Whether you come to the vegetarian or vegan diet by way of health, environmental, or ethical concerns, it’s not uncommon to find yourself tempted by animal foods. The recently launched Carnivores Anonymous support group, with meetings currently occurring in southern California, aims to keep people meeting their plant-based goals.

Carnivores Anonymous was founded by Marilyn Kroplick M.D., president of the thirty-year-old In Defense of Animals, an international nonprofit animal protection organization with more than 250,000 supporters worldwide. IDA has worked on numerous animal rights issues including laboratory animal rescue missions, shutting down exploitive puppy mills, and the group also runs extensive rehabilitation efforts through its sanctuaries.

The group calls on the same 12-step program used in other addiction recovery programs, working through accepting the addiction, making amends, and supporting others on the same path.

I caught up with Kroplick via email to discuss the group’s recent foray into taking the 12-step approach to meat-eating.

[This article is edited for length and clarity.]

Jill Ettinger: Where did the idea come from to treat meat-eating like an addiction? Is meat addictive? I mean, alcohol wrecks lives—it literally kills people. Is it fair to put meat in the same light?

Marilyn Kroplick: A study published in Psychology Today found that 84% of people who try to ditch animal products go back to them. Clearly, we need more support for people who want to live full, healthy lives.

Animal products have addictive effects and pose a serious risk to our health. People who eat animal products are at increased risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Scientists, dietitians and health professionals are only now beginning to discover the extent of the harm that meat, dairy and other animal products cause to humans. Carnivores Anonymous was formed in the model of Overeaters Anonymous to support people to overcome addiction to animal products and gain a healthful way of living.

The World Health Organization has classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, giving it the same cancer-causing potential as tobacco smoking and asbestos. Most processed foods containing animal products are hyper-palatables, meaning they are high in sugar, fat or salt (usually all three) that stimulate endorphins in the brain, making them chemically addictive.

A recent study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine highlighted the shared characteristics between consumption of highly processed foods and drug abuse.

JE: Can you walk me through what a Carnivores Anonymous meeting looks like? I know AA meetings can get pretty emotional for people. Is there an emotional aspect to giving up animal products? For example, does the guilt of eating animals factor into the equation? If so, for how many people?

MK: Carnivores Anonymous meetings follow along the same format of all 12-step programs. Participants introduce themselves by first name and admit that we are all recovering carnivores. We then recite the Serenity prayer and read through the 12 steps together. From there we discuss our recent struggles and invite a featured speaker to tell their story. In our first Carnivores Anonymous meeting held on July 24, our speaker [television journalist, author, and vegan Jane Velez Mitchell] kindly agreed to be recorded for our first meeting, you can view her story here.

There is indeed an emotional aspect to overcoming addiction to animal products as well as food addiction in general. Some people may experience withdrawal symptoms, others struggle with the empathy they feel for the animals they eat, and many struggle with uncooperative or belligerent family members or spouses.

Our main goal of Carnivores Anonymous is to help these people to provide specialized support in the healthy lifestyle they are trying to lead and to bridge the gap between vegans and non-vegans teaching to reach out to each other with compassion in a non-judgmental way.

JE:  What is the biggest challenge for meat-eaters looking to go more plant-based?

MK: Members work through and overcome their own personal challenges with the support of the Carnivores Anonymous group, the 12 Steps, and their sponsor. On a societal level, the biggest challenge to overcome is the social conditioning. Years of government-funded advertisements have convinced us of the false claim that animal products are necessary for a healthy diet. Doctors, most who have little or no nutritional training, instruct their patients to consume animal products not knowing they are harmful for health and completely unnecessary when nutritional requirements can be easily met through a plant-based whole-foods diet. This is compounded by powerful addiction to processed hyper-palatable food, and very low awareness of food addiction, making it very challenging to break out of the social norm.

JE:  What’s the biggest result people see once they shift to a plant-based diet?

MK: Within the first two weeks, people who eat a plant-based diet start seeing improvements in their health. High blood pressure begins to decrease and stabilize, cholesterol in arteries starts to break down, blood sugar evens out. Members report having more energy, clearer skin, and regular bowel movements. These are just some of the benefits to removing harmful animal products from one’s diet. In the longer-term, those on a plant-based diet enjoy lessened symptoms and even reversal of health complaints, reduced risk of further disease, and a longer, healthier life.

JE: I know you just had a meeting last month. How did that go? What’s the response been like?

MK: The first Carnivores Anonymous meeting was a big success. The group was a blend of members interested in going plant-based, others that had just started eating plant-based, and plant-based veterans. All participants brought something to the table, whether it be our current struggles with people around us, the health improvements they were starting to see, or sharing strategies to help us succeed.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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Addiction is tricky.

And apparently, because addiction was first defined many years ago, its meaning—and who it affects—have evolved, too.

In the video below, learn how addiction affects some Americans. And also find out why sometimes, abstinence isn’t the answer—addressing underlying PTSD is.

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The post A New Model for Addiction: ‘At Home in the Dark’ appeared first on EcoSalon.

When love for live music crosses the ticket line to addiction.

Skipped out on rent to blow extra cash at Coachella? Scheduled a pregnancy around a Phish concert? How about letting mom’s birthday cake candles melt just to spend an extra hour with Dave?

Find me a harmless hobby or a gentle habit and I’ll show you someone who’s developed a full-blown addiction. We humans are good at getting hooked, but why? Addiction has its roots in a neurotransmitter called dopamine. This chemical plays an integral role in the pleasure we derive from sex, food and yes, rock ‘n roll. The first time you hear a song you like, one or more elements in the music causes an increase in the level of dopamine in your brain. This might lead you to download the tune and listen to it over and over again for days (admit it, you’ve done this). But after hearing it many times, the pleasure subsides because you no longer have the cues to make the dopamine to kick in as powerfully. In other words, it gets old.

This is why live music takes on greater importance for music lovers. Even the most manufactured pop stars perform their songs a little bit differently with each gig, and musicians who are known for improvisation manage to keep their fans not only interested but coming to shows repeatedly.

The ‘high’ occurs not only when you feel, taste or hear something that you thoroughly enjoy but also with its anticipation. With bands like Phish, Dave Matthews and of course, the Dead, the set list always changes and predicting which songs are going to be performed is part of the ride. As one song ends the thrilling deduction process begins again for the next song. If you’re right and it’s a song that you really love, dopamine, that wonder drug, kicks right back in again.

Concerts have a communal spirit that can help ‘feed’ the addiction. I remember watching the Dead and feeling a sense of connection with the strangers around me as we danced to “Sugar Magnolia.” (And it’s not just a substance-induced euphoria.)

Live music can provide a transcendental and very personal experience. Phish follower, Jon Bates, says, “It’s like a religion for me. It really gets deep inside you.”

Dopamine’s role in our affinity for music can border on the extreme. The general medical consensus is that as long as it does not negatively impact your life, being obsessed with seeing live music is a harmless habit. Besides, is planning a pregnancy around a tour all that different from trying to conceive in February so you end up with a little Scorpio?

Image: Carlo Cravero

The post I Did It All for the Dopamine appeared first on EcoSalon.

I admit it, I have cravings. Not just for dark chocolate, but for tweets.

It starts when I wake up and notice I need a Twitter fix – or a twix. Getting tweeted is now more important to me than my mother complementing my shoes – pretty shoes with bows or ankle straps that I purchase with her in mind. (Mom really likes these kind of shoes).

But tweets are the new approval. Sorry, Mom. I’m looking at the birdie for love, and smiling. It’s a gratifying picture. Except, of course, when the tweets don’t add up. If Twitter is over capacity, it is not because of me. The approval ratings can be disappointing. My tweet tooth feels a hole, a void, a cavity if you will. It can hurt something awful.

For this reason, I’m convinced, therapists will soon be healing a generation of Twitter followers with complexes from not receiving enough tweets in their formative years when they actively sought reassurance from countless strangers in the great abyss.

I look to strangers, too, in the tweets of San Francisco, to form a Twitter bond – strangers like Mayor Gavin Newsom, the 4th most followed politician on the service. See, most of my social contemporaries who aren’t web writers or famous Hollywood stars aren’t quite sure what kind of animal tweeting actually is, or what social networking means, or why some among us feel the need to sign in daily with mundane accounts of their comings and goings or to write witty and  pointless haiku – or twaiku, NPR observes.

I explain it is all about professional networking and exposure, not to be confused with Facebook, which is for sharing, too, but much more of a social animal. I’m drawn to Twitter to connect with other eco web entities, allow my own posts to gain visibility, and of course, to be part of  that club; The tech savvy one.

While the opposite of exclusive, it is an impressive club, so much so that any marketing executive connected with any university, magazine, business, grass roots cause or retail store must be equipped to set up an account and work it. By working it, I mean, spend part of the day following the Twitter trail that leads to the sort of club members you would want to take to lunch. The members you would want to be following you. And so you tweet them half way.

Getting re-tweeted is an art of sorts. For example, my colleagues are also Twitter hounds who crave tweets, and we share a reciprocal relationship, in which you tweet my link and I tweet yours. If I forget, a colleague might guilt me about being remiss and say “a little bird told me you forgot to tweet!” They might enjoy their tweet revenge and not scratch my back for a whole week, and then I have to rely on some stranger to do it.

I suppose all of this pop cultural blither is intended to send a message to followers and readers and colleagues, and even Facebook friends from junior high who see my links and posts on the social site.

Listen up, tweety pie. Tweet if you love me; tweet if you are horny; tweet if you are very small (a baby tweeter); tweet if you are large (a meaty tweety). If you don’t, I will just assume you don’t like me.

You can find Luanne on Twitter at @inthegreenlane or follow this list for all EcoSalon writers.

Images: Productive Dreams; Lawrence Borel; Dewaldp; Thoughtpick; Twitrounds

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