Dr. Drew Ramsey posted a fascinating article at the Huffington Post on the importance of healthy eating in 
the fight against addiction. He points out that the effectiveness of the 12-step approach is minimized without also adopting a healthier diet:
Without dietary change an individual attempting abstinence and recovery is needlessly more vulnerable to relapse. At the heart of the problem are a new set of dietary choices. Americans mainly eat highly-processed foods — food not designed by nature but in a lab. Their main ingredients are sugar, refined carbohydrates, and vegetable oils, and they are designed to taste great. When we eat these foods we light up the same pleasure-rewards areas in our brains that are activated by drugs like cocaine and heroin as well as by a variety of addictive behaviors. Ingesting dopamine-triggering foods, in other words, subjects your brain to the ups and downs, highs and lows, of any addictive substance or activity since you are stirring the same neurochemical pot (no pun intended).
But the problem actually runs deeper for drug addicts and alcoholics whose very diseases almost always lead to nutritional deficiencies:
Alcohol dependency, for example, can lead to thiamine deficiency, and increases the risk of deficiencies of vitamin B12, vitamin D, and magnesium — all nutrients needed for optimal brain function.
Hence, it is imperative that addicts – who already face so many challenges in their recovery – eat healthier:
Recovery, in fact, depends in part on developing new chemical pathways by which the brain overcomes habitual behaviors. You owe it to your recovery to nourish the brain, to poise it for better learning, stable moods, and less intrusive cravings.
Tags: 12-step, addiction, alcoholics, behavior, brains, diet, drug addicts, Eating, fight addiction, healthy, healthy diet, nutrition, Pasadena Recovery Center, processed foods, relapse
