Turning Things Around: From Addiction to Peak Health

This is a story about going from the depths of drug and alcohol addiction to peak performance and optimal health.

My name is Nick Elvery, and for over a decade I was addicted to hard drugs and alcohol, which seemed like an impossible trap to get out of. It destroyed relationships with friends, put families under great stress and crippled my health.

Over the years I tried on countless occasions to give up without success. Addiction has a cruel way of keeping you trapped.

Not only was I addicted to drugs, but I also found it almost impossible to consistently stick to a healthy diet. You see, sugar fires the same parts of the brain as cocaine does. Binge eating high-sugar products had a very similar feeling about it as doing drugs did.

One thing I had on my side was the ability to never give up. Tenacity is a powerful force indeed. After years of struggle and trying one idea to the next, I came to my breaking point. Enough was enough. No longer could my life go on in this way. It was at this point that I sought professional help and started to turn my life around.

I am now proud to say that as I write this, it’s been over five years since I turned my back on that way of life. It’s been transformational and my life is now unrecognisable.

These days I use my experiences to help other people transform their lives. I’m a Peak Performance Coach who works with coaches, entrepreneurs and professionals to help them achieve new levels of performance. I’ve found that the techniques and habits that have helped me stay on the straight and narrow transfer well to helping people without addictions.

Here are some of the most powerful techniques that I use on a daily basis.

Meditation has played a huge part in my life over the past couple of years especially. I aim to meditate for an hour a day and the results are simply mind-blowing. Not only do I have much greater resilience to stress but I’m way more in control of that inner voice that we all have. Everyone has an inner voice that tells us positive and negative things. Having the ability to be more in control of whether you listen to it or not is life-changing.

For those just starting out, I highly recommend starting with five to ten minutes per day by using an app called Headspace. That’s where I started and back then I remember struggling to do just five minutes. It takes practice and patience.

Next is diet. Everyone knows that we should eat a healthy diet but not so many people understand the impact of eating a diet high in unhealthy processed foods. Yes, it affects your health but it also has a huge impact on your mental performance, mood, energy and loads more besides.

Working out which foods work for you is crucial for living a life of high performance. The problem is most people have never experienced living life with good stable levels of energy and not being exhausted all the time.

Combining this with the right sort of supplements is a total game changer. I use a range of whole food supplements that make a profound difference to my energy levels, focus and cognitive function.

So it’s all well and good saying the right sort of foods and supplements really help, but how do we know which ones to choose? This brings me neatly on to my last technique. The forgotten art of awareness.

Self-awareness is the foundation of change. If you can’t measure something, there is no way you'll be able to change it. When you bring awareness to what you are eating and what supplements you take, your life will change dramatically for the better. Asking yourself simple questions, like how do you feel after eating certain foods, will allow you to formulate patterns.

For example, I only recently learned that coffee messes with my gut. I’d always assumed that it was sugar and gluten. Not drinking coffee makes a huge difference to my energy levels. I no longer have a bloated gut and I wouldn’t have known about this unless I had the awareness to correlate the two.

The simple question to ask yourself is, how do I feel thirty minutes to an hour after eating? Thank you for taking time to read this and just remember, never give up if there’s something in your life that you want to change. Tenacity is one of your greatest strengths. To find out more about me, visit www.DailyHabits.co.uk