>>143611
Caffeine is usually good for you when you have it with food, because it is a metabolic stimulant that helps you utilize energy. Sugar is good for you when it comes from whole food such as fruits and fruit juice which contain vitamins and minerals to help you use the sugar for energy. Refined sugar as in sweet tea can be bad because it is purified and devoid of secondary nutrients, but in practice much of the time any purified sugar sources are eaten a meal is likely to take place. A meal contains secondary nutrients, but not necessarily the ones you need or enough of the ones you need. There is nothing inherently wrong with sugar. Sugar is energy. The way you go about obtaining such energy and subsequently attempting to use it can be fundamentally wrong, but the fact is extra energy is usually a benefit to health—not a detriment. It is the modern human way of eating sugar that is wrong. There are many animals that eat high sugar diets and thrive (usually frugivores).
Among the most important secondary nutrients to obtain in a high sugar diet are B vitamins, vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium. B vitamin supplements can be extremely useful even if you don't eat refined food. Alcoholics are often in desperate need of more B vitamins because of the damage they do to their livers, and I wouldn't be surprised if former alcoholics need a little extra to reverse unhealed damage—especially in the case of fatty or fibrotic liver. A little extra thiamine, riboflavin, and niacinamide do wonders for many people. Liver itself is a good source of B vitamins. Orange juice is a good source of sugar; it contains vitamin C, potassium, and thiamine. Potassium should not be supplemented as overdose is dangerous (and you normally can't find it to buy as a supplement). Fruits and potatoes should supply additional potassium when it is needed. Few people get enough magnesium. 200 mg magnesium twice per day helps with countless metabolic processes.
You have a sweet tooth? I say indulge it, except eat something like dates which are often loaded with minerals and can be very sweet. Apples are a joke in comparison. There is no such thing as an addiction to food. It's like saying you are addicted to air. The truth is by saying you are addicted, you are revealing you are under high stress and feel out of control. Alcoholism isn't merely the drinking of alcohol; it is excess cortisol and often a deficiency of GABA. Sobriety doesn't cure the root cause of alcoholism. The "addiction" just reorients itself to other items—sweet tea and candy in your case. You owe it to yourself to figure out how to lower your cortisol levels, and a better functioning liver often makes that happen. One purpose of high cortisol is to create sugar by breaking down tissues, so you already instinctively tried to treat yourself with sugar instead of breaking down your body for energy.
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