By Joe Juliano, RDN, Clinical Nutrition Manager, The Valley Hospital
Eating a healthy diet is crucial to patients who are in an addiction treatment program. Nutrition plays an important role in repairing harm that substance use disorder has caused to a person’s body and brain. Choosing a sober life requires a person to eat well every day to support their long-term recovery.
How Nutrition Support Can Heal the Body
Using drugs or alcohol over months and years can severely impact a person’s health and well-being, including one’s appetite. A substance may act as an appetite suppressant by reducing a desire for food. Or, a lifestyle of active use can cause disruption to even the basic routines, including regular and consistent mealtimes. Some high-calorie alcoholic drinks can make a person feel full, so they do not eat properly.
A balanced, nutritious diet that provides essential vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and water helps a person’s body return from being malnourished to functioning properly and moving forward in the recovery process. Reversing the effects of a substance use disorder can aid in stabilizing blood pressure, increasing immunity, keeping skin and hair healthy, and improving blood clotting and muscle function. Staying hydrated by drinking water, not sugar-laden beverages, affects nearly every part of the body positively.
How Nutrients Help the Brain Recover
The same nutrients that help the body also support the brain in recovery by helping it form and reorganize connections damaged by chronic drug and alcohol use. According to the Mayo Clinic, healthy nutrients can help the brain produce neurotransmitters that reduce cravings, stabilize mood, enhance sleep, prevent aggression, and reduce inflammation. Once a person’s brain function improves, they can learn and retain coping skills that support their sobriety.
How Nutrition Support Aids in Withdrawal Management
At Valley’s Recovery and Wellness Unit, every person’s withdrawal is managed by a multispecialty clinical team that uses combined methods of FDA-approved medications, evidence-based counseling, and holistic therapies. We recognize the profound healing aspects of nutrition by providing balanced meals, nourishing snacks, and plenty of healthy water and beverages. Upon admission, every patient who comes here for withdrawal management is given a malnutrition screening, which evaluates whether they are at risk for malnutrition based on criteria such as recent weight loss and appetite changes.
Our registered dietitians ensure patients are on the correct diet while they are with us, working together to provide proper nutrition while incorporating the patient’s food choices using meal-selection tablets. All meals are cooked by our Valley Dining chefs at our hospital in Paramus using the freshest ingredients and delivered daily. A nourishment room on our unit invites patients to help themselves to healthy snacks, water, and beverages.
A dietitian works with patients at risk for malnutrition or other nutritional issues. Their diets may include liquid, oral, and IV nutritional supplements when appropriate.
During group counseling, enhancing one’s nutrition is often a topic of discussion. When it is time for discharge, we support every person’s continued nutrition health by providing educational materials, referrals to community resources, and information about Valley’s outpatient nutrition counseling programs at our Robert and Audrey Luckow Pavilion in Paramus. If a patient leaves to go to an inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation program, their nutrition information goes with them.
When patients eat better, they feel better. Enhancing every patient’s nutrition health is one of the major goals of withdrawal management here at the Recovery and Wellness Unit.
For more information, call 201-612-4949.
If you are in crisis, text or call 988. To learn more about how nutrition aids in recovery: webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/addiction-and-nutrition.