Sugar sensitivity is biochemical and sets up addiction and alcoholism. What and when you eat can add to your problem in a profound way. If you do not balance the chemistry, getting and staying sober is very, very hard.

Sugar-sensitive people are often highly creative, very intuitive. You have great insight and the ability to come to the crux of complex problems. You may be a top performer with a high level of achievement. You also can be moody, impulsive, angry, fatigued, restless, overwhelmed and stressed out. You are driven by cravings to fix feeling bad. So you drink. But what you think is helping you cope with the problems, is creating them.

Sugar Sensitivity Sets You Up

Sugar sensitivity has three parts - volatile blood sugar, low beta-endorphin, and low serotonin. They combine to create a physical vulnerability to using and drinking. You cannot will or medicate your way to healing.




Am I Sugar Sensitive?


See Which Apply to YOU


I really like sweet foods

I eat a lot of sweets

I am very fond of bread, cereal, popcorn or pasta

I have problem with alcohol or drugs

I am in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction

One or both of my parents are alcoholic

One or both of my parents are/were especially fond of sugar

I am overweight and don't seem to be able to easily lose the extra pounds

I continue to be depressed no matter what I do

I often find myself overreacting to stress

I have a temper or short fuse

- - - -

If you checked:


3 or more, it is very likely that you are sugar sensitive.

5 or more, you have come to the right place! Let's explore an answer you have been looking for a long time. You don't have to live with the craziness you have experienced for so long. You can work with the simple solutions and change your life.



Can Sugar Really Be Addictive?
(Radiant Recovery)

Yes, you can get addicted to sugar, sweet foods, and white-flour products (which your body responds to as if they were sugars). This addiction is physiological and affects the same biochemical systems in your body that are affected by addictive drugs like morphine and heroin.

You can actually get "high" on sugar. Eating it can make you feel euphoric immediately. If you don't have your regular sugar "fix," you can experience withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability, headaches, and other flu-like symptoms. Your body can become physiologically dependent upon the effect the sugars have on you.

Your body has a special biochemistry. As a result, you have a different response to sugar than a person with a normal biochemistry. Your heart sings at the sight of a newly opened box of chocolates. Your molecules jump to attention when you get a whiff of bread fresh from the oven. This yearning, however, is not about greed. It is the biochemical response of a sugar-sensitive person.

The good news about biochemically-based behavior is that you can change what and when you eat and your behavior will change. You do not have to pursue years of psychotherapy to get results. You can start changing what you eat and feel better right away.

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Brain Chemistry 101

Our sugar sensitivity story includes some crucial data that has not been available to the general public before. This information is about the vital role played by the brain chemical beta-endorphin. Beta-endorphin and its better-known partner, serotonin, can have dramatically positive -- or negative! -- effects on your moods, your behavior, and your energy level.

Your brain is designed to communicate information.

Billions of brain cells talk to each other moment by moment via a network of interconnecting cells. However, these cells do not actually touch one another; there is a tiny space between them. Information is passed across this space by way of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. The mood-elevating brain chemicals serotonin and beta-endorphin are both neurotransmitters.

Each neurotransmitter has a unique molecular shape and carries a unique message.

The message of serotonin, for example, is "calm down". When one brain cell wants to send a message to another, it releases the relevant neurotransmitter, which floats across the tiny space between cells and looks for the receptors in the target cell that match its molecular shape.

A serotonin neurotransmitter, for example, can only pass its message to a serotonin receptor. The same is true with beta-endorphin. If any other kind of neurotransmitter hits the receptors, nothing happens; the message does not get delivered.

Serotonin

When your serotonin is at an ideal level, you feel mellow and relaxed, hopeful and optimistic. You have a sense of being at peace with life. You are creative, thoughtful, and focused. You also have a lot of impulse control, which enables you to "just say no" more easily.

People who are sugar-sensitive have naturally low levels of serotonin. As a result, you do not have good impulse control. It is almost impossible for you to "just say no" because there is such a short time between your getting the urge to do something and their doing it. The insufficient serotonin level in your brain isn't giving you the time you need to make good decisions.

Besides being impulsive, you may feel depressed and find yourself craving foods such as bread, pasta or candy. This craving is the work of your brain, not your ego, because your brain knows that getting you to eat such foods will temporarily raise your serotonin level. Unfortunately, it will also have a devastating boomerang effect and cause all sorts of negative feelings. Having low serotonin can cause these feelings:

• Feeling depressed

• Acting impulsively

• Feeling blocked and scattered

• Having a short attention span

• Feeling suicidal

• Craving sweets and simple carbohydrates

Beta-Endorphin

The brain chemical beta-endorphin acts likes a powerful natural painkiller.

You may have heard of the "runner's high" (also called an "endorphin rush"), when the body responds to the pain of long-distance running by flooding the brain with beta-endorphin. Beta-endorphin produces a sense of well-being, reduces pain, eases emotional distress, increases self-esteem, and even creates a sense of euphoria.

Sugar-sensitive people have a naturally low level of beta-endorphin.

Their biochemical response to foods (like alcohol) that cause the release of beta-endorphin can be significantly greater than that of people with an ordinary body chemistry.

Whether you are sugar-sensitive or not, sugar, like alcohol, causes a release of beta-endorphin. It can make you feel high and can reduce both physical and emotional pain. People with normal body chemistry can enjoy this without ill effects. But sugar-sensitive people respond to the beta-endorphin effect of sugar in a bigger way because their brain cells have far more beta-endorphin receptors than ordinary people.

For sugar-sensitive people, eating sugar can make you feel and act as if you’ve been drinking wine!

Sugar can make you funny, relaxed, silly, inappropriate, talkative, and temporarily self-confident. You feel great -- and you long to feel this way again and again.

You have probably noticed this drug-like effect after eating sugar. Unfortunately, people don't take this response seriously. They make jokes about being a "chocoholic", but rarely speak of the real pain caused by the continuing and compulsive use of sweets, the end result of which is a drop in beta-endorphin.

Having low beta-endorphin means:

• Feeling tearful, isolated, depressed, and hopeless

• Having low self-esteem

• Feeling "done to" by others

• Having a low tolerance for pain (emotional and physical)

• Feeling emotionally overwhelmed

• Craving sweets

The task for healing is to increase levels of beta endorphin without spiking or using.



(Radiantrecovery.com)

Robin,

I sat in front of my PC, with my mouth so wide open in awe of your words, that it went~as dry as a Bounty Paper Towel.

OMG Lady, you have really done your homework on this subject !

I see me in alot of the questions you have for us to answer, I'm ashamed to say how many.

BUT~My DH could answer YES to ALL of them.

He is a Sugar addict, yet doesn't see it. If I say anything to him about the 15
Reese's Peanut Butter cups (a bagful) that He can DOWN in less then 10 minutes without even realizing it~~He gets Very Defensive!

He has his Booze shelf that contains at least 10 Bottles & he has his Bud cans in the fridge. Although I have to admit I have NEVER seen him overdo or get drunk in the 3 yrs. I've known him.

After my 10 yrs. of Hell with my 1st Hubby, I admit to being gun shy around people that drink.
It was my life in Hell that made me stop drinking anything with alcohol in it~
including Nyquil !

My DH also has his additction to Nicotine/Cigarettes as well.

When I ask him about all His Self-destructive habits, that could shorten his life and the years we could have together, he shrugs it off by saying:
"I'm 68 yrs. old~IT hasn't killed me YET !"

He says he's too old to change, so I asked him this Very Important question yesterday.

"If He loved me enough to DIE for me!"
He said, "Yes, of course I would, I Love you Su, you're my LIFE!"

I looked him right in the eyes and said,
"Then why don't you want to LIVE for me?"

We drove the rest of the way home from his Mother's House in silence.
I do Believe He had Tears in his Eyes.

Su

That's pretty amazing, Su. Something to think about for all of us.

I belong here guys so I'll stop by more often, okay?

Thanks, Jimmy for creating this spot for us.

It was MUCH needed Carolia! Happy you like it!

I am totally in the sugarsensitive group ,which the salty carbs ie Popcorn really get to me too. I hope everyone has great weekend. I am taking my youngest to go see Game Plan.

Oh, I can't wait to see that movie. The Rock is a TRIP!

Wow, that post on Radiantrecovery was very interenting. Does the author provide on guidelines on how to rasie serotonin levels without eating carbs?

Evainemage1,

Let me look into that for you. It may be a day or two but I will get back to you!

Dave posted this on another thread. Very interesting