Alcohol Addiction Rehab

Alcohol addiction rehab is like planting a seed too.

Alcohol addiction rehab can be a strenuous process if you have been pouring a lot of ethyl alcohol into your body for a long time.

The good news is your body has not forgotten how to be well and will begin to work immediately to heal itself in the rehab process.

It will need a lot of healthy food to do its work, and rest, and stress management, and as possible, physical exercise. It will need new thoughts about the 12 steps for example, or some other healthy model or example to pay attention to. What we think about can change our brain in a healthy direction or an unhealthy direction.

Two encouraging things that happen almost immediately is your brain will begin to grow new neurons and make them available to existing circuits, perhaps in the hippocampus area.

However, your brain will probably need to play catch-up for awhile, as there will be a big demand for new neurons.

Another very important brain capacity, neuroplasticity, which is the brains almost real time ability to rewire itself, based on what you are paying attention to, will begin to rebuild or perhaps build new and healthy circuits.

Also, all those extra receptors on your neurons will begin to close up, as the brain no longer needs them to accept ethyl alcohol molecules. While they are doing that though, you will experience some withdrawal symptoms.

So folks, a lot of your alcohol addiction rehab will happen in your brain, and now there is some very specific information available to help guide your alcohol rehab choices.

Start with this very specific book about brainfitness, Brainfit for Life by Simon Evans,Ph.D. and Paul Burghardt,Ph.D. They write about what they call the pillars of brain fitness, which are physical exercise, nutrition including lots of omega 3 fatty acids and B-complex vitamins for the recovering person, sleep, stress management, and novel learning experiences which might include the use of computerized brain fitness.

So taking care of all of these pillars makes it possible for our alcohol addled brains to grow some new neurons?

Absolutely, and the good news is we can be balanced about all this. No need to become fanatical, just regular.

Physical exercise is the most important brain pillar, and what Evans and Burghardt say is that we need to get regular aerobic exercise, and we can start by doing more of what we already do.

I like the model that Scott and Angie Tousignant have put together for couples. What I like about their model is that it works for 88 year old Bill and 82 year old Pat, who will you will find about 1/2 way down the page if you click on the Tousignant link. Scott and Angie have put together a perfect workout for encouraging neurogenesis, a ten minute high intensity interval training, which means that you do 30 second intervals of calisthenics, for example, for a total of ten minutes once or twice per day.

No expensive club memberships or equipment necessary, just space in your utility room. Evans and Burghardt go on to talk about four more pillars, the next in line is nutrition, because your brain uses about 20% of the fuel that we burn per day, and the brain requires high octane fruits, vegetables, and omega 3 fatty acid.

Evans and Burghardt spend some time on omega 3 fatty acid, which means that it is very important to our recovery and our brain's recovery.

The best source of omega 3 fatty acid is fish, which may conjure up worries about mercury poisoning, so you may want to consider a supplement omega 3 fatty acid.

Sleep and stress management are the next pillars of brain fitness to attend to, and if you are struggling with both or either in your alcohol addiction rehab, while your nervous system recovers, then try the Heartmath or emWave tools to aid and abet your 11th step work.

Actually, use them anyway, for enhanced sleep and heart beat by heart beat stress management. Oh, and Heartmath opens the higher perceptual centers of the brain for the computerized brain fitness programs mentioned below.

Novel learning experiences, as far as the brain fitness folks say, usually means the kind of learning that happens when I learn a new language or a new instrument, so no sudoku or cross words.

There are some very interesting computerized programs that I like which have tremendous research to back them up, and they are certainly more convenient than learning a new language or a new instrument.

The first is Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro which increases IQ.

Takes about 19 one half hour practices, one per day, to learn how to handle the attentional skills required for lasting alcohol addiction rehab.

Would You Share Something That You Are Grateful For?

When I was beginning my personal growth journey, a wise person told me that when I was feeling resentful or afraid or sad, that I should remember the phrase "gratitude is the attitude" when I was ready to feel better. That phrase has helped me feel better tens of thousands of times.

Would you share what you are most grateful for? Your story could be just what another person is searching for to renew themselves? Thanks.


Have a question and want to talk with a therapist? Call 815-316-2621 for Julie Logan, LCSW, RN. 7121 Windsor Lake Parkway, Loves Park, Illinois 61111 jlogan7264@myway.com