Issue date: May 13, 1998
Kathleen DesMaisons translates successful county program for treating multiple-offense drunk drivers into seven-step eating program for sugar-holics -- and a best seller
By MARION SOFTKY
Imagine walking into a kitchen, and there on the table is a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, still fragrant from the oven.
How do you react? Do your juices start flowing? Do you physically crave the cookies? Do you sneak one -- or two -- or more?
If so, you may be extra-sensitive to sugar. And sugar sensitivity, which is a biochemical rather than a psychological disorder, can lead to all sorts of problems, from alcoholism to obesity, says Kathleen DesMaisons. "Sugar acts like a drug," she adds. "Symptoms are: a high interest in sweet foods or bread and pasta, mood swings, feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, depression, obesity, unexpected anger, impulsiveness, fatigue."
While Ms. DesMaisons has shot to national prominence with her new eating book for the sugar-sensitive, "Potatoes not Prozac," she originally tested her theories in a highly successful San Mateo County program, teaching people with multiple drunk-driving arrests to keep a food journal and eat three nutritious meals a day.
The "Biochemical Restoration Program," which operates out of Radiant Recovery, Ms. DesMaisons' addiction clinic in Burlingame, is based on the premise that alcoholics have a flaw in the way their bodies metabolize carbohydrates that makes them super-sensitive to sugar -- and alcohol is a sugar. The program helps participants develop sound nutrition as a way of stabilizing sugar in the blood and the chemistry of the brain. This is what drives the alternating cravings and withdrawal symptoms that drive addicts, whether of sugar or alcohol, Ms. DesMaisons holds. "This is not rocket science; it's about eating breakfast," she says.
DUI diet
A recent evaluation showed that participants were re-arrested for drunk driving less than half as often as a control group. They were also charged with one-seventh as many parole violations and received no bench warrants (issued when an offender skips a scheduled court appearance). In all, 151 people were tracked over three years; 62 completed the program.
"Evaluation results indicate that this is a very effective program," said County Manager John Maltbie. "The cost of the program is much less than many other treatment programs."
The evaluation also notes substantial savings in jail costs alone of more than $700 per offender. "We want to emphasize that these cost figures represent merely the tip of an iceberg of costs to the county, law enforcement, victims of vehicle crashes, and the offender's own family," the consultants wrote.
Missing link
Like many children of alcoholics, she learned denial, became a high achiever, got married, had babies. But still she was overweight and subject to extreme mood swings and sudden drops of energy. "My husband thought he'd married Dr. Jekyll, and ended up with Ms. Hyde, too," she writes in her book.
She was spared the temptation of drifting into alcoholism by catching mononucleosis at 26 and damaging her liver; alcohol made her sick. But sugar didn't; so for solace she turned to sugar, ice cream, bread and pasta. Her marriage gone, she continued working in clinics with alcoholics and addicts. No matter how hard she tried, willpower failed and diets failed. "I lived with deeper and deeper feelings of inadequacy," she writes.
Finally, working in a California clinic with drunks who had similar problems, Ms. DesMaisons began to search for a missing link. "I knew drinking wasn't just an easy way out to escape unpleasant feelings," she says. "I was convinced that if I discovered this missing link, our treatment program for alcoholism might succeed."
When on the advice of a friend, she started eating protein and vegetables, her life began to change. She began to lose weight, her cravings for sweets declined, her mood swings evened out. She felt she had found the missing link.
Working with her alcoholic clients, she found they shared many of the same problems, and had the same food cravings linked to sugar sensitivity. She incorporated nutrition into her clinic's treatment program, and refined it to include complex carbohydrates.
Finally, she went back to school to study food and brain chemistry in relation to addiction. "For my doctor's dissertation I conducted a study to measure the effect of my food plan on the toughest audience I could find: multiple-offender drunk drivers," she writes. "I worked with a group of 30 of these 'hopeless' alcoholics, and at the end of my outpatient treatment program, 92 percent of them had gotten sober and stayed sober."
"Potatoes not Prozac"
"Potatoes not Prozac" offers sugar-sensitive people -- not just alcoholics -- a seven-step, user-friendly way to stabilize their body chemistry by developing a personal eating plan that suits their lifestyle, but also gives them the nutrition they need to get off the roller-coaster of cravings and withdrawal.
In the book, she attempts to link the brain chemicals serotonin and beta endorphins, which contribute to mood swings and good or bad feelings, with diet instead of with drugs. A baked potato (with skin on) at bedtime can be a better ally in healing than Prozac, which may have side effects, she suggests. Or Triscuits, or toast, if you prefer.
Ms. DesMaisons' food plan begins with keeping a food journal so participants learn what they are actually eating, and how it makes them feel. Along with this they begin to eat three meals a day including protein and vitamins. Too many alcoholics and people with eating problems have coffee and a doughnut for breakfast, or skip breakfast entirely, she says. Then they make up with snacks -- usually the wrong kind -- and grazing. "Eating at regular intervals will ensure that your blood sugar doesn't drop to a crisis point," she says.
This is not a give-up-and-suffer kind of diet. Only after people have stabilized their eating and begun to feel better does Ms. DesMaisons recommend that they begin adjusting their carbohydrates and reducing their sugar. She suggests shifting to more complex carbohydrates, like brown bread, or rice or beans, and plenty of vegetables. These take longer to digest and don't give the quick sugar high that comes from sweets and pasta.
Late in her seven-step program, Ms. DesMaisons gives practical advice on how to keep your food in tune with your living -- including tips about eating on holidays, while traveling and at Aunt Sue's potluck. She also gives advice on how to cut down on other addictive substances, such as nicotine and caffeine; how to lose weight; and how and why to exercise.
Ms. DesMaisons admits her diet is not the whole answer for many people, particularly those with addictions to alcohol or heavy drugs, who need other treatments, and those with psychological problems, who need counseling. "Food by itself doesn't get people clean and sober," she says. "But it creates an environment where they can achieve and maintain it. With stable brain chemistry, counseling becomes more effective."
Worldwide response
Cautiously supportive is Jo Ann Hattner, a dietitian at the Stanford Medical Center. While she is cautious about endorsing the science, she says the nutrition is solid. "The seven guidelines are basic common sense. We've been saying that for a long time," she says, ticking off the good advice: eat at regular times; take protein with meals, either vegetable or other; adjust carbohydrates for more complex foods; reduce sugars. "I would think that better nutrition would mean better mental health as well as better physical health," she says.
Passionately enthusiastic is Valerie Duecker of Redwood City, who is a parishioner at St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Menlo Park.
"I gave up chocolate for Lent. About two weeks later I felt incredibly better," says Ms. Duecker. "Then I came upon this book, and I inhaled the book. It explained to me what was happening to my physiology. I realized I was not some awful person who had no will power and was a slob."
As a result, Ms. Duecker last week launched a new Spiritual Support Group for Sugar-Sensitive People at St. Bede's, using "Potatoes Not Prozac" as a main resource.
Ms. Duecker's story is surprisingly similar to Ms. DesMaisons'. The child of an alcoholic father and a chocolate-addicted mother, she says she was "horribly, horribly" abused as a child. Now she is divorced, has three children at Woodside Priory, and is close to obtaining a master's degree in theological studies at the Episcopal Seminary in Berkeley. Her specialty is spiritual recovery from abuse and addiction; she leads workshops at state and national conferences, and is an associate with the Pastoral Center for Abuse Prevention in San Mateo.
Ms. Duecker has experienced the symptoms described in the book. "For me sugar is addictive; chocolate has been a friend," she says. "I can be by myself and have chocolate and feel wonderful. An hour later I'm angry and fussy, and my children don't want to be around me."
She wants her new on-going support group, which meets Tuesday evenings, to be ecumenical. "I want to find a food program that works for sugar-sensitive people and explore connections with the spirit," she says. "It's like a circle. Being balanced in food helps to be open to God."
Meanwhile, San Mateo County is investing $120,000 to offer the DUI Diet as an option to prisoners in jail and people on probation. "The results we saw were very, very good," says county Supervisor Rich Gordon, a member and past president of the Criminal Justice Council. "It's a very important tool for us to work with people who have chemical dependency."
For information
For Valerie Duecker's Spiritual Support Group for Sugar-Sensitive People, Tuesdays from 7:30-9 p.m., call St. Bede's Episcopal Church at 854-6555.
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