Greetings Steemian's,

One week ago, I embarked on a new life journey. A journey to live a healthier life, and a journey to break a 20 year addiction to acid reducing Pharmaceuticals. 7 days later, I'm proud to say I broke the physical addiction, and am now living 100% pharma free!

Now I will tell you the story of how I did it, and why I believe, I was dependent on it for so long.

Photography/art created by @futuremind

The Pharmaceutical I was prescribed since the age of 12 is was:

Ranitidine Hcl

WebMD

Growing up as a child, I was the oldest of 6, and we were of the American lower class, poverty stricken families of urban areas in New York.

We were a dysfunctional family, and both of my parents did not work. Mental health/family dysfunction/laziness were all factors to our circumstance, but the factors didn't really matter at the time, at least not for the kids.

Traditional diets in this region for the poverty stricken/minorities/homeless are high in meat, carbohydrates, sugars, and overall diet inconsistency. Education is lacking in this social class as well, but when options are limited, education becomes less important, and survival takes precedence every time.

As a child, our meals generally consisted of three different dinners, and these three would continually rotate after the third day. Usually a pasta and meat based sauced dinner, next day would be hamburger helper day, and the third day would usually be chicken, fried or otherwise, sometimes hot dogs/sausage. Lunches were generally poultry based sandwiches on white bread with processed cheese, and school meals were about the same. The trend was red meat, and poultry ever single day of the week.

Not to mention, we consumed very high amounts of sugar on a daily basis, in various different forms.

I was an intuitive child, and remember questioning my diet around 8 years of age, which is about as far as I can recall having memories of acid reflux.

Around this age I started questioning my mother, and asking her why we never consumed salads or healthier meals in general. She explained that poor people had to buy poor people food, and pretty much left it at that. I continually questioned her about it, and told her I was having some burning sensation all the time, and that it had been getting worse.

She dismissed this and said it was some minor heartburn, and was something I should get used to because it runs in the family. So she started supplying me with Rolaids. Rolaids were not enough.

I started vomiting acid in my sleep, and told her I needed to go to the hospital. This was around the age of 12, and already eating Rolaids for 4 years with an increasing problem.

The visit to the hospital resulted in the doctor telling me I have a condition brought on by heredity, nothing more, nothing less, just a simple heredity thing... And they had just the solution for me, oh yes. Instead of questioning what could have been causing Acid Reflux Disease for a 12 year old child, instead they prescribed a medication that effectively works in conjunction with causing a dependency.

In short, it doesn't fix the problem, it only masks it, and actually makes the problem worse, by creating a dependency to a Pharmaceutical. Once your body develops a dependency to this stuff, all I can tell you is you better not run out.. Prepare for some agony if you do.

So this turned into a life long addiction, something I could not physically live without. The ramifications for running out always amounted to agony, sometimes to the point of induced vomiting to force remove the acid which was overproducing. It can be ugly when you run out of this particular medication.

The side effects are not pretty either. After taking this stuff for 20 years time, I was beginning to feel sharp pains in my stomach, and feeling very feverish at random times throughout the day.

Just two months ago, I was taking around 10 of these over the counter pills a day to keep the acid at bay, and I felt ill most of the time. It wasn't something I even talked about to anyone much, because I was beginning to think I was going to die from this pill.

The doctors were ready to perform an endoscopy and had scheduled an appointment for me, but my gut intuition would not stop nagging at me, this thought that suggested, "They've ultimately done this to you, so why would you trust them to shove hoses down your throat?". The logical mind suggests that they are not to blame for my ignorance to nutrition, but another logic suggests they should have had an idea of what was causing the problem to begin with, leading to another logical thought that "maybe it's a money racket"? Enough flags suggest I shouldn't go through with it if I can find my own way.

So I felt pretty hopeless after a lifelong battle with these pills, and an increasing problem that seemed to be at critical mass in terms of the risk on my health.

While feeling hopeless, and stumbled onto a post by a good friend of mine here. This post is titled Who's Up For a Meat-Fest, Butchery and The Energies Thereof? Yum Yum Steak?? Let's go then....... This isn't something that I would consider to be "easy viewing". I do feel however, that it is something anyone who consumes meat should view. Your thoughts/views/opinions on this are your own, and you are entitled to them. I won't express my complete viewpoint regarding the topic, but this plays a critical role in my path towards recovery, so it's important for me to discuss it briefly.

While viewing these videos, a started to think deeply about the unnatural conditions these animals are placed in, and the constant fear they feel, the constant abuse they suffer. I started to think about the life I've lived, and all the negativity that's been a part of it. Then I thought about how I've consumed meat my entire life, the kind that comes from these mass slaughterhouse cattle farms, where the animals live in constant terror.

I wondered if maybe meat and poultry could be contributing to my stomach problems in any way.

I really gave it some thought...

I was eating these pills like crazy, and something needed drastic changing. Could maybe cutting these meats out of my diet be the answer?

So after a month of battling with myself (because I love the flavor of meat and poultry) I decided that I could not continue to consume meat anymore. I don't agree with the way the animals are treated, so I shouldn't support it by purchasing butchered meat from the grocery store. That is how I think anyways. And that is not to say I would never consume meat again, but it certainly will not be meat that is from an industrial slaughter farm.

So 7 days ago I went to the grocery store and bought everything organic for my shopping list. Fresh produce for salads, organic pasta and grains, peanuts for protein, and a few snack items beceause I'm still human. No red meat or poultry. It's not what you would consider a full vegan diet, but it's a meatless diet.

On the first day of the meatless diet, I decided to go cold turkey from the Ranitidine. It was a bold move, and the first few days were tough, but it's getting easier every day, and I feel much healthier already! I've even incorporated some exercise into the mix, and the stomach pains have dissipated to nonexistent currently.

It's pretty mind blowing how resilient the body can be. All the things I've put my body through, the fact that I'm still kicking, to me is a miracle.

The photographs were taken with a LTE Android Smartphone. This meal was a futuremind concoction with some simple ingredients. I'm not one for measuring things, but this turned out pretty good, so maybe I'll put together some recipes and share them with you guys. These Quinoa grains are pretty bangin, I've never tried them before.

Thanks for reading 😎

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