What should I supplement now I’ve ditched the booze?
It’s the million dollar question, and one its tricky to answer without a personalised approach. I do believe that for most of us our brain chemistry is out of whack so it helps if you can see a qualified nutritionist and find out exactly whats needed for you. Its also hugely important to get the best quality supplements you can afford, its one area where you do get what you pay for.
What happens to your body when you give up? In an ideal world if we all ate great food surely we shouldn’t need to supplement? That may be so, but years of drinking can really mess with our neurotransmitters so for most of us those early weeks can be made easier if we eat well and put back some key nutrients.
I found an old blog post which I wrote ages ago documenting how I was feeling at a few weeks into sobriety.
In truth I have felt anxious, sleep has not been easy, (though at least I haven’t woken up wishing I hadn’t drunk too much of a Sunday morning) and I haven’t exactly found the huge increase in energy I was hoping for. I haven’t lost even a pound in weight either, though I was bright enough to measure my vital bits and I can proudly tell you I’ve lost a few inches from around my hips.
None of this is unusual, and it seems there are some downsides to quitting the booze, at least in the short-term and it’s as well to be prepared for it. Once I recognized that what I was experiencing was quite normal, I contacted a colleague Susan Donnelly who is an excellent holistic healer and nutritionist and she has researched the whole phenomenon of what’s needed when you ditch the alcohol. Over the years drinking affects our immunity, hormones et al and it’s rare to be able to stop and feel instantly different. She ‘listened to my various woes and niggling symptoms’ and prescribed a whole raft of supplements, I am literally ‘rattling,’ but it makes sense, it seems I really do need B vitamins (a whole range), a specific homeopathic remedy, omega 3’s, milk thistle and some practitioner strength supplements that are going to help ‘re calibrate’ everything. Don’t just reach for any old quality vitamins though. Be careful that you choose high quality supplements that don’t contain fillers and poor quality ingredients. Pure Balance Supplements contain the active ingredient and a vegan capsule shell, that’s it. They are the best on the market, and as a practitioner for over 30 years she has really seen what works. with clients. Sue isn’t paying for this promo, I’m just a fan!
That’s still my recommendation. Sue is the best in the business, but doesn’t want to feature on the podcast etc. SO I want to recommend Sue and her supplements, you can buy them online but do please say I recommended you.
Sue can offer a consultation over the phone for £130 and her supplements are the absolute best quality. If you don’t have a personalised consultation I’d take a chance on the one that I think kept me well for a good long time.
These are the supplements that I took (and still take) I’m convinced they have helped me stay well. They are expensive it can’t be denied I get a bill through for £100 for a whole batch of supplements but then I remember what I would have spent on booze even just in a week!
Practitioner Strength Detox Activator,
Great for liver detoxification, contains a whole raft of B vits, plus Vit E, magnesium, choline, zinc and lots more.
If you can only afford one, get this one!
I also take the Super Balanced Multi Plus Choline, again lots of B vits, plus manganese, iron, vitamin A, selenium, chromium et al
And in addition I take the Vitamin C with bioflavonoids, and Calcium
Here’s some brand blurb …
Pure balanced powerful Pure Balance Supplements were created by fully qualified practitioners of nutritional medicine with over 35 years’ experience of using supplements full time with patients and seeing their effects. These practitioners were trained in chemistry and biochemistry by teachers with degrees in chemistry at Cambridge and who had experience of teaching biochemistry to doctors at Edinburgh Medical University. This combination of high training (about 5 years)and lengthy experience (over 30 years)means the supplements are of the highest quality and the most safe and effective available.
Our products are not available on amazon or the internet. They are only available direct from us or through very carefully selected and fully qualified practitioners of nutritional medicine. This ensures safety and quality. They do not contain anything but the active ingredient and a vegan capsule shell.
The capsules disintegrate in the stomach within 20 minutes of ingestion so that all the contents are available to be absorbed unlike tablets which often do not absorb and therefore do not work.
All ingredients are in the chemical form that the body recognizes because this is the chemical form in which they are found in our food. This means that the body can actually use them as opposed to the cheap forms of vitamins and minerals that do not occur naturally in food and which the body cannot use. An example is all our calcium is in the form of citrate as this is how it is found in our foods. Cheap supplements use calcium carbonate which is actually cheap chalk and does not absorb or get utilized as it neutralizes stomach acid thereby stopping full digestion of the mineral and also anything else eaten at the same time.
Many other supplements use fillers to fill up the capsule because they have less active ingredient in them. Many of these fillers are either toxic such as rice flour which contains arsenic or they are an unwanted extra burden to the body. Pure balance supplements never uses any of these.
Some supplements use added ingredients such as magnesium stearate. This is used to make the filling of capsules easier for the manufacturer but it is actually scum from sinks and baths and therefore not something we think you should be paying for and consuming when you are trying to become more healthy.
Pure balance supplements are strong enough to have a therapeutic effect. This means they can actually change your health for the better rather than the placebo effect of such tiny amounts of vitamins or minerals that are in some products that do not actually contain enough of the active ingredient to effect a change.
Due to the high levels of understanding of biochemistry we make our multi vitamin and mineral supplements in a perfect balance so that they do not interfere with other nutrients. For example in order to use calcium properly in the body, one also needs magnesium in higher levels than the calcium, as well as vitamin D, K2 and boron. We make sure our multis do this automatically so you do not have to work these things out.
Each new batch of each product is re-evaluated and if we can find any way to improve on the previous formulation we do so. This means we are unique in that our products are constantly evolving and being improved every few months.
So I highly recommend these products, having worked with Sue for years, I actually believe its her supplements that kept me in decent health despite caning the wine, and they definitely helped me to recover quickly.
Please do say I recommended you, and if there is interest we could set up a day’s workshop led by Sue in Barnet, Herts for those really interested in nutrition and wellbeing