Much of the diet recommended for recovering alcoholics consistsof traditional nutritional wisdom. Fill the plate with vegetablesand fruits. Turn to complex carbohydrates - whole grains - and passup simple carbs such as white flour and, needless to say, sugar.
Some recovery consultants emphasize the need for regularinfusions of protein, an easier sell now that animal protein isshedding its fearsome image as fat-marbled heart-attack bait.
'We even encourage people to have eggs. They're an excellentform of protein,' said Julia Ross, director of Recovery Systems inMill Valley, Calif. 'Our understanding is that cholesterol is mostlya genetic issue, and we haven't found it to be a problem.'Nobody recommends rushing back to the lardy old days ofhalf-pound T-bones, but even red meat in reasonable amounts isn't adisaster, Ross said. On the other hand, vegetarians in recovery needto pay careful attention to protein combining.Ross agrees with Burlingame, Calif., recovery specialistKathleen DesMaisons and Joan Mathews Larson, director of the HealthRecovery Center in Minneapolis and author of Seven Weeks to Sobriety,on three principles that can make renouncing French toast andchocolate-chip cookies more palatable:Eat plentifully.Don't be afraid of fats.Eat at least three times a day, and don't go more than five hourswithout food.Skipping meals is common - and disastrous - among both activeand recovering alcoholics. A catch phrase often used in AlcoholicsAnonymous is 'HALT' - Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.The book Eating Right to Live Sober, by Katherine Ketcham and L.Ann Mueller (Signet, $5.99), recommends three meals plus threescheduled snacks a day. But DesMaisons discourages snacks in favorof three healthful meals, though she's OK with a wholesome nibble forthe ravenous.'When you eat regular meals and don't graze, you teach youraddictive body the new behavior of starting and stopping,' she said,stressing 'stopping.'Along with regular meals, DesMaisons - whose book, tentativelytitled Potatoes Instead of Prozac, will soon be published by Simon &Schuster - emphasizes not so much high protein as consistent protein.A favorite breakfast is a burrito made from a whole-wheattortilla, stuffed with scrambled eggs, beans, cheese, potatoes in anyform and plenty of salsa, which, she says, boosts beta-endorphins,thus promoting well-being.For lunch and dinner, she calls for a piece of meat or fish 'thesize of your fist. We're definitely talking more than thatdeck-of-cards theory,' she added, referring to the popular guidelinefor a meat serving. 'I don't think that's enough food for people inrecovery.'One of her protein-rich suggestions is the old San Franciscofavorite known as Joe's special - a scramble of hamburger or groundturkey, beaten eggs, spinach, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and A-1sauce, sauteed together in olive oil.'Oatmeal is another wonder food for people in recovery,' shesaid. 'I also recommend that people have a baked potato before theygo to bed, to raise tryptophan levels in the brain. It helps yourelax and promotes sleep - and people like it.' On the potato:butter or salsa, but not cheese or sour cream at bedtime, since shefeels they reduce the drowsiness-promoting effect.The butter is pure fat. But please, stop fretting about that,Larson insists. 'I worry about all this focus on low-fat diets.When you don't get those essential fatty acids, there's depressionand anxiety, there's general screwiness.' (Nutritionists closer tothe mainstream put more focus on keeping fats low.)Larson urges plenty of fish for everyone. But she also contendsthat people of American Indian, Scandinavian, Irish, Scottish andWelsh ancestry are prone to an abnormality involving essential fattyacids that can lead to addiction. People in those groups, she says,especially need to eat lots of deep-water fish - tuna, salmon,sardines.Ross tells her clients to eat bountifully. 'For lunch, anenormous salad with chicken breast and chick-peas. For dinner,grilled fish with vegetables and rice, yams, a side salad. We wantpeople in recovery to eat a lot.'People are really satisfied with these meals,' she said. 'Theyhave real salad dressings. We don't withhold oil, because notgetting enough fat tends to create cravings.'For snacks, she recommends fruit or vegetables but with 'alittle protein, a little fat' - fruit with nuts, raw vegetables withhummus.Ross' and Larson's programs also call for an elaborate regimenof nutritional supplements. 'We have found that a significant numberof alcoholics and addicts can't eat right even though they want to,because their cravings are so powerful,' Ross said. She maintainsthat the supplements ease the cravings and make it easier to adopt aproper diet.'They're expensive,' she admitted. 'But they're needed only fora few months. Once people are stabilized, they don't needsupplements. And it's a lot more expensive to relapse.'DesMaisons, who uses diet to treat depression and eatingdisorders as well, says her program succeeds without the supplementregimen. 'I think you can achieve brain restoration with food. Itrequires behavioral changes, but that's part of recovery.'
