this leads to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes and may cause further sugar cravings. A chocolate bar is far less harmful than returning to active addiction. Sugary foods can help those in recovery because they affect the brain like addictive drugs.
Substance Abuse Treatment
In fact, researchers have found that sugar lowers both opioid and dopamine receptor availability in our brains. Put simply, sugar activates the reward and pleasure centers of our brains the same way addictive substances do. Please, feel free to contact us today and let our teams know how we can best help you defeat addiction. Nutrient deficiencies and blood sugar issues trigger cravings for high-sugar foods like chocolate, candy, or other sweet treats. Sugary foods can easily fill in this gap, especially given that eating sweets is much more socially acceptable and appears less detrimental to your health than drinking. First, you get more of a dopamine boost from foods that are high in sugar or fat.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to addiction treatment, as we’ve highlighted many times in the past. Sugar and other replacement rewards are not enough to break the destructive cycle of a substance use disorder. Many people who struggle with alcohol addiction also suffer from low blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia.
Sweet relief
Nonetheless, as they continue to assert, research so far confirms that we can indeed identify addictive qualities in sugar. If you’re worried you’re going to relapse or if you’ve already relapsed, remember that it doesn’t mean you’ve failed at recovery. While there is some truth to this, the connection actually starts in the brain. Don’t let another difficult day or sleepless night pass by. We are ready to help you or the person you love stop addiction in its tracks. Whether you are looking for a drug rehab in Nashville TN for yourself or a loved one, we can help.
- In addition, alcohol addiction comes with an array of underlying psychological effects and foundations.
- Please don’t deprive yourself of nourishing meals and snacks.
- The approach works for some (lucky) people, but it’s not the best call for most of us.
She works to create content that inspires clients and families to advocate for the support they deserve. Too much sugar can lead to gut problems, tooth decay, weight gain, and even https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/why-do-alcoholics-crave-sugar-in-recovery/ type 2 diabetes. So instead of consuming sugar, what other options do recovering addicts have? There are plenty of ways to calm your cravings while avoiding the negatives of sugar.
2022-07-05
