73: The Toll of Sugar Addiction with Mike Collins
The Addicted Mind Podcast
Duane Osterlind, LMFT
4.7 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2019
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Mike Collins talks to us about sugar addiction. Mike is the chairman of the Food Addiction Institute, a non-profit which has been around since 2005. Their stated goal is to get chronic sugar use elevated to a substance use disorder.
Mike found recovery from his drug and alcohol addiction a little more than 34 years ago when he was 28. Over the years, he got married and had a normal career and business life. Yet, as he progressed with his sobriety, he started to recognize that his patterns with sugar were almost identical to his using patterns with drugs and alcohol. If he didn't have it he suffered withdrawals and became anxious, and irritable.
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In his intensive studies of addiction over the last five years, Mike has noticed that the sugar cravings in recovery seemed to revolve around the brain's reward system. He saw that many people, in their first year of recovery, would gain huge amounts of weight and he realized that they were getting an alternative dopamine rush from sugar.
Sugar is an easy way to make ourselves feel better, so it often becomes a substitute for other addictive substances. And although sugar is a powerful psychoactive, it gets no respect as an addictive drug because it is a habit that we've had since we were children. It's freely available, so instead of dealing with the pain and discomfort of the withdrawals, most of us simply reach for more sugar. With its continued use, life becomes only about fighting off withdrawals, so all of us need to connect the dots and realize how sugar affects the brain.
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Mike has been off sugar, flour, and caffeine for the last thirty years. It was a drawn-out and lonely struggle for him in the beginning, and it took a while to get off them, but once he managed to do it, he stuck to it. Mike has never seen anyone go for 90 days without sugar and then go back to it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast. We are on to episode 73. My name is Dwayne Austerland, and I'm your host. I'm also the founder of Novus Mindful Life Institute, family counseling and recovery in Long Beach, California. If you or anyone you know is |
| 0:23.0 | struggling with any of life's challenges or difficulties, reach out to us. You can find more |
| 0:29.1 | information about us at theaddictedmind.com forward slash help. Also, if you want to connect with |
| 0:36.5 | others who are interested in addiction treatment or in recovery themselves, join our Facebook group. |
| 0:44.3 | You just go to Facebook and type in the Addicted Mind podcast and click join. |
| 0:50.7 | Also, if you're loving the Addicted Mind, please share it with a friend. |
| 0:56.1 | So today we're going to talk with Mike Collins and he's going to share his story of addiction and specifically dealing with |
| 1:04.5 | sugar addiction. It's a great conversation, something I totally relate to and totally can understand |
| 1:10.3 | something that has been part of my life and my work in recovery. |
| 1:15.7 | So I think it's a great episode. I love having this conversation. I think this is information that a lot of people need to hear, especially people who are struggling with addiction because sugar becomes a substitute for a lot of |
| 1:29.7 | other addictive processes or addictive substances. Sugar becomes an easy way to at least feel better, |
| 1:37.6 | but it has its consequences. So I enjoy the conversation with Mike and I think you guys are |
| 1:43.9 | going to enjoy it as well. |
| 1:46.0 | So let's go ahead and start it. |
| 1:54.9 | Hello, everybody. |
| 1:56.1 | Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast. |
| 1:59.1 | My guest today is Michael Collins and he's going to talk about |
| 2:04.3 | sugar addiction, but also his own history of dealing with addiction. Michael, you want to introduce |
| 2:10.9 | yourself? Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. The addicted mind seems to be the |
| 2:16.0 | perfect name for the stuff that I've been studying in the last five years more intently. |
| 2:22.7 | It all seems to revolve around the brain's reward system, dopamine and serotonin and noroprenephrine, GABA, even our dreamtals, you know. |
| 2:30.8 | Yeah. |
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