welcome to power up recovery with nutrition it is time to make nutrition
part of the conversation I'm your host Christina Veselak and I'm so glad you're
here did you know that it's our brain's job to allow us to cope with stress
gracefully but to do that it needs to be fed optimally have you ever wondered why so
many committed people relapse or maybe even die why so many people on
psychotropic medication still feel lousy and still have cravings What if the missing piece is
food the right food what if the right nutrients like amino acids or even
eating protein every four hours could actually balance your brain chemistry
and your mood without medication and support lasting recovery in this podcast
we explore the powerful connection between feeding your brain well mental health relapse and recovery from
addiction we will share insights from experts inspiring recovery stories and
practical strategies you can use today whether you're in recovery a health care
professional or someone passionate about emotional well-being this show is for
you let's dive in and discover how fueling your body and brain with the
right food the right vitamino acids and other key nutrients can fuel your
transformation today welcome welcome to another episode
of Power Up recovery with nutrition I'm your host Christina Veselak and today
we're diving into an incredibly important topic with a wonderful practitioner Dr Michelle parin the topic
is how to combine targeted Nutri own therapy with targeted amino acid therapy
and dietary change Michelle
welcome hi Christina thanks for inviting me I'm excited to be here can you tell
us a little bit about what your background is and how you came to do
both targeted nxone therapy and amino acid therapy yeah sure um I started as
an alcohol and drug 17 years ago approximately I worked in all levels of
care from high-intensity Residential Treatment Residential Treatment long-term Residential Treatment detox
adolescent care tah health and now I'm working for myself but with all that
experience I happened to be given a program to start and grow at the last
job that I was at so I took a one session group program and turned it into
10 groups and 10 counselors and it ran for eight years and we had several
hundred people go through it successfully and it was all based on targeted nrex so I was very lucky to
have that moderation style um treatment protocol underneath the umbrella of
traditional treatment with the agency I was working with so I developed that over time looking more and more at
targeted nrex Zone how it worked started networking and finding more information
and as I went it was my clients who started talking about diet and exercise
and I always felt that was an important part that was vastly poorly sorely overlooked in all the work i' had done
in brick and mortar and so I started looking into it and then I started attending a Monday morning meeting and
met one of the people who had gone through your training and as I asked nutritional questions about amuno acid
that you have to go the academy and find out more so last uh spring I went to the
academy and started learning in your wonderful class and it became the like
the primary spearhead points in my treatment it has changed my practice completely from just Al targeted alrex
Zone to including the amino acids right down to asking the very first question
what are you eating because even that can make a dramatic difference and that has really catapulted the results of my
clients even the ones that I've been working with that were just doing the nrex therapy um now I start everybody
with aminos as we talk about what their needs are and what their their history has been and it's it's been gamechanging
a gamechanging solution so it sounds like you've run across two game-changing solutions both
changing the way nxone has been typically used as well as adding amino
acid and feeding the brain optimally to it yes yeah the first leg came when I
started to learn about an Al trone but there was a lot of non-compliance it wasn't until I learned about through
Claudia Christian the targeted nxone user the Sinclair method it was the
Sinclair method that that demonstrated that if you took the NRA Zone an hour
before you did your drinking as usual it would begin to reduce the stimulation
and reduce the reward that you were getting from drinking thereby leading to pharmacological Extinction so as I saw
that in in process as I attended a lot of free groups one of them being the TSM
meetup.com group I would go and listen to people talk and listen to their results and it was hugely different
because they didn't have this punitive I failed I've relapsed again my my
family's angry I'll never get better what I was hearing was well I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and I'm seeing
improvements and things are getting better and my wife's on board or my husband's on board or you know I don't
feel so terrible and as I started to look at that I also started to tap into
my accreditation or my certification as a an applied positive um counselor as
well so I used applied positive psychology changing the way I spoke about alcohol in conjunction with this
targeted na TRX Zone and everything was hunky dory for a while but I thought there's got to be more because some
people took a lot longer to feel the you know feel better and have more energy
than others and I thought something's still missing and it was that nutritional component which was exactly
what I was looking for with the amino acid therapy because you can now I can now plainly see the importance of the
serotonin serotonin connection with AUD which that was not taught to me in all
of the education that I received I was that was not put forward as an important
aspect of how the brain was functioning yet we were told about the amydala and the reward system and you know all
that we're taught about dopamine but we're not taught about the role that the other neurotransmitter systems play the
serotonin and the endorphins and even Gaba exactly yeah and I used to teach
theories of addiction in our one of our local colleges here and I taught 35
mechanisms of addiction I had a book I had all the stuff of all the different theories and never one of them even in
the the brain Theory did it include any of the neurotransmitters that are so vital to our daily function I was like
floored so I'm very happy to discovered this I wish I found it 10 years ago 17
years ago would have been so impactful it's a little mindblowing especially
since no tone was designed to work on a neurotransmitter system actually several
of them can you talk to that the difference between sort of why no trexon started being used but why it doesn't
work as well as it's supposed to and infect some of the damage that can occur
in terms of or from long-term nxone use yeah well the way that it's put on this
package the way that it's prescribed today by a regular medical doctor
because they're trained to prescribe it the way it's suggested evidence-based and all that and they've done
evidence-based studies on Al trone daily in the morning unfortunately when I saw
people taking it daily in the morning morning the compliance was bismal because it was what happens is they get
Flatline emotionally because a reduction in dopamine long term means you're not also feeling very happy when you need to
feel very happy or or feeling very relieved when you come out from shoveling snow and take a hot shower or
you know being outside in the in on the farm or or getting dirty or being outside and then coming back in the
house when it's cold and warming up with a cup of cocoa or steak dinner they weren't getting the rewards from regular
healthy good activities and so they would stop taking the medication and then they would relapse again and
compounded with that this prolonged period of white knuckling to abstinence
created the abstinence Theory right the abstinence myth where the longer you stay sober the less you're going to want
to drink but in fact that's not true because it accumulates the work of Addie jaffy you know demonstrated that um over
the long term if you don't drink your Cravings will actually increase so that at some point you when you finally give
into those Cravings you'll overshoot and you'll drink way more than you intend which is actually more dangerous the
older we get so I'm like there's got to be some way around this and that's where now trone targeted you know using it
later in the day hour to an hour and a half before you might want to drink if you don't drink that's fine but if you
drink it's fine too because it leads to this Extinction session which helps people drink less but you're still the
next morning you may not be hung over but you're not happy either and that's where the aminos come
in that's right and I think this is what a lot of people don't understand about now treone is that it blocks um the
dopamine receptors do and also the Endorphin receptors doesn't it yes the
Endorphin receptors as well and what I like to say to clients for Lay people it's easier to remember I said now trx's
like a condom for the brain it covers your receptors so don't have unprotected drinking they laugh like you're laughing
but they remember that it sticks with them and then they realize oh I have to protect myself when I'm drinking it
becomes right prophylactic to use the word right but the problem with that
long term is that we actually need active dopamine receptors we need active
endorphin receptors for our long-term quality of life because it gives us joy
and and and and drive and personality and a
reason to keep on living yes yes I had I've had I once had a client who was a
psychiatrist who came in and he was doing Al trone he was prescribed every morning now treone and he was in the
group and over time as he heard other people talk he finally asked me one day do I need to take this you you know do I
need to Oh I said how are you feeling and he was pretty Flatline and he was newly married and his wife wasn't too
happy with that and I suggested he took it later in the day because he had heard other people in the group took it later
in the day so after about a week he came back and he said do I need to take this every day and I said well you can
because it can help with Cravings but you don't have to you can just take it on the days that you drink so he tried
that for the following day which is the way that I support it in my coaching practice and he came back the following
week his personality had changed he was bubbly he was pleasant he was
like more humorous he he was night and day I had to pull him aside and say have you been drinking he said no this is who
I am this my wife is so much happier because of myself again and yeah
dramatic this is really this is really interesting because it's like no trione causes what we call reward deficiency
syndrome and according to Dr Blum who's one of the researchers who discovered
reward deficiency syndrome this has to do with with all of the different blocks
in all of our neurotransmitter systems that block dopamine in the nucleus
accumbens in the pleasure reward center of the brain leading to Gray from day
one leading to a lack of Joy a lack of Life a lack of reward a lack of a lack
of everything that makes life worth living it's like you know living in Shades of Gray rather than color and
life yeah and that when people discovered the mood altering substance to to um improve
the function of that particular neurotransmitter system all of a sudden we've moved from black and white TV to
color TV yes absolutely and when cxone turns this backwards yeah nxone turns it
backwards but it doesn't replete the neurotransmitters it does a great job to
not stimulate that that release of neurotransmitters you don't feel that
release so that you're not over rewarded when you do drink but it doesn't come back because so many people start
drinking because of the serotonin depletion because they don't feel happy and you know and maybe their dopamine
might be depleted as well typically it is but when they start drinking that alleviates that blah that feeling sad
that irritability that that negativity right and so the worry and anxiety
a lot of people abolutely worry and anxiety which is low serotonin I have yet to meet a person who has AUD that
does not have anxiety so when we use nxone then it can cover that that reward
I have a client now who said well I take the N trone but I'm not getting the the hit that I want when I'm not getting the
buzz that I want when I'm drinking I'm like well it's doing its job so we have to look then in another Direction which
I never had before and that's to improve your Nar transmitter so when you're not using NRA zone for instance if you're
using it daily it usually has a metabolic halflife of about anywhere from four to 13 hours depending on which
receptor it's approaching so we say about six hours for it to metabolize off The receptors your body will go on so it
doesn't keep you down if you're not using it every day if you're using it every day it it will work most um
intensely for the first six hours then after that you can drink through the N TRX zone or you're going to fall asleep
a lot of people do but the next morning there's no that that serotonin depletion
is still there there's nothing kicking that back up so that you feel great the morning and you feel proud that you
didn't drink as much last night and wow I feel energetic and I want to go to work and I'm no longer depressed and I'm
not anxious that part is not addressed right because the dopamine is still
repressed from the Notre Zone the endorphins are still suppressed from the Notre Zone which is cumulative
and so people continue to lose their their joy in life yes and joy in
drinking which is their usually their one rest bit right and joy in life in general so the daily use in alra exone
really shows that up and that's why people usually quit using alra exone when they take it every day in the
morning okay okay so by combining amino acid therapy with no treone you're
you're getting the immediate Extinction of reward from from the alcohol use but
it's not lasting you're using the amino acids to rebuild dopamine because we use
tyrosine to rebuild dopamine and we use 5htp to rebuild serotonin and we use the defol alanine
to keep the endorphins and the synaps longer right on and on and so we're now
actually getting down to the nitty gritty the actual biochemical molecular
reasons in the brain as to why people seek a mood altering Behavior or
chemical to feel better yeah and the Miracle of amino acids is that we can do
that without a mood altering substance yes um they are mood altering in that
they are rebuilding neurotransmitter systems rather than depleting it so
they're actually anti-addictive isn't that amazing that amino acids can buy over the counter are
anti-addictive and yet work within 20 minutes yeah and what I'm seeing with clients is when I for the longest time I
was working with just the targeted elrex Zone and they while they'd be happy that they weren't drinking as much they still
had this lower cruising level for their sense of well-being they were languishing is what we would say in
positive psychology they were not thriving they were languishing but when I when I started adding amino acids into
the mix where in the morning they could get up take your their aminos and then start to have a more productive day and
and feel less Moody throughout the day and start actually changing the way they're looking at things and that's
what I work on as well the behavioral and the attitudinal portions of add
alongside of these two therapies all of a sudden when they're getting up in the morning they're excited they're not just
yeah I did good whole hum they're like oh yeah I'm going to go do this today and I started doing that today and I
didn't realize how asleep I was and I didn't realize that how much better I could feel and I'm thinking about doing
the things I used to do again like the Energy starts to come back and really quickly and just they're almost like a
new person it's so dramatic I wish I could film
them maybe you could ask them you know one or two clients to film them that would be really cool
yeah what about now diet change because you mentioned dietary change how does
that fit into all of this oh when I started asking the question what are you eating I I had no idea because that
wasn't a question I was trained to ask as an alcohol drug counselor that's not a question right so as I started to ask
which is so fundamental to our well-being and so when I started to ask that question I found out the grown
adults are eating Doritos and Coca-Cola for breakfast grown adults are drink are
having Frosted Mini Wheats and coffee and they're having just cookies and donuts and danishes and then at lunch
they might have a sandwich that's you know a quone or like heavy carb laid in meals and and like the protein is is
poultry it's terrible yeah just yeah so that was one of the most eye openening
things I learned that people are not eating like like maybe I eat because I went keto several years ago and so
protein has been a big part of my life so as I started asking them and then I
just the simplest of instruction is please eat 15 to 20 grams if it's a man 25 grams four times a day at least every
four hours or so so three four times a day get your protein in that in itself was a turnaround like oh now I eat you
know so people will eat eggs or they'll eat bacon or they'll have some leftover pot roast from last night or those sorts
of things which makes all the difference so we we look at that we look at what are you eating primarily what's your
protein intake and then we start looking at the junk food and the sugary drinks and all that how do we start changing
that now I'm a big proponent of carbon ated water I love carbonation and I realized my addiction to maybe seven up
at one time was because of the carbonation and when I took the sugar out and just did carbonation and you can
sweeten that however you like you can add a little juice then it becomes your substitute pop or soda and that was huge
so I'm really big on having people become mixologists themselves with with
soda water make it flavored in a way that you enjoy it without all that sugar and a lot of people have gone to that
and incidentally um O blood types do better with carbonation I learned in the five star recovery diet and so that's
I'm an O blood type and no wonder I love it I I probably drink a liter a day with with meals and with vinegar in it I like
red wine vinegar in soda water which is a great Digestive and it's a little than
apple cider vinegar and it's a little less harsh and it's nice so a lot of clients get turned on to that a little
raspberry shrub in there and you've got your own kombucha right away so it's learning to be open to to dietary
changes that aren't limiting but adding into your diet so that you prefer you
see how good you feel and you prefer it and then over time it minimizes down you know a lot of people like chocolate so
what kind of chocolate are you going to be eating is it quality does it have sugar or is it sweetened with stevia
there are a lot of options now that are Stevia sweeten chocolate that are perfectly good so it helps that way so we're
looking at snacks we're looking at meals and digestion that's part of and you
were talking about habit change a lot of people who drink in the evening drink
throughout the evening are attached or emotionally attached to having something
enjoyable to actually drink right this hand that hand motion yes exactly and to
find a alternative to drink that is enjoyable that is relaxing that is fun
rather than the alcohol right because we we can't just take something away from somebody and leave a void we have
stimulating in their something interesting and stimulating to their palette because the addicted brain loves
variety and Novelty so new and different right so I always um in you know sker
clients towards new and different try something new try something different try this try that one of the the big
Savers is a Mojito flavored kombucha which is alcohol free but it's mojito
flavored so it's kind of like a mixed drink and it can be very palatable and enjoyable and clients can sometimes go
to that now it's not like stop drinking it's not this white knuckling business anymore it's intersperse like if start
with a big glass of water because you're likely hydrated and then have a glass of wine and then maybe try one of your
Mixology you know alcohol free interesting drinks and then maybe after that you'll have another glass of wine
and by then it'll be 9 or so 9:30 at night then it's time for bed right get a
good night's sleep and so as you give people drinking Windows there's just those little tips and tricks I know
every other drinks alcoholic start drinking later make curfew at the end if they plan their drinking that can be a
game changer the problem is we all started to learn to drink by let's go we
have a letter rip mentality when it comes to our drinking all of us learned how to start a party not how to finish
it so I focus on how what what mindset do we need going in and how do we finish
it on a peak end experience so that we learn how to end the party and still have had a great time and not go home
worried about how I'm getting home or who I'm going home with it just becomes an enjoyable social activity I say the
point of social drinking is to be social first so and so it sounds like you know
what I was taught many of us as um Alim used to order C counselors were taught
is that for people to stop drinking they actually have to go for complete a 100%
abstinence yes or it will trigger this kind of outof Control process yes once
an alcoholic always an alcoholic right right so some of what you're saying kind
of flies in the face of that it does it does and I would never have projected
that I'd be sitting here you know 16 17 years into my career changing lanes I
you know if I had colleagues saying don't you think you're doing malpractice it's like you need to sit in these shoes
that have done Group after Group after group therapeutically as well as attended groups as a listener to learn
and to see the difference it's not punitive it's not I'm a failure there's no guilt there's no shame it becomes
like Universal knowledge and I start just about every group that way by saying if you like if you've ever had
the opportunity to have a drink and you've enjoyed it you've likely had the opportunity to over drink like just
about everyone who likes to drink has had the opportunity to over drink and so it's the nature of alcohol it's not just
human uh willpower it's the nature of alcohol to get us addicted to it it
that's what it does and if you really like it it it will take over a life of its own
yours right that's what Happ are are you familiar with the three different types
of alcohol use disorder that Joan Matthew Larsson talks about in her book seven weeks to sobriety the biotypes is
that what you're different biotypes yes and you know we've got the thiqs where we have extended um Phase 2
detoxification in the brain leading to more of these opioids um or in the liver
that lead to opioid growth in the brain um your people who are allergic to
alcohol and can get a craving you know if they even use an alcohol-based hair
spray yep versus people who when they stop drinking get very very depressed
because they're not making um a certain anti-depressant brain chemistry brain
chemical have you noticed any of those playing out with your work with n
trone so many of the people that use nxone successfully and then now get on
the amuno acids are thiq they're what I call power drinkers they can out drink everybody
else and get up the next morning and mow the lawn and pack the car and go canoeing all day long and while everyone
else might be wiped out and tired or hung over these power drinkers are definitely they seem to be the ones that
correlate just anecdotally in my practice with good responders to nxone
with little to no side effects from it and they respond well to that treatment
and so adding in the amino acids with that it it brings them up which is where
they like to be anyway with without the adverse effects of alcohol in their lives sure so that one I've
noticed for sure I haven't come across too many people with like the essential fatty acid type or the allergy type it
might just be anecdotal but it seems to be those are the people the people who are
drinking so much in excess I I just spoke with a man who's drinking a fifth
of vodka every two days handle every three days yeah so that's that's what
discovered is that there seems to be a a more prevalent um type that is thiq the
power drinkers respond well and of course when it comes to alone it's it's effective for approximately 85% of
people who try it and they and they are correlating that with some receptors but
it's not super clear yet exactly how and when and we don't test for different receptors and people to know if it's
going to be the best treatment for them sure so it might be that 15% for whom it
doesn't work so well may be these other two biotypes either the allergic type or
the um GLA deficient type and for them there are other targeted types of um um
medications they can take as well so um the secondary one that is often gone to
and there are there's more and more research being done right now with it and that's on Dan Citron and oddly enough it's at at low dose so they're
talking about using the pediatric drops twice a day with onanon rather than that's interesting
but you know since we found that uh borage oil or evening primrose oil does such an amazing job turning off the
depression in that group of people you know it it becomes so much easier for
people to stop drinking because because they don't need it anymore to manage the depression because it's being managed by
adding this very simple nutrient yeah so you know there's there's so much
information out here that that so many people don't know should be standard operating training procedure now like
now I mean we know this this is given You' you've you've had Years Learning this and trying to get the message out
that eating protein saves lives and the fact that I only like basically stumbled
upon this last spring and it's been so dramatically gamechanging to my practice
it it it should be standard practice for all alcohol and drug counselors to learn at least to what where to even refer
someone to for that information or you know put them onto that information because it's basic to tell someone eat
more protein what are you eating eat more protein that's an ordinary conversation and easy to suggest you
know baking an eggs for breakfast or a protein shake or it's not hard to do easy and it's such a game changer and it
should be within the scope of practice of every addiction counselor in every psychotherapist for that matter and this
is exactly why you know I started the academy for addiction of Mental Health Nutrition exactly why we're doing this
podcast and exactly why we're doing the conference feed the recovering brain in
um Columbus you know in May 2025 to get this word out to more and
more people and Michelle I'm delighted that you're going to be speaking at that conference oh thank you for inviting me
there's a wonderful lineup I feel honored to be one of the speakers there and excited to meet the others that will
be there and the attendees and whoever's going to be watching online I think they're going to get more than their
money's worth especially if this is your field of practice especially if you're interested in outside the box therapies
that work better than you know business as usual and really help people feel
better and feel proud of themselves and I had a client once remarked that in the
um moderation groups people didn't get divorce and they stopped arguing and it wasn't a shame blame nasty game it was
let's work together let's get on the same page I understand what you're doing there are certain questions that we
allow you know without getting upset or our loved ones can ask particular questions and we have to take in the
spirit of love and concern not picking on us and then the other thing is um
reducing the number of arguments and relationships all those things those are part of the things that I teach my
clients when I'm working with them so that's a holistic approach which is exactly where I want to be yeah yeah
well congratulations on putting all of this together oh I'm so excited I feel it's Serendipity I just left out
here now one final question before before we close and that is what
research have you run across well around around combining
amino acids with not treone interesting that you ask that like everyone else I've been playing
with chat GPT and grock and looking at what what is compiled out there searching the internet and seeing what
it'll come up up up with and both of those sources of AI when I asked the question of combining these two
therapies they said there's really not much research on it but called it the most promising area of recovery in AUD
in the near future and they they look and they they say that that they recommend that more research be done but
that these two would optimize the brain's functioning as well as you know extinguishing the desire for alcohol and
improving the neurotransmitters the two together appear to be the perfect
storm so I'm really excited wonderful that that is so good to know anything
else before we close oh I look forward to the um conference that's coming up
The Summit in May and I look forward to learning more and I'm just I'm so I feel
so very blessed that I learned about the Academy and was able to participate in the classes and it's just been just an
eye openening experience so thank you so much Christina for all you do you you are so welcome finally
Michelle if people want to reach you how might they do that oh easy I have a
website and you can send me an email there or you can um actually sign up for
any kind of appointment you would like it's all automated so you can find me at Dr Michelle Peron that's d r m i c h e l
e p e r r o N.C or you can look me up on LinkedIn I'm available there I'm in
Psychology today and um also on the directory for Thrive alcohol recovery
and I'm in a directory for choose your horizons that's another company out of California so I have lots of leaders but
there's you can schedule yourself on my calendar or send me a quick email and I can get back to you as well so there's
that's wonderful and you're also in the a directory for the academy for addiction and Mental Health Nutrition
and I'm also working on um an app that people will be able to carry in their pocket that will work on these two
premises of the combined nxone and um amino acid therapy and it's called
splashed not smashed so that people are not getting intoxicated but instead they
can just enjoy a little bit of their favorite beverage that's amazing and when will
that be available Michelle um well it depends on how Brave I get to do all the videos but hopefully by the
end of January I'll start launching that yeah what a brilliant idea congratulations thank you thank you I
hope to have some really good information for the summit from that as well I'm sure you will so if you want to
reach Michelle you can or if you have clients that you want to refer to her or
just ask questions you know where to reach her and thank you all for for
listening to this podcast and this wonderful conversation and I think the takeaways are there's more than one way
to recovery we get to combine so many wonderful tools the the eating protein
every four hours the using amino acid therapy the using the targeted Notre
Zone just when needed in very specific ways to to protect those acceptors and
to buy us time and to to extinguish the conditioned craving for um some of these
substances and in this case alcohol so I look forward to having all of you listen
to this podcast again and come to our wonderfully planned conference in May
2025 or attending it virtually or by the recording thank you so much and thank
you Michelle thank you for tuning in to power up recovery with nutrition I'm
Christina Veselak your host and I hope today's episode has inspired and
equipped you with new insights and tools to support your recovery Journey or
practice if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe leave a review and
share it with others who could benefit from the knowledge shared here stay connected with us for more episodes
filled with practical advice expert wisdom and inspiring recovery stories
remember nutrition is a powerful tool in mental health and relapse prevention
power up your recovery today I'm Christina Veselak and I'll see you next
time