Charles Gant, MD - End Your Addiction Now

Dr. Charles Gant  writes,
"I specialize in molecular health and healing, especially as it supports psychospiritual growth and mental health recovery from problems such as AD/HD, autism, mood problems, addictions, food and carbohydrate compulsions and nicotine dependence.
Most people believe that their psychological well-being has little to do with the molecules in their body.  However, a rapidly growing body of scientific evidence has amassed suggesting that one’s molecular status is the most important factor in causing symptoms such as mood instability, substance and alcohol cravings and inattentiveness,and that it can be altered by 3 kinds of interventions: nutritional restoration, detoxification and hormonal balancing.
Like a weight lifter who takes vitamins and goes into the gym to pump iron, efforts directed at enhancing attentiveness and mindfulness is the "iron pumping" part of psychospiritual growth and mental health recovery.  A successful body builder must have both parts, good nutrition and exercise.  The same is true for psychospiritual growth and mental health recovery, because the brain is an organ just like the muscles.  Good nutrition, detoxification and hormonal balancing, along with mindfulness-directed exercises of the mind/brain get the best results."


Watch the video to learn about Dr. Gant's beliefs of the current status of addictions treatment and what really should be done to effectively overcome an addiction.





 About End Your Addiction Now -
Here is the write up from the publisher about the book:
"Whether it is to alcohol, drugs, smoking, or food, addiction is an overwhelming and destructive force that negatively impacts the lives of those in its grip. While there are programs galore that promise an end to these dependencies, the truth is, far too many “reformed” addicts fall right back into their old habits.
Why?
Because powerful biochemical factors override the psychological will to quit.
End Your Addiction Now is a unique book that not only explores the real cause of this recurring problem, but also offers a proven biochemical approach that can break addiction once and for all.
Written in easy-to-understand language, End Your Addiction Now is based upon the extensive research and medical practice of Dr. Charles Gant and other pioneers in the field of orthomolecular medicine. It both guides readers to physicians and facilities that support a biochemical approach to the treatment of substance-use disorders, and provides step-by-step directions for those who want to quit their addictions on their own.
At the heart of Dr. Gant’s approach is a unique “Quick-Start” program of nutritional supplements. After completing a questionnaire to determine which key brain chemical disruptions are causing their substance cravings, moods, and behaviors, readers are given a targeted list of nutritional supplements designed to jump-start their recovery–supplements that help reduce cravings within twenty-four to seventy-two hours.
The book then walks readers through a natural process of detoxification and additional biochemical testing to establish a complete biochemical profile.
Finally, it addresses the specific nutritional deficiencies that must be addressed for a full psychological and spiritual recovery."


Click on the link below to order from Amazon:
End Your Addiction Now: A Proven Nutritional Supplement Program That Can Set You Free


Download and read some of Dr. Gant's articles here - free
http://www.charlesgantmd.com/articles.html

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Ending sugar addiction....an approach that works from a doctor who has had the courage to speak publicly about what is really happening to our food. Fascinating!

Robert H. Lustig, MD

Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, in the Division of Endocrinology Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF

Dr. Lustig is a nationally-recognized authority in the field of neuroendocrinology, with a specific emphasis on the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. He is currently investigating the contribution of biochemical, neural, hormonal, and genetic influences in the expression of the current obesity epidemic both in children and adults. He has defined a syndrome of vagally-mediated beta-cell hyperactivity which leads to insulin hypersecretion and obesity, and which is treatable by insulin suppression. This phenomenon may occur in up to 20% of the obese population. He is interested in the hypothalamic signal transduction of insulin and leptin, and how these two systems interact. He is studying the cardiovascular morbidity associated with hyperinsulinemia, and developing methods to evaluate and prevent this phenomenon in children. He is also analyzing the contribution of the autonomic nervous system to insulin secretion and insulin resistance in obese children, and the utility of assessing insulin dynamics in targeting obesity therapy.

Dr. Lustig graduated from MIT, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. He performed his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and his clinical fellowship at UCSF. From there, he spent six years as a post-doctoral fellow in neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University in New York.

Dr. Lustig has authored over 70 research articles and 35 chapters. He is the Chairman of the Obesity Task Force of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, a member of the Obesity Task force of The Endocrine Society, and on the Steering Committee of the International Endocrine Alliance to Combat Obesity.

http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/faculty_lustig.htm

Hypoglycemia, mental health and addictions

Hypoglycemia

This is a common condition of an abnormally low level of sugar in the blood. Sugar levels frequently change throughout the day and may be normal sometimes and abnormal at others. Symptoms include weakness, shakiness, excess hunger, anxiety, outbursts, faintness, headaches, passing out, delirium, coma, hallucinations, excess sweating, the appearance of intoxication, marked personality changes, irritability, negativism, mood swings, depression, crying spells, and a panorama of similar mental symptoms.

Numerous patients given psychiatric diagnoses have actually turned out to have hypoglycemia, including those classified with depression, manic-depressive disorder, and schizophrenia.

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/causesofschizophrenia.htm#Hypoglycemia

What is hypoglycemia?

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/what_is_hypo.html

More articles

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/i-articles.html

Questionnaire to help determine what ails you. From Blake Graham in Australia (PDF)

http://www.nutritional-healing.com.au/content/questionnaire.pdf

The biggest drug dealers are listed on the stock exchange

(Reuters) - Abuse of prescription drugs is growing rapidly around the world, with more people abusing legal narcotics than heroin, cocaine and ecstasy combined, the United Nations global drugs watchdog said on Wednesday.

Read the article here

UK: Action on an epidemic of pill addiction

Action on Britain's epidemic of pill addiction
Peer to use House of Lords speech to reveal relative's addiction to prescription drug

By Jeremy Laurance, Health editor
Saturday, 31 October 2009

As early as 30 years ago, the addictive properties of tranquillisers such as Valium were known, but critics maintain the Government is still not doing enough to help

The Department of Health has launched a review of the million-plus patients addicted to prescribed drugs in the UK in a tacit admission that attempts to control the problem over the last two decades have failed.

An estimated 1.5 million people are addicted to prescription and over-the-counter drugs including benzodiazepine tranquillisers, sleeping pills such as zoplicone - implicated in the death of Hollywood star Heath Ledger - and painkillers containing codeine.

The review, which began in July, was disclosed in a Westminster hall debate last June but has not been formally announced. It followed a report by the House of Commons all-party group on drugs misuse which called for better training for doctors in the risks of over-prescribing, greater awareness of the scale of addiction and more centres for treatment....

snip

Case study: 'My life has been shattered'

Matthew (not his real name), was prescribed Efexor, an antidepressant, and Clonazepam, a benzodiazepine, to help him sleep following the failure of a business venture in 2001.

He was living abroad but returned to Britain where the prescription was continued. “For seven years I was fine. I didn’t really think about the pills, I took them as vitamins. It was something I did at the end of the day.”

Earlier this year increasing fatigue prompted him to try and withdraw from them. His doctor advised a “cold turkey” approach involving a few days in hospital, after which he would be drug free.

“I went in as a happy confident person and in two days I was a train wreck. I felt I had woken up in a horror film, I couldn’t walk or think and I had lost my memory. It was indescribable torture.”

Nine months on, he is still trying to put his life back together. Married with two children, he has been unable to return to work.

“I am still terrified of going outside, I can’t think straight or concentrate and I have very bad depression. Every single stimulus seems scary and heightened. It is absolutely extraordinary a prescription drug can do this to you. My life has been shattered.”

“There is nowhere for me to go for support except to other sufferers on the internet and one or two people who have set up support groups round the country.”

“I have seen several doctors since and they cannot believe my doctor kept me on these drugs for seven years. I have lodged a formal complaint about him.”

The Independent

UPDATE - JAMA: Antidepressant meta-analysis reveals 22 years of deception; treatment worthless for most
"The full magnitude of severe harm produced by these drugs in otherwise healthy people for whom antidepressants were misprescribed has not yet been fully collated--the human casualties include thousands of drug-induced suicides, mania, drug-exacerbated depression, drug dependence, birth defects..."
Link

It is possible withdraw from medication without doing harm to yourself.
See
The Ashton Manual - Dr. Heather Ashton re Benzos/Tranquillizers

Halting SSRI's - Dr. David Healey - PDF re Antidepressants

Icarus Project Harm reduction guide to coming off psychiatric drugs

Anti-cocaine vaccine leads addicts to take ten times more of the drug

"Testing of cocaine vaccine shows it does not fully blunt cravings for the drug

By Rachel Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Scientists may have created a vaccine against cocaine addiction: a series of shots that changes the body's chemistry so that the drug can't enter the brain and provide a high.

The vaccine, called TA-CD, shows promise but could also be dangerous; some of the addicts participating in a study of the vaccine started doing massive amounts of cocaine in hopes of overcoming its effects, according to Thomas R. Kosten, the lead researcher on the study, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in October.

"After the vaccine, doing cocaine was a very disappointing experience for them," said Kosten, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Nobody overdosed, but some of them had 10 times more cocaine coursing through their systems than researchers had encountered before, according to Kosten. He said some of the addicts reported to researchers that they had gone broke buying cocaine from multiple drug dealers, hoping to find a variety that would get them high.'
Link

Not too alarming... but wait...

"Unwanted Side Effect: Cocaine Vaccine Leads Addicts to Take 10 Times More Cocaine

Over the last decade, the advances in neuroscience that led doctors to view addiction as a disease, rather than a desire or personal failing, raised the natural question of whether or not addicts could be vaccinated against drug use as if it were a virus. While the theory remains valid, the recent clinical trial of one of those vaccines, called TA-CD, highlights the complexity of the issue.

TA-CD works by preventing cocaine from entering the brain, thus stopping the user from getting high. It does not, however, stop cravings, leading some test participants who received the vaccine to take 10 times as much cocaine in the hopes of overriding the vaccine and getting high, or to bankrupt themselves while trying to do so.

According to the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, some participants in the study bumped more yeyo than the researchers conducting the study had every seen before. Others lost all their money buying one cut of charlie after another in the vain hopes of finding a package that actually got them high."
Link

Photos: UN World Drug Report 2009

Very, very hard to look at. Link

Listen to Alexander Schauss explain how withdrawal from heroin without cold turkey can be done - using Vitamin C Poor nutrition may underlie many addictions. Correcting nutrition may halt many addictions.

Why isn't Vitamin C being used to free addicts everywhere?

Times UK: The growth of prescription drug addiction

Image: Mick Jagger, singer of "Mother's Little Helper", in pills

"The revelation about the mass of prescription drugs that were pumped around Michael Jackson’s body by his enabling doctor reminded me of a brief flirtation with the world of tranquillisers when I was living in New York. It was soon after 9/11, and having witnessed the terrorist attacks, I was jittery about a flight to LA. A friend suggested Xanax, one of the family of so-called benzodiazepine drugs that includes Valium, so off I went to my dishy doctor. Xanax was duly prescribed with a bedside manner (“Any questions or concerns?”). I discovered that the relaxing haze it induced was rather essential on all flights, anxiety or no anxiety. Fortunately, I was on a repeat prescription. No questions asked. As long as I had the $80 or thereabouts (insurance paid some, but by no means all, of the bill), the pills were mine.

Back in the UK, it was a different story. Contemplating the jet lag of an upcoming trip to Malaysia, I went to my GP to get sleeping pills. Once I’d convinced him I wasn’t an addict (he barely looked up from his pad during this “conversation”), I left with a prescription for four pills. Four! I felt as I imagine my toddler feels when I won’t allow her a second helping of ice cream."

Article here

For information on safe withdrawal from benzodiazepines, antidepressants and other psychoactive prescription drugs, look at
Dr. Ashton's Benzo Manual http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/
Dr. Healy's SSRI information - PDF
and other links in our right-hand column.

Vortex of Mental Illness Map and Kitbag

Detail - From International Futures Forum an update on the old game of Snakes and Ladders. Kudos for this outstanding graphic design, which really help us think about these problems in a new way - to get inside them. Image
See more MacroVu diagrams here
http://www.macrovu.com/
MacroVu/Stanford's map re mental health care mess here
http://web.archive.org/web/20011129070448/www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/images/PortlandDynamics.pdf

"Vortex of mental illness
December 4th, 2008

You might wonder why Kitbag was first tested at Cornton Vale women’s prison in Scotland.

This came about following a meeting between the governor and me in response to work I had done on improving services for adult survivors of sexual abuse. The prison population has a high percentage of women survivors and the governor was wondering whether there was anything more she could be doing to help them recover from their trauma.

I showed her work the IFF had done in Fife which examined the systemic behaviours that drive people ever deeper into care and custodial services as they slip out of the support of family, friends and community. Bob Horn, an expert in visual language, helped us illustrate our thinking with a mural called the Vortex of Mental Illness. You can link through to it from this post: I would be interested in your views.

When I had a prototype Kitbag to show her, it seemed sensible to return to the prison to see if they woudl be interested in using it with their women. The Head of Care and governor were both keen. They liked its holistic/wellness perspective. With modifications for the prison environment and agreement with mental health nursing staff, we gave three women the kits and worked through each pocket over a year.

We are now planning to expand this work to include more women, using a peer education model.

Margaret Hannah"

Kitbag - what is it?


We think massage, lighting candles and drawing divination cards are fine. However, what people need first to shake their "psychological problems" and "addictions" is correct diagnosis and treatment of their nutritional and other underlying health problems. When we checked we found only one link on nutrition at International Futures Forum.

Here's an earlier post on using nutrition to
get through heroin withdrawal.

NIDA: Coming Up Empty

Looks like the US government does not think that prescription drug addiction is much of a problem - there's hardly anything on it at their site.
As long as pharma profit margins are high, no problem....? Perhaps the government has a drug problem, too.



Image from http://www.investmentu.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/20051103b.GIF

TV: Celebrity Rehab

About Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew | Season 1

"Celebrity Rehab" is the first television series to chronicle the real life experiences of a group of celebrities as they make the life-changing decision to enter themselves into a drug, alcohol, and addiction treatment program. They each have the sincere desire to achieve rehabilitation and recovery.

Leading the groups' efforts at recovery is renowned addiction expert Dr. Drew Pinsky, Medical Director of the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Southern California's Las Encinas Hospital, and host of the long-running radio and television advice series "LOVELINE".

This inspirational journey begins inside one of Southern California's private addiction and recovery treatment facilities, the Pasadena Recovery Center. Each member of the group has committed themselves to a course of supervised medical treatment for a period of several weeks. At every step in this challenging process, viewers at home will witness the struggles of these celebrity patients, who reveal themselves to be regular people in need of a helping hand as they strive for recovery, health, and future happiness.

Not sure what to think of this yet, but here is the link.



The Amy Winehouse REHAB video is here

Video: Get Past Your Addiction To Prescription Drugs

Dr. Gary Kohls explains how he helps patients get off their addictive psychiatric medications.
One of a series of videos featuring this compassionate doctor; to see more, go to the site. Recommended.

Times Online: Hooked on Prescription Drugs

"...for many people I think the problem is that they were prescribed by a doctor in the first place. You feel terrible, and the doctor says you should take this drug to make you feel better. You do what the doctor says. The drug does this, and you can’t stop taking it because if you do you will feel terrible again. I don’t blame doctors — you can understand why their approach is to prescribe drugs to alleviate symptoms. Unfortunately, they don’t have the time or resources to get to the deep root of the problem."

Link

Such an addiction can happen to anyone. A "peace-and-love" folk singer, Stevie Nicks' lyrics created the vibe that helped propel '70s supergroup Fleetwood Mac to fame. Nicks speaks out on her addiction to Klonopin here
Video of Nicks' STREET ANGEL, a song about that addiction

Taking It Global Tackles Substance Abuse in Youth

"Substance abuse, also referred to as drug addiction, has been described as the continuous use of a harmful or potentially harmful substance for the purposes of sensory (i.e. your senses) or mood alteration that overtime may reinforce its permanent consumption (www.who.int). One of the factors most often associated with predicting one’s risk of future drug addiction is age. From childhood to young adulthood, people tend to be most susceptible to experimentation with drug use, however as we grow older, continued drug use begins to reflect future addiction. Yet even mild drug use can disrupt a young person’s life by negatively influencing their ability to relate with others (family, peers, etc.), maintain a sober composure over long periods of time, and it can even result in temporary memory loss depending on the type of drug and the length of use."

Link

And not all drugs people use that get them into trouble come from illicit sources.
from
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k7NSDUH/2k7results.cfm

Deepak Chopra on Michael Jackson and Enabling Doctors

A list of the cocktail of drugs Michael Jackson was taking when he died can be seen here.

Dr. Deepak Chopra was a friend of Jackson's. He writes about Jackson's death on his blog at The Huffington Post.

"The public's attention span is short, but widespread awareness is the first step. The real target audience are the local licensing boards and peer review committees who handle medical practice. The culture of "just say yes" when a celebrity shows up in a doctor's office needs to be condemned. This condemnation needs to be followed up with serious consequences for enabling physicians. If they recklessly addict a patient, severe repercussions should follow. If they themselves are addicted, complete abstinence must be achieved before they are allowed to return to medical practice, and random drug testing should be required by all states. Computerized medical histories should be instituted, so that we know precisely how many prescriptions are being written by each doctor and filled by each patient. With a centralized database, celebrities won't be able to pull off the trick of fooling dozens doctors and pharmacists all over town. And we need to do a better job educating physicians about the nuances and difficulties of treating patients such as these.

These steps are a beginning. Realistically, celebrities will always be first in line in gaining easy access to drugs. They have the means, the excuses, the money, and the opportunity. But at the very least the culture of enabling physicians must be branded as shameful. The same image that fools the public has eroded medical ethics. The abuse of prescription medication is becoming an alarming problem in this country, It's not fun to take drugs, it is serious business as is our charge to care for patients, celebrity or not. Doctors that enable celebrities must be brought to justice or else we will continue to witness shattered lives and sudden death."

Link
Chopra says Jackson's death due to drugs More

A Culture Soaked in Alcohol and Drugs - Daily Kos

From the diary:

"How many of you have been told you were stupid, lazy, no-good, a failure who'd never amount to nothin'?" Glodoski asked the students. Easily four-fifths of the students raised their hands.

"What the thinker thinks, the prover proves," I thought to myself.

Some of these kids will be lucky enough to escape this tiny town. Some will be resilient enough to endure it mostly intact . . . but they may still pass the same pattern down to their own kids, if only in a watered-down form. Most, sadly, will repeat the cycle unless something is done to save them. And no one is doing enough to save them. The underfunded school district, where teachers with master's degrees make only $35,000 a year, can't save them. Their families aren't equipped to save them. And unlike in the inner city, where at least a drop-in center or a street outreach program can make contact with thousands of children and maybe make a difference for a few dozen, here there is no such thing, because there's no critical mass of population to make such a thing possible.

No wonder Republicans are in a panic about the state of the American family. Get outside a large or medium-size metropolitan area, and the state of the American family is apocalyptic, a confusing mess in which stability is a fantasy, violence and verbal abuse are pervasive, and everyone resents someone for something. No wonder the residents of "red" counties flee to "family values" churches for security -- out here, it seems like church is the only force that can counter the disintegration, and even church can only do so much.

With jobs drying up, without money for the schools, without the population density for recreation and enrichment activities, what is there to relieve the bleakness of life? There's TV. There are video games. There's gossip. And there are drugs and alcohol.

This is America today.

This is what the flight of jobs has done to us.

This is what underinvestment in schools does to us.

This is what violence, despair and lack of empathy do to us.

This is what the loss of our dignity does to us.

This is the peril we're in.

What are our leaders going to do about it?

What are we going to do about it?

Link

Study after study in prisons and schools have demonstrated that addictions, bad behavior, failure to learn, lack of productivity and poor social values are related to poor nutrition. So the first thing to do is - fix the food.