Ashwagandha — provided through Grace for Addictions Inc., a 501(c)(3) Recovery Community Organization serving Iowans and the broader recovery community.
Months — and often years — of substance use leave measurable deficits. Depleted neurotransmitter precursors. Dysregulated cortisol. Disrupted sleep architecture. The first year of recovery is the hardest in part because the body is still recalibrating from these injuries.
Grace for Addictions exists to support people across that recalibration. Our coaching, peer groups, and family services are free. Our Recovery Nutrition Program extends that support into the dimension most often neglected: the cellular and endocrine repair that recovery quietly demands.
The program is small, deliberate, and rooted in published research. We do not sell wellness. We supply specific, well-studied compounds to people walking a specific, well-studied road.
Ashwagandha is an adaptogen — a class of plants studied for their effects on the body's stress-response system, particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
In double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials — including work published in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine — participants taking standardized ashwagandha root extract have shown reductions in serum cortisol, improvements in self-reported anxiety scores, and improvements in sleep onset latency.
Why this is relevant to recovery, specifically: cortisol dysregulation is one of the most consistent biochemical signatures of post-acute withdrawal, and chronic stress reactivity is a documented relapse trigger in the addiction-medicine literature. An adaptogen that lowers the volume on that axis is not a cure. It is a small, well-evidenced piece of nutritional support, paired with the harder work of community, coaching, and time.
Adaptogens do not replace recovery work. They reduce the cost of doing it. That is the entire claim, and it is the only claim we make.
Recovery Nutrition Program · Statement of PurposeThe Recovery Nutrition Program provides 60-day supplies of clinical-grade adaptogens and select micronutrients identified in the recovery-research literature. Ashwagandha is the first compound we made available; magnesium glycinate, B-complex, and L-theanine are the others currently in the program.
Participation is intentionally simple. There is a brief intake — a few questions about your recovery journey, no gatekeeping — and a shipping form. We confirm receipt, then a 60-day supply is sent.
The suggested contribution covers our direct cost of goods, labeling, and domestic shipping. Any contribution above that figure — and all of our recurring donor support — funds the rest of Grace for Addictions: free coaching, peer support, mindfulness training, and the family services that surround the people we serve.
If you cannot contribute the full suggested amount, request the program anyway and tell us what you can do. We have never turned a person in recovery away from this program for inability to contribute.
The Recovery Nutrition Program is operated at store.graceforaddictions.org, a subdomain of our main site dedicated to program logistics — intake forms, shipping confirmation, contribution processing. It is a function of this organization, not a separate enterprise. Every dollar that flows through it is reported on our Form 990 as program-related revenue.
Grace for Addictions Inc. was founded in 2024 in Des Moines, Iowa, and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) Recovery Community Organization (RCO). We serve adults affected by substance use disorders — the person directly, and the family around them.
The pillars of our work are not novel. They are the things that recovery research has shown to matter most: a peer who has been where you are, a coach who shows up reliably, and a community that doesn't require you to be already-well to enter it.
Below is everything we do. The Recovery Nutrition Program is one of these. It is not the center of gravity.
We file the documents nonprofits file. We are listed where nonprofits are listed. Below is what you can verify, in the places you can verify it.
Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Goods received through the Recovery Nutrition Program have a stated fair market value approximately equal to the suggested contribution; the tax-deductible portion of any program payment is therefore minimal. Donations made without goods received — through our donation page or recurring giving program — are fully tax-deductible.
Free services don't fund themselves. Donations to Grace for Addictions cover the salaries of credentialed peer recovery coaches, the rent on the rooms our meetings happen in, the materials for our mindfulness courses, and the gap between the suggested contribution and the true cost of our Recovery Nutrition Program. If any of this resonates, we'd be grateful.
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