There’s a lot more to addiction recovery than fighting cravings.
A lot.
But between the meetings and meditations and whatever else is helping you stay clean ‘n serene (most days), we all know there are those days and nights (and times in the middle of an especially hellish day at work) when those cravings come on strong. Strong enough to cause a cognitive crash. Strong enough for non-logic to flood your noggin. Strong enough for all your other life priorities to disappear. And this is frustrating. Because when this happens to me – I have just enough awareness to know I cannot successfully use. But not enough to manage to resultant rage of abstaining. So, while I won’t give in, I’ll go take out my frustration on some other area of my life, causing a ripple effect of bad ramifications. Which is why, some people use a few simple tools of the self-psych hackery genre for rapid craving abating. For me, I’ve distilled it down to the “three D’s”:
Starting with making the craving less 3-D:
DULL IT OUT
What’s making the craving so intense right now? Likely the prospect that it seems real. You can almost taste it with your senses. In this mental exercise, we aim to do the opposite. What you do is imagine the thing you’re craving – starting in high def quality, vibrant color, and totally accessible. Then, gradually, you imagine it turning to black and white. Once in monochrome, you then can imagine its image has become static-y. Unclear. As its crispness disappears, you slowly envision it becoming further and further away. Less real. Inaccessible. No longer at the forefront of your mind. What this helps to do is release your attachment to the object – the concept of the craving – until it seems unreal to you and less relevant.
DISGUST YOURSELF BY IT
Similar to the “dulling” exercise, this self-disgust practice is another way to tweak your thinking about your fixation. The difference? Instead of merely making it boring, you’re making the thing seem downright revolting. I remember doing this once when I was first quitting fast food (long before I ever got healthy). Not sure how I came up with it except for the fact that sheer willpower alone wasn’t working, so I convinced myself that the smell alone was disgusting. And I was reminded of it the other day when I saw this Tony Robbins piece on pizza – and making this dude from the audience go from loving to loathing it. What Tony does, is put it on a -10 to +10 scale. You you go through the process of first explaining why it’s great to yourself. Why it’s a +10. (“The texture of the cheese, the taste of my favorite toppings, the fact that I don’t hafta share it with anyone ’cause I live alone…”) Then, after that, you start slowly start giving it disgust demerits. You bring the pizza down a peg or two, or twelve. (“Ew, this’s been sitting out for a while, I think I saw a fly land on it, the cheese looks kinda like Buffalo Bill’s skin suits…) til the mere thought of the stuff sounds about as appealing as cleaning the toilets of a Mexican restaurant with your tongue.
DEPUTIZE YOUR CRAVINGS
“‘xcuse me – can you put on the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show so I can remember why I’m doing this?”
Then, finally, after all this negative thinking, you can make your cravings positive.
Or rather, you can let your positive cravings stand in for your bad ones. What some of the pros propose, is that you set up your environment to reflect things you positively desire. For example, if it’s too dark to run outside on a trail (my fave healthy craving), then my next craving’s for laziness and gluttony. To sit inside, and eat instead. So, I have to coddle the cravings and give it a baby bottle of positivity to appease it. Since I hate the gym, I usually work out outside (a lot) and that’s how I stay fit. However, I know that if I want to keep up both my endurance, fitness identity, and general sense of well-being, I’ve gotta do my bi-daily cardio. And since I hate being on a machine (and just wanna hop off every second of the first ten minutes), I’ll do a craving trade. I set my iphone in front of me and put on a Youtube music video playlist of upbeat beats set to sexy, happy, active people living their lives and doing awesome stuff. It’s like a combo of fitspo and lifespo. A general reminder for what I crave long term – not the laziness craving tryn’a hijack my mind right now.
So there you have it:
Dull it down, disgust yourself with it, and deputize.
From smack to bad snacks, I hope these tips’ll help curb your burning urges.