Nutrition and Addiction: Healthy Eating in Recovery

Certain substances, such as methamphetamines or stimulants, tend to suppress a person’s appetite. Chronic use of such substances will severely affect a person’s health as the person refrains from eating properly.

In other instances, substances could have a heavy sedative or hypnotic effect on the people taking them, making them sleep most of the time. This also affects nutrition as they are unable to eat properly as well since they are only awake or conscious for a few hours each day.

People who have a chronic substance abuse disorder tend to isolate themselves from others as much as possible. This is particularly true for those who are already manifesting side effects that are difficult to conceal.

As such, eating properly or eating at places where nutritional food is available might no longer be an option. This leaves only food that could be bought at convenience stores or fast food, both of which could hardly be considered nutritious alternatives. In many cases, people who suffer from heavy addiction only subsist on sweets and small food items that they can get without calling attention to themselves.

Malnutrition is practically guaranteed in people with a substance abuse disorder. This is even true with those who have a substance dependency and still binge eat when they could. This is because the food items they choose are not necessarily the ones they need.

In many cases, malnutrition contributes greatly to the acceleration and aggravation of whatever damage the body is already undergoing from chronic substance abuse. The damage done is mostly on one or more major organs of the body.

Abused substances lead to one form of damage or another to the body, this is a fact. Depending on the type of substance, the damage could be manifested as a gradual impairment of the organ’s function, or the complete shutdown of its processes, much like what happens when a person’s liver gives out from too much alcohol.

Other than the liver, other organs that tend to be damaged the most from substance abuse include

• Circulatory system (heart and blood vessels)
• Central nervous system (brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves)
• Respiratory system (nose, lungs, and trachea)
• Digestive system (mouth, stomach, esophagus, liver, and intestines)
• Excretory system (kidneys, bladder, and urethra)
• Endocrine system (hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, and adrenal glands)
• Reproductive system
• Lymphatic & immune system (lymph nodes and vessels, white blood cells)

Getting drunk almost always translates into either vomiting afterward, feeling ill the morning after, or both. Vomiting and frequent urination from a night of heavy drinking are why people feel terrible the following day. The dehydration that results from severe loss of bodily fluids from drinking gives people a hangover, and it could be more serious than most people think.

Dehydration not only adds to the nutritional problems caused by alcohol by making people vomit and urinate more than usual but flushing out vital fluids could send the body into shock, which could be life-threatening.

This is a sad reality demonstrated by many homeless people who also abuse alcohol. Most people on the street would rather use whatever money they have to buy cheap liquor or alcohol from convenience stores than buy a decent meal. This already deprives them of the most basic of nutrients taken from food.

As a consequence of being drunk most of the time, chronic drinkers also tend to be asleep or lack enough consciousness to be able to get a decent meal. This further pushes them down the path of malnutrition.

There is a potentially lethal condition known as Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, which is a severe Thiamine deficiency that leads to progressive cognitive function degeneration and death. This condition is largely attributed to severe thiamine deficiency and is also associated with chronic alcohol drinkers.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that an estimated 80% of people who have an alcohol abuse disorder either cannot absorb thiamine from the food they eat or cannot retain it enough to process it. This syndrome is made up of two parts:  Wernicke encephalopathy and Korsakoff syndrome.

Korsakoff syndrome, also known as Korsakoff psychosis is characterized by memory loss for recent events (short-term memory loss), varying degrees of confusion, and confabulation, which is the tendency to make up facts to fill in gaps in memories.

Wernicke encephalopathy, the other half of this syndrome, is characterized by varying degrees of confusion, apathy, development of difficulty in walking, development of eye problems such as involuntary eye movements (nystagmus), and partial paralysis of the eyes. Of the two components of this syndrome, untreated Wernicke encephalopathy may lead to a coma and even death.