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Amino Acids and Dietary Strategies to powerfully support addiction and mental health recovery. Effectively reduce cravings, withdrawal symptoms, depression, anxiety, irritability and insomnia.
Learn about the critical role that the Pro-Recovery 5 Star diet, nutrient support, amino acid therapy, and a healthy gut play in reducing cravings, relapse, depression, anxiety & insomnia.
You will be given a tour of the four mood-mediating neurotransmitters systems and their precursor amino acids. You will be introduced to an assessment tool, which has been in use for decades, which identifies probable neurotransmitter depletion, and guides amino acid and nutrient dosing. You will learn how these depletions frequently drive the progression or addiction as well as many mental health symptoms, and effective, non-pharmaceutical interventions. You will even be given the opportunity to try out this assessment tool before the training starts.
You will learn about the nutrients which the brain absolutely requires to function optimally in supporting mood and behavior, and which mental health symptoms are actually created by deficiencies in them. You will learn about the food plan which provides all of these essential nutrients and why MISSING A MEAL is probably the #1 relapse trigger for all addiction. Finally you will receive a review of recent research on the role of optimal gut health in recovery and optimal mental health.
By the end of this cutting edge training, you will have a greatly expanded understanding of why what and when we eat matters to recovery and emotional well-being, and you will have a greatly expanded toolkit from which to create policy as well as to support client improvement.
Opportunity to move in to the full Level 1 Core Training and be certified
Access to our exclusive learning tools and resources
Earn 12 Continuing Education Credits!
Online learning from the comfort of your own home
People who are wanting a quick intensive introduction to understanding and effectively addressing the biochemistry of addiction and mental health issues without psychotropic medication.
These includes, Doctors | Nurses | Psychotherapists | Psychiatrists | Social Workers | Law Enforcement | Addiction Counselors | Marriage And Family Therapists | Defense And District Attorneys | Judges | Probation And Parole Officers | Recovery Coaches
Christina Veselak
MS, LMFT, CN
Lead Instructor, Founder, Director
Debra Filla
BA, CRNC
Builder, and Owner of Inside Out
Pati Reiss
BA, HHC, NRC
Level 1 Core Instructor 5-star Pro~recovery Diet ©
There are powerful nutritional tools for healing, accessible to almost every single struggling person, that have been virtually ignored and at times slandered by the powers-that-be in the mental health and addiction treatment world. As far back as the 1950s Bill W himself, (the co-founder of AA), as well as pioneers in the field of nutritional psychiatry (originally called Orthomolecular Psychiatry) experienced the power of nutrient therapy to decrease cravings for alcohol, and reduce symptoms of schizophrenia. He was actually the person who popularized the use of the name vitamin B3, as opposed to niacin. Studies were done and replicated. High dose vitamin C was validated in the 1970s as a powerful antidote to heroin withdrawal symptoms. In 1966 Dr. Harry Salzar identified that 95% of people with alcohol use disorders tested positive for Reactive Hypogylcemia when given a 5 hour Glucose Tolerance Test. Current treatment programs who use this test find the same thing. This has dramatic implications for cravings and relapse. James Milam in Under the Influence stresses how blood sugar control is crucial to successful recovery. In 1983, Ohio Chief Probation Officer, Barbara Stitt published the book, Food, Teens and Behavior, which documented the relationship between poor food intake and violent crime in her juvenile population.
It was republished in 2004 as Food and Behavior: A Natural Connection. Dr. Kenneth Blum, who has pioneered genetic research, beginning in the 1980s, on the snps which predispose people to certain addictive and behavior disorders, was also a pioneer in doing research with amino acid formulas, designed to rebuild depleted neurotransmitter systems, thus reducing cravings and withdrawal.
Much research has been done, but very few people know it. You and your clients deserve to know about it. This information is crucial to those in the criminal justice field, mental health and addiction treatment. Dr. Kristen Allott, a naturopathic doctor in Seattle, author of Feed Your Brain, Not Your Anxiety, found that when clients in Family Court were given protein bars, that they were much more calm and coherent in front of the judge, that those who had not recently eaten protein.
I want to educate you about what we call The Third Leg of the Stool: how supporting brain health through diet and targeted supplementation can quickly transform your clients’ lives, and even your own and provide an effective foundation to any recovery pathway your clients might choose.
Blessings,
Christina Veselak
The Academy provides cutting-edge, in-depth, on-line and live education and consultation services for the purpose of thoroughly training mental health and addiction treatment professionals and volunteers in the skills necessary to identify and effectively address the biochemical aspects of client symptoms through nutrient interventions.
