Slippery Elm helps with Addiction.

Nourishing Nervines, part 2

Being Nourished with Slippery Elm Bark

The other herb I use with Milky Oats for nourishing the nervous system is Slippery Elm. Slippery Elm is Ulmus rubra and you want to gather the inner bark after the tree is at least ten years old. It’s a very slow-growing tree, that was actually saved by the Boy Scouts of America, who replanted them-good for them! That spring inner bark is what we want to gather. The Native Americans’ way of gathering slippery elm is used for diarrhea and constipation as well, and often times with addiction, you’re going to have digestive readjustments as people reenter life in a more natural way. So, if you have diarrhea, you’re going to gather the bark from the bottom up. And if you have constipation you’re going to gather the bark from the top down. And that was taught to me by David Winston, it’s from Cherokee tradition. Slippery Elm is a demulcent, emollient, expectorant, it’s also diuretic and nutritive. We’re focusing on nutrition. 

Nutritive Slippery Elm helps in addiction to rebuild digestion.

Slippery Elm is a bark, so it needs to be done in a cold way. You never pour boiled water over barks, because they’ll close up, as they protect themselves by closing. Begin with cold water and bring the water to simmer, and I follow the Phyllis Light tradition of letting it simmer for 15 mins and then taking it off the stove and letting it sit for 15 mins. I don’t really strain it, I think it’s beneficial to just chew on it. So, if you’re doing a separate decoction of slippery elm, I would just have the person pour it in a cup and sip it as a sorta’ watery porridge. Some people are offended by the texture, so then you just dilute it more. Chewing on it gives people something to do with their mouths, and often times people with addictions need to have oral stimulation and this gives you something a little extra to do. it’s very tasty. Slippery Elm is sweet, it smells good, it tastes good, it’s very pleasing. People can add cinnamon or nutmeg for more flavor and it’s healing action affects all parts of the body it comes into contact with. It has as much nutrition in it as Oatmeal. So you’re getting food in a form that in the early stages of coming off any kind of medication or opioid, you’re not able to tolerate ingesting a lot of food. So this is a way to get pretty solid nutrition in a liquid form that is going to be able to be taken without being ill. 

Helps with Inflammation

Slippery Elm is in general safe for all human beings. The only caution I have does not take it with any pills, in case those pills are eliminated from the body without digesting them. Slippery Elm is for all forms of irritation in the mucous membranes. And when people have been addicted to anything, they usually have inflammation in the body and this is a great anti-inflammatory that is just completely delicious and safe. It doesn’t need to be sweetened, so it’s great for any of the “-itises”, gastritis, any of the gastric irritations. Really wonderful for mucus colitis, it’s just tolerated really well… people who are really ill, really young, really old. Also good for a cough or a cold. Classically there were those Thayer’s tablets of slippery elm and honey and a little bit of water and you just formed tablets and sucked on them when you had a sour throat. That’s a great way to treat someone who is trying to get off the drugs you use for acid reflux. 

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