I heard a quote “your kid is not giving you a hard time - she is having a hard time “
There was never nothing going on and when I became curious and adjusted I became better and better at understanding her needs and how to keep adjusting to keep the balance
When she moved out I was left with me again
And I was not good at it 😅
One day
After the Ground breaking talk with you
I understood that i needed the same thing with me
- being a good mom to “baby me” being honest and curious
Having compassion, and patience - seeking to understand why my body was having a hard time- it clicked
I am not perfect at all but the mental violence and shame stopped and finally I feel long periods of peace- and when I am off track I am not stressed because i know “how to get back “ it was not just a diet change I needed- it was a attitude adjustment- no more violence or war against myself
When I go into that behavior I know that it’s me having a hard time ♥️ thank you charlotte for your support and sharing that created understanding
Your summation is platinum! And how you realized that was going on: "no more violence or war against myself." And that is was not an infinite stress; it was then and there the top of the bell curve and was going down from there. Your analysis helps me so much. Thank you!
Yes, for me cutting out the sugar, grains and starchy vegetables has liberated me from cravings. I feel like I did when I quit smoking and, after many weeks, the desire left. It's not only weights, but eating this way -- low-carb -- brings a slew of other health benefits, physical and mental. For me, it's the only way throughout my life I've been able to find freedom from the constant food noise.
Having said that, I confess that during the first and most difficult phase of abstinence, my nervous system became disregulated. It was more than "keto flu," but a condition my nervous system often resorts to when it's trying to keep me safe: dizziness: don't move. Don't take a walk, no! Don't even get out of bed. I've dealt with it before during stressful periods so I knew to be patient, even thankful, that my brain is trying to take care of me in this way. So now, with the distance of abstinence, I'm beginning to understand the ways that food appears to offer that safety and find other ways to do so.
It's a growth process I would not experience with medication use.
LuAnne, what you're describing about your nervous system is so important and so rarely named. What you describe — the dizziness, the stillness, the don't move — that's your body in genuine withdrawal from a substance it had learned to depend on for regulation. That's not weakness. That's biology.
And your reframe of it — being grateful that your brain was trying to protect you — is one of the most sophisticated things I've read about early abstinence.
You've also touched on something I want to explore more — the ways food offers nervous system safety, and what we need to find instead. That's a whole piece on its own.
This reminds of years ago when Joe Cross came out with his "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" movie. In the beginning of it, he was filmed saying the first three days for him were sheer hell. I knew at the time why he felt that way, and it was never disclosed by him or anyone else, that he was coming off of meats, dairy, sugars and especially gluten. The withdrawal from gluten is very, very intense, but thankfully somewhat short-lived, and he took care of that short period by flooding himself with only vegetable juices he made himself. His focus on putting those juices inside himself exclusively was what I think took his mind off of the gluten withdrawal, one substance that drives the opiate neurotransmitter channels...
Charlotte, this resonates deeply. I am one who replaced alcohol for food, but only for 6 months, then joining OA HOW Greysheet. The weighed-and-measured food plan kept the dopamine in check, yet I have to acknowledge that after awhile, the food plan failed me, and food returned to fill the dopamine vacuum. Jogging came to the rescue, but then dropped off. Food came back on, but without sugar and flour. Volume assumed that role. Abstinence from sugar and flour has been the only anchor, then this year, abstinence from also grains and oils, and have noticed that my dopamine needs have been replaced with projects, started then stopped. Your article today shows me why this happened to me this year. My abstinence list from 1994 to now is made up of alcohol, sugar, flour, all grains, and all oils. Whole foods and their occasional oils (nuts, avos on scheduled days) are the superglue to this abstinence. Read many years ago that gluten was a contributor or cause of schizophrenia, so figured if it did that, it did other brain disrupting neurotransmitter work as well. Stopped it 13 years ago, so grains gone this year was the next obvious step. Wonderful, wonderful article that sheds light on what the newsworthy glp1 users are actually going through whether they know it or not.
I would be honored beyond all expectations. Anonymous, please. Remember when Lembtke's "Dopamine Nation" came out? Then "Ultraprocessed People"? I have them both, but did not finish them - surprise, surprise. Will go back into them, thinking they might be "required reading"... Yes. we need dopamine; it is part of our design, but in this day and age, the need for some of it, or lots of it (perhaps depending on genetic makeups) sends us running for the next high. Maybe that's part of what the ultra-skyscraper climbers (you've seen the pics-hanging off 100-story buildings taking selfies, or the 18 inch wooden bridge walkways off Chinese mountains... etc) are into, besides clicks on their social media (wait, those too? Probably). Truly, abstinence from eating these "foods" is the minimum requirement to calm down dopamine dominance...
Thank you Helen. Yes — I think these books are absolutely worth returning to.
Personally I got a lot from Dopamine Nation, especially having already read Gabor Maté's work. He was open about his own addiction to classical music CDs — which I'll admit I initially dismissed. But then I sat with it. The way it pulled him away from presence with his family. The way it overrode his intentions. That's not so different from anything else we've discussed here.
And then when Anna Lembke talks about her own foray into vampire romance fiction — and describes a client addicted to over-consuming water — something clicked for me. This is bigger than potent substances. Bigger than the obvious dopaminergic behaviours like gambling or porn. This is about how we regulate. How we self-soothe. And how whatever we reach for — however innocent it looks from the outside — can become a compulsion when the underlying need isn't being met.
So of course food is complicated.
And so of course we were never simply weak. We were just trying to regulate in the only ways we knew how.
My daughter never cried out of nowhere
I heard a quote “your kid is not giving you a hard time - she is having a hard time “
There was never nothing going on and when I became curious and adjusted I became better and better at understanding her needs and how to keep adjusting to keep the balance
When she moved out I was left with me again
And I was not good at it 😅
One day
After the Ground breaking talk with you
I understood that i needed the same thing with me
- being a good mom to “baby me” being honest and curious
Having compassion, and patience - seeking to understand why my body was having a hard time- it clicked
I am not perfect at all but the mental violence and shame stopped and finally I feel long periods of peace- and when I am off track I am not stressed because i know “how to get back “ it was not just a diet change I needed- it was a attitude adjustment- no more violence or war against myself
When I go into that behavior I know that it’s me having a hard time ♥️ thank you charlotte for your support and sharing that created understanding
I love that. “No more war against myself.”
It’s a privilege to know you and to be able to discuss these things together ❤️🙏🏻
Your summation is platinum! And how you realized that was going on: "no more violence or war against myself." And that is was not an infinite stress; it was then and there the top of the bell curve and was going down from there. Your analysis helps me so much. Thank you!
Yes, for me cutting out the sugar, grains and starchy vegetables has liberated me from cravings. I feel like I did when I quit smoking and, after many weeks, the desire left. It's not only weights, but eating this way -- low-carb -- brings a slew of other health benefits, physical and mental. For me, it's the only way throughout my life I've been able to find freedom from the constant food noise.
Having said that, I confess that during the first and most difficult phase of abstinence, my nervous system became disregulated. It was more than "keto flu," but a condition my nervous system often resorts to when it's trying to keep me safe: dizziness: don't move. Don't take a walk, no! Don't even get out of bed. I've dealt with it before during stressful periods so I knew to be patient, even thankful, that my brain is trying to take care of me in this way. So now, with the distance of abstinence, I'm beginning to understand the ways that food appears to offer that safety and find other ways to do so.
It's a growth process I would not experience with medication use.
LuAnne, what you're describing about your nervous system is so important and so rarely named. What you describe — the dizziness, the stillness, the don't move — that's your body in genuine withdrawal from a substance it had learned to depend on for regulation. That's not weakness. That's biology.
And your reframe of it — being grateful that your brain was trying to protect you — is one of the most sophisticated things I've read about early abstinence.
You've also touched on something I want to explore more — the ways food offers nervous system safety, and what we need to find instead. That's a whole piece on its own.
Thank you for adding this to the conversation.
Charlotte and LuAnne,
This reminds of years ago when Joe Cross came out with his "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" movie. In the beginning of it, he was filmed saying the first three days for him were sheer hell. I knew at the time why he felt that way, and it was never disclosed by him or anyone else, that he was coming off of meats, dairy, sugars and especially gluten. The withdrawal from gluten is very, very intense, but thankfully somewhat short-lived, and he took care of that short period by flooding himself with only vegetable juices he made himself. His focus on putting those juices inside himself exclusively was what I think took his mind off of the gluten withdrawal, one substance that drives the opiate neurotransmitter channels...
Charlotte, this resonates deeply. I am one who replaced alcohol for food, but only for 6 months, then joining OA HOW Greysheet. The weighed-and-measured food plan kept the dopamine in check, yet I have to acknowledge that after awhile, the food plan failed me, and food returned to fill the dopamine vacuum. Jogging came to the rescue, but then dropped off. Food came back on, but without sugar and flour. Volume assumed that role. Abstinence from sugar and flour has been the only anchor, then this year, abstinence from also grains and oils, and have noticed that my dopamine needs have been replaced with projects, started then stopped. Your article today shows me why this happened to me this year. My abstinence list from 1994 to now is made up of alcohol, sugar, flour, all grains, and all oils. Whole foods and their occasional oils (nuts, avos on scheduled days) are the superglue to this abstinence. Read many years ago that gluten was a contributor or cause of schizophrenia, so figured if it did that, it did other brain disrupting neurotransmitter work as well. Stopped it 13 years ago, so grains gone this year was the next obvious step. Wonderful, wonderful article that sheds light on what the newsworthy glp1 users are actually going through whether they know it or not.
Helen, thank you for this.
Thirty years of mapping your own neurology through lived experience — that’s not just a recovery story. That’s a body of knowledge.
What you’re describing about the dopamine vacuum is exactly what I want to write about next.
The brain doesn’t just need the substance removed. It needs the “need” itself addressed.
And if that doesn’t happen — food, volume, jogging, projects — something always rushes in to fill the space.
Your comment has given me the clearest articulation of that I’ve seen.
Would you mind if I referenced it in a future piece — anonymously or with your name, whichever you prefer?
I would be honored beyond all expectations. Anonymous, please. Remember when Lembtke's "Dopamine Nation" came out? Then "Ultraprocessed People"? I have them both, but did not finish them - surprise, surprise. Will go back into them, thinking they might be "required reading"... Yes. we need dopamine; it is part of our design, but in this day and age, the need for some of it, or lots of it (perhaps depending on genetic makeups) sends us running for the next high. Maybe that's part of what the ultra-skyscraper climbers (you've seen the pics-hanging off 100-story buildings taking selfies, or the 18 inch wooden bridge walkways off Chinese mountains... etc) are into, besides clicks on their social media (wait, those too? Probably). Truly, abstinence from eating these "foods" is the minimum requirement to calm down dopamine dominance...
Thank you Helen. Yes — I think these books are absolutely worth returning to.
Personally I got a lot from Dopamine Nation, especially having already read Gabor Maté's work. He was open about his own addiction to classical music CDs — which I'll admit I initially dismissed. But then I sat with it. The way it pulled him away from presence with his family. The way it overrode his intentions. That's not so different from anything else we've discussed here.
And then when Anna Lembke talks about her own foray into vampire romance fiction — and describes a client addicted to over-consuming water — something clicked for me. This is bigger than potent substances. Bigger than the obvious dopaminergic behaviours like gambling or porn. This is about how we regulate. How we self-soothe. And how whatever we reach for — however innocent it looks from the outside — can become a compulsion when the underlying need isn't being met.
So of course food is complicated.
And so of course we were never simply weak. We were just trying to regulate in the only ways we knew how.