Four Nutrients and A Multivitamin
1. Omega-3 Fats (Fish Oil) - Dosage: 3,000 mg net EPA and DHA per day, splitting the dose, taken twice per day.
High dose supplemental omega-3 fats have been shown to reduce anxiety and feelings of anger better than 60 percent in a substance abuser population over a three month period of time. The substance abusers used cocaine, heroin or alcohol.
Thus, high dose supplemental omega-3 fats reduced two powerful triggers to can cause relapse by reducing the influence of anxiety and anger.
This might reduce the power of manic-compulsive activity to influence decisions, yielding more sane, logical decisions, such as choosing not to abuse drugs or alcohol. Numerous studies show that omega-3 fats have significant anti-depressive effects, also. Depression, too, can trigger relapse.
2. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) - Dosage: 5,000 IU or more once per day.
Adding high dose supplemental vitamin D3 might improve this effect, especially for users of drugs that have a great effect on the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, such as methamphetamine and cocaine, by reducing acute fluctuations in dopamine and serotonin that can contribute to manic-compulsive and addictive behavior.
Evidence shows a decrease in the normal drop in dopamine and serotonin after administration of methamphetamine, which elicits a question that vitamin D3 might also reduce the acute increase in dopamine and serotonin after administration. This could predict that the drug high would be less attractive, also, if the high were indeed attenuated. This needs to be confirmed by human studies.
Additionally, numerous studies show that vitamin D3 also has significant anti-depressive effects.
3. N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) - Dosage: 2,400 or 3,600 mg per day, in divided doses.
Three studies give us reason to consider using NAC to reduce cravings for drugs and alcohol.
4. Strong multivitamin - nutrient deficiencies can reduce the effectiveness of any nutritional program. Therefore, it is wise to take a strong complete multivitamin with this protocol. The strongest one-daily formulas available are SuperNutrition Simply One Women, and Simply One Men. Better yet are six-tablet daily formulas, such as SuperNutrition Women's Blend and Men's Blend.
The unifying hypothesis is that adding the effects of omega-3 fats to vitamin D3, NAC and a strong multivitamin would improve the efforts of substance abusers to avoid relapse and stay sober. However, I have seen friends quit drinking or using drugs with fish oil alone. All four supplements taken together would likely yield the strongest response.
I have also seen people who abused drugs and alcohol who quit using all illegal drugs and were happy to drink moderately socially - without over-drinking after taking these nutrients for a few weeks. Apparently, the logical part of brain, the frontal cortex, becomes more powerful than the reward-pleasure center, the limbic system, so drinking too much becomes distasteful and illicit drug use is less attractive.
5. Worth Mentioning
One other nutrient produced a significant decrease in craving and relapse for alcoholics in a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
However, the dose in the study requires taking nine 1,000 mg capsules a day for a total dose of 9,000 mg a day. It's acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) - best taken in three divided doses a day, as 3,000 mg three times a day. This requires a lot of capsules, so one might choose not to use ALC. However, it's beneficial effect was shown to be so strong in the study that I feel it should be mentioned. As well, ALC is an important nutrient for cardiovascular health.
Dosages
The consideration with dosing is to split the nutrient doses and take half the nutrients twice per day to keep blood levels consistent so that the effect is maintained all day. To be clear, potency is the most important consideration in getting the full beneficial effects, so a commitment to taking the full potencies is important.