In this part we explain the 12 Keys that have proven most helpful to people kicking their addiction. Think of it as a boot camp for your brain. The 12 Keys are simple steps you can take to give your brain, and your psyche, the equivalent of a trip to the health farm. And it works. By eating healthy foods and taking the absolute optimum amount of key nutrients you reprogramme your brain and body chemistry so that you quickly start to experience a state of natural energy, clarity and steady mood – in effect an enjoyable natural high. Because of this, you’ll find the desire to use an addictive substance far less strong.
Don’t underestimate the power of your brain
It is important to remember that there is no ‘1 Key’ solution to addiction. If you’ve been using addictive substances for many years, possibly in large quantities, your brain will not simply be ‘reset’ by eating a so-called well-balanced diet. Similarly, if you’ve experienced major stresses and traumas in life you don’t just recover by leading a balanced life. There is damage that needs to be undone. You have to reprogramme your mind and rebuild your brain. If you’ve seriously scrambled your brain, just sitting in a room and talking about your past isn’t going to unscramble it.
The bottom line is that if your brain is programmed for addiction, with all the will in the world, and the best counselling, and even some of the new addiction drugs that make you feel sick if you use the drug of your choice, nothing is stronger than the impulse of your brain telling you that your survival depends on having tis substance. Biological urges are immensely strong. You try not breathing, or not peeing, for example. We take our hats off to those who have quit when all the cells in their body are screaming for a cigarette, a drink or a drug. That’s definitely the hard track.
The easier track is to work with your brain’s natural design, not against it, by restoring the imbalance, not with drugs, but with the very nutrients that your brain has evolved to use over millions of years. This approach not only reprogrammes your brain and your body’s chemistry to make you feel good naturally, but it also reprogrammes how you react to the triggers that lead you to take an addictive substance. As your brain, mood, concentration and energy start to come back to life so does your capacity for learning and resolving psychological or life conflicts that may be part of you getting stuck in some level of addiction. Hence counselling is much more effective in optimally nourished people. Although psychological issues, such as feeling completely stressed or depressed, can lead you into addiction, once you are in it, the brain’s chemistry becomes reprogrammed, and simply solving the reason for your stress or depression, and avoiding the substance, doesn’t reset your brain’s chemical balance. The best way to achieve this is through the programme presented in this book.
Success is proven
This isn’t just talk. Our approach works in the real world. For example, in one treatment centre, Bridging The Gaps in Winchester, Virginia, which has incorporated these 12 Keys into their treatment agenda, along with intravenous nutrient therapy, the success rate has gone through the roof. We followed up 23 clients one year after they had started the equivalent of this How to Quit approach to quit their serious drug and alcohol addictions, and found that of the 23, 21 were clean and sober. That’s an incredible 91 per cent success rate! The usual one year success rate (meaning still clean and sober) for other methods of quitting is around 20 per cent. Of the 23 participants, 16 (70 per cent) had not even had a brief relapse – not a single drink or use of any drug.
Using the 12 Keys
The 12 Keys to Unaddicting Your Brain are designed to help you understand the solutions that are right for you. The first six define what ‘optimum nutrition’ really means in terms of unaddicting your brain: how to find out which amino acids will most rapidly reduce your abstinence symptoms; the kind of foods and supplements to take to get the best intake of essential fats, vitamins and minerals; and how to improve your ability to digest and absorb these nutrients. The next three chapters on getting a good night’s sleep, solving hidden food allergies and rejuvenating your liver, will be more applicable to some readers than others, but please read them all to see if they address issues that relate to you. The last three chapters explain what you can do to raise your feelgood endorphins naturally, generating vital energy and emotional healing – all have the effect of increasing your energy.
Get support
Although everything in this programme can be done at home, if you have a serious addiction we encourage you to work with a team of health professionals, including a nutritional therapist and psychotherapist, or a treatment centre that uses most of these 12 Keys to Unaddicting Your Brain. If your treatment centre choice does not incorporate our How to Quit nutrition approach you can always also attend, as an outpatient, the Brain Bio Centre in Richmond, Surrey (see Resources) to find your ideal nutrition prescription.
Add value to your programme
Whereas the optimum nutrition approach to reversing addiction is a vital missing piece we do not believe that it is the only piece of the jigsaw and recommend you do anything and everything that works for you. There is no contradiction to adding our How to Quit programme to any other method or technique for reversing your addiction. (If you are on prescribed medication please make sure you read Chapter 7 as there are some amino acids that should not be taken alongside certain drugs.)
Moving on
In Part 3 you’ll find out which of the keys we outline here will make the biggest difference to you, depending on which substances you want to quit
