How to Quit the Holistic Way

People suffering from drug and alcohol addiction are turning to alternative medicine to kick their habit—and it's working.

By Marianne Apostolides, published on September 01, 1996 - last reviewed on August 11, 2006

Various research is now testing the effectiveness of massage therapy. At the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School, 48 different studies are currently underway to determine the effectiveness of massage on problems such as anorexia and bulimia, drug addiction, asthma, and diabetes. In one ongoing study looking at massage's effects on tobacco addiction, smokers were taught to massage their ears and hands when they craved a cigarette. After one month, they had reduced the number of cigarettes smoked and their cravings for them by 40 percent. There will be a follow-up at three and six months to see if the results hold. "Massage provides a distraction that takes away from the nervous-habit aspect of smoking," says Tiffany Field, Ph.D., the institute's director.

HATHA YOGA

Hatha yoga, the yoga of postures—where people hold positions for varying lengths of time, stretching and contracting their muscles and breathing deeply—is one component of the ancient practice of yoga. It simulates the relaxing effects of the parasympathetic nervous system and removes tension from all the major muscle groups. According to Joseph LePage, founder and director of Integrative Yoga Therapy in Aptos, California, certain postures actually massage internal organs, helping dispel toxins that may have built up in the liver and kidneys from substance abuse.

"Hatha yoga allows people to get back in touch with themselves, and get into a frame of mind where they can experience what it is to be well, and not drug dependent or anxious," explains Peter Stein, M.A., addictions specialist at the North Charles Institute for the Addictions, a private treatment facility in Boston, Massachusetts. According to a recently completed clinical trial by Howard Shaffer, Ph.D., director of the Division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School, hatha yoga is as effective as traditional group therapy in treating heroin addicts enrolled at a Boston methadone maintenance clinic. Those who practiced yoga for 75 minutes once a week and received individual therapy once a week reduced their drug use, criminal activity, and cravings as much as those who went to group therapy once a week and had individual counseling.

Joyce, 37, a manager at a gourmet food store in the Boston area, has combined hatha yoga with talk therapy for four years as a part of her methadone maintenance program. Although methadone has been essential to her getting off heroin, she now wants to give it up. "Yoga helps me become more aware physically, and then become aware mentally of what's going on with me, and of how the things I do affect other people," she says. "Five years ago, I'd have told you I'd be on methadone for the rest of my life. But now I'm in a different frame of mind."

Joyce has begun slowly detoxing off methadone, which is itself a physically addicting drug whose withdrawal symptoms are cold sweats, inability to sleep, impatience, and discomfort. "In yoga, you have to hold postures for so long, and while you're holding them, you're saying to yourself 'I know this hurts, but I know I have to do it, I can and want to do it myself.'" That experience of feeling and withstanding the physical pain in hatha yoga helps Joyce know she can withstand the physical pain of methadone withdrawal.

NUTRITION THERAPY

"When people think of nutrition, I want them to think of the biochemical substances that are essential for maintaining optimal brain chemistry," says nutritionist Joan Mathews-Larson, Ph.D., founder of the Health Recovery Center (HRC), a private abstinence-based addiction clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After people change their diets and supplement their food intake with the right amount of amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, they can begin to deal with their alcoholism, drug abuse, anorexia, or bulimia, says Julia Ross, M.A, executive director of Recovery Systems, a private eating-disorder and drug-abuse facility in San Francisco, California.

With the proper nutrition and supplements, the brain manufactures chemicals—like norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter that seems to increase energy and boost mood; serotonin, another important neurotransmitter; and endorphins, the brain's natural opiates—that are needed to regulate mood and behavior.

Optimal nutrition may also correct the possible deficiencies that contribute to alcoholism or substance abuse. "The question," says Alan Gaby, M.D., editor of the Nutrition and Healing newsletter, "is what are the proper supplements? I treated an alcoholic who couldn't control his drinking, but with glutamine, an amino acid, he was able to go back to social drinking and handle it." For cocaine addiction, Dr. Gaby says the amino acid tyrosine is often recommended. Tyrosine is a building block for norepinephrine.

Richard Firshein, D.O., a New York City osteopath whose holistic practice emphasizes nutritional healing, says one theory is that addiction may be triggered by low levels of serotonin. By restoring healthy levels, one of the underlying causes of addiction can be taken away. Firshein prescribes a combination of amino acids and a high-carbohydrate diet to boost tryptophan, the building block for serotonin.