- Drugs
- Mental Health
Submitted by: Abby Foster
My name is Adam S. A little over three and a half years ago I weighed 310 pounds, I was a type II diabetic, a drug addict, fast food addict, and suffered from severe depression. My addiction started in high school. Adderall made me feel superhuman. It was also a way for me to control my weight– I have always had issues with self-image and self-confidence.
Adderall also allowed me to be able to stay up for days at a time without loss of concentration or energy and I loved that feeling. But after college, the drug had destroyed my metabolism and I started to gain weight. The heavier I got the more I started to isolate. After a while, I just stopped caring and became addicted to fast food. By this time, my life revolved solely around when was I getting more Adderall, and eating fast food, while the entire time being severely depressed and angry toward everyone and everything else.
My relationship with my family was strained and I never socialized with my friends. I was barely working and running out of money. I knew that I was heading toward the day when I would be living on the street. I finally picked up the phone and called my father for help. Two weeks, later I checked into rehab.
My first day in rehab, I was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic. After rehab, I moved to California into a sober-living house. I took it upon myself to reverse my type II diabetes by implementing a plant-based nutrition plan into my recovery program of medication and therapy. What I didn’t realize was that plant-based nutrition would become the backbone of my entire recovery. Within six months I reversed my type II diabetes and today I am over three and a half years sober and weigh 165 pounds. Within a year and a half I was able to go off of all seven prescription medications that I was prescribed when I started my recovery.
I realized that plant-based nutrition has an amazing power in regards to addiction recovery. It allowed me to completely heal myself in both body and mind and therefore create a healthier version of myself. I realized that the act of preparing a meal that promotes health and wellness is an act of self-care and self-love. I was saying to myself that I was choosing to become a healthier version of myself today than I was the day before. Those are the actions of a person who is actively engaged in their recovery, even in the smallest of daily actions. That is a daily reaffirmation of recovery.
I became a certified holistic lifestyle coach and developed a program using nutrition as a tool for addiction recovery and relapse prevention. I now run groups at sober-living houses and intensive outpatient therapy centers in Los Angeles. I recently had the honor of speaking at Rip Esselstyn’s Engine Two plant based health immersion in Arizona and have been invited back as a speaker for 2016. I have also had the honor of being a guest on the Rich Roll podcast, Running To Mental Health podcast, The Food Heals Podcast, Break The Stigma Podcast, Lean Green DAD podcast, and have been featured on Forks Over Knives.
People always ask me about what I’ve lost and I enjoy telling them about the 130 pounds, the diseases (type II diabetes, high blood pressure, depression), and the seven medications. But what I enjoy more than all of that is what I have gained: early morning runs on the lake with my dad back in Austin, a real relationship with my dad and the rest of my family, my self-worth and self-confidence, my purpose in life, and the ability to help others. Today, I can honestly say that I am the happiest I have ever been and the healthiest I have ever been in my life. Plant-based nutrition didn’t just save my life, it gave me the ability to create an entirely new one. It’s one that I look forward to living every single day.
There are a few important truths that I have learned through this process if you want to recover and change your life. First, you have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Second, there is a quote from Simon Sinek, “If you get the environment right, everyone has the capacity for remarkable change.” That is why I feel nutrition, especially plant-based nutrition is so important in recovery. Without healing the body and mind, the environment in which the disease lives, the medication and therapy can never be fully effective. I will end this with something that I have come to understand in recovery. “If you believe that recovery is about becoming the person you were before your addiction or without it, then you will never become fully aware of the person you are becoming.”