Webinar Replay: The Role of Nutrition in Mental Health and Addiction Recovery with Adam Sud

In 2012, Adam Sud’s life was completely out of control. He was seriously overweight and struggling with multiple addictions and mental health disorders, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. His life nearly came to an end when he attempted suicide by drug overdose. He checked into rehab and with the help of his parents and a plant-based diet, he began a journey that led to a remarkable recovery. 

“The reason I found myself in that situation wasn't because there was anything wrong with me," Sud says. "It was because it was a very reasonable and predictable response to the way I was living my life. If I was willing to radically shift how I was living my life, I could actually take charge of my health. Essentially, if I’m the problem, I get to be the solution.”

Within one year, he had overcome his addictions, reversed all of his chronic diseases, gotten off all of his medications, and lost 180 pounds. While Adam’s story centers around recovering from addiction and disease, it’s also about stepping away from shame and into self-love. 

“I think back and realize that I was always viewing myself as an adversary to my body," Sud says. "My whole life I’ve had weight problems; I’ve never been the fastest or the strongest, and I always believed that my body wasn't good enough. I remember being in my sober living house talking to my house manager about the day I survived suicide, and I realized, What if that story I had in my head about my body has never been true? What if surviving suicide was the ultimate expression of my body never giving up on me? My body has been my ally my entire life, and I just forgot it because somebody or something got me to believe that I had to be something other than what I was in order to be acceptable, and I believed it. When I look at my body as my ally, every choice I make is an act of care-taking.” To hear Adam's full presentation, watch the video above.

Adam is the founder of the Plant-Based for Positive Change, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the research on diet and mental health and addiction. In 2020 he ran the very first controlled research trial to investigate the effects of a plant-based diet intervention on early addiction recovery outcomes. 

In this webinar, Adam Sud discusses:

Originally aired August 11, 2021