30 Tips For Managing Cravings
By DeAnn Knighton
With Sober January soon upon us, this is a great time to reprise our earlier 30 Tips For Managing Cravings. You may be lucky enough to not experience cravings, but even if that is true, you will find these tips useful for maintaining a positive mind and body as you focus on you.
Day 1: Box Breathing
It’s common to experience feelings of anxiety in the early days. Try this easy technique when things feel like too much. Breathe in for 3-5 seconds, hold up top for 3-5 seconds, breathe out for 3-5 seconds, hold at the bottom for 3-5 seconds. Visualize your breath moving around a box and play with it until you find the count that works for you.
Day 2: Know Your Baseline
Waves of depression are a common occurrence as your body and mind are healing. Make space for this. Before this happens establish the minimum baseline of what you will accomplish on hard days. It may be as simple as making your bed. It is common that in the short term you will not be able to accomplish your typical output. This can be frustrating, but is temporary and worth the small setback. Plan ahead.
Day 3: Activate the Vagus Nerve
When cravings are at their strongest take a cold shower. Even more specifically, dip your forehead in cold water. Not an option? Try an icepack or even just step outside in the cold. You can also gargle water or sing loudly. All of this helps to calm your nervous system in times of distress and may be just enough distraction to help you to the downhill side of the craving.
Day 4: Channel Your Frustration
Direct your anger at alcohol! Write a nasty letter to your substance. Do the research to understand the damage it does. Tead about the science of addiction. Get mad for a minute. It is far better to let yourself get mad than to deny the emotion. You have the right to it. You will be on the other side of that craving in no time. A source we love: @thisnakedmind
Day 5: Start the Search for Your People
Loneliness and shame can be a dominant forces in the early stages of recovery. There is no greater way through than to lean on the strength of community. Find healthy and safe spaces to hear others share their story and when you are ready, share your own. Some communities we love: @theluckiestclub @she_recovers @soberblackgirlsclub @intheroomsofficial @gayandsober @liferingrecovery @recoverydharma
Day 6: You Can Say No
Let's say this again: You can say "no" to situations that will increase cravings. Even more importantly, you should. Look at all of the things you are telling yourself you HAVE to do, and then reprioritize as if your life depends on it. Skip it. All will be OK. The people who matter to you will understand. The step back is the way forward.
Day 7: Name Your Urge
Smart Recovery has a great tool called Disarm in which you give your urge and the voice that accompanies it a name. When the urge comes up gently tell your named urge "no thank you, (insert name)." Check out @smartrecoveryusa for more information.
Day 8: Shake It Off
Shake it off. No, seriously, literally shake your body. This can reset your nervous system. Think of the way a dog shakes after they are heightened. Turn on some music if you need some inspiration for your movement.
Day 9: Manage Anger, Don’t Deny It
Do what you gotta do (within reason). Go to an outdoor place and scream at the top of your lungs. Sprint until you feel like you want to throw up. Throw your pillows around your room as hard as you can. Find some plates to break and break them (please clean them up). It's OK to be angry—but you must find healthy, nondestructive ways to express it.
Day 10: Give Yourself a Hug
Roll up in a ball and squeeze your legs in as tight as you can. Hug yourself as you would a child or a loved one that needs comfort. It may be help to accompany this with spoken words. We like: “I got you.” Say it out loud if you can. It really does help.
Day 11: Don’t Add to the Pile
A way to combat negative feelings of shame is to simply start by not adding anything new to the pile. That's it. Just don't add on any more to the load than what you are already carrying. The simple act of remembering your own desire to not add to your own misery is a massive step. In recovery circles, this is often called the next right thing and is a form of self regard.
Day 12: Make Space for Grief
Make room for grief. Write a farewell letter to your substance as if it were a friend you had outgrown. Read it out loud to your self or a trusted friend. Remember that like everything, things work until they don't. Something went wrong in this dynamic, and it's time to say goodbye. That does not mean it does not hurt.
Day 13: Schedule Your Time
Start using your calendar. Make a plan for tomorrow. Distract yourself just enough to commit or pencil in an activity that you plan to do. Even though you may not feel like doing anything, just make the plan. Simple things like the time of day you are planning to cook and eat a healthy dinner. Calendar your scheduled meetings online or in person.
Day 14: Learn to Tap
For anxiety, Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping) can be a secret weapon. @jessicaortner has some great tools to get you started.
Day 15: Learn Your Patterns
If you think you are not an angry person but struggle with substance abuse there is a good chance that you have suppressed a lot of anger through resentment. You can't do anything about it until you can recognize it. The SUAS app is a great place to start tracking anger and to try and flush out the root cause.
Day 16: Listen
Listen to others. Find an online community that works for you. Read meme's. Listen to interviews of others who have experienced where you are (showupandstay.org/podcast). Shame thrives in the lonely corners. Listen, connect.
Day 17: Re-calibrate Perception
Evaluate the content you are consuming that may be re-enforcing the idealized promise of a drinking lifestyle. Start with your Instagram feed. A few sober sharers to note: @soberblackgirlsclub @youarenotstuck @sobermotivation @drop_the_bottle_ @sober_rangers @sobermomtribe @better_life_guy @soberdave @tawnymlara @soberrhumor @sobermode @veronicajvalli @thissideofalcohol
Day 18: Revise History
Feeling a fear that you won't be able to connect without alcohol? It's time to reconsider how fun alcohol really made you. Get out your journal and really ask yourself the last time alcohol improved a situation for you. Chances are it will be a stretch to find one. It's fun until it's not. Time to get honest with yourself and share your realizations with a trusted member in your support network.
Day 19: Mental Grounding
This is such a valuable tool in the toolbelt it needs 3 tips. Mental grounding is a great way to recalibrate your experience. An easy one to remember is 3:2:1 → Describe to yourself 3 things you can see, 2 things you can hear and 1 thing you can touch.
Day 20: Physical Grounding
Get your feet in contact with the earth and focus your attention there. If imagery works try imagining youself as a tree with an underground root system down to the core of the earth. Take your shoes off in the grass if you can – it makes it even better.
Day 21: Soothing Grounding
Build a support team for yourself that represents 3 legs of a stool. Who can you call on for Wisdom, Comfort and Protection when you need it. These can be people in your life, personas in media that align with your beleif systems or even a version of yourself. Close your eyes and envision this support around you. If you don't have it — that's ok. Consider this as a worthwhile goal on your path to long term recovery.
Day 22: Solidify Your Way
In this moment, it may feel like a challenging process. You may be battling some external or internal instigators convincing you that maybe things weren't as bad as you remember. Interrupt this process and go to your why. What got you here and what will keep you here? Find your why and then keep coming back, over and over. An inspiring follow: @hello_sunday_morning
Day 23: Get Familiar with PAWS
This is Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome and may explain some of the physiological responses that could be happening in your body. These include but are not limited to: brain fog, cravings, irritability, sleep issues, fatigue, anxiety, mood swings.
Day 24: Practice Self Compassion
@tarabrach sums this up the best with her 4 step process RAIN. Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. Her website is full of tools to get you started: tarabrach.com/rain/
Day 25: You May be Greeted by the Pink Cloud
If you are one of the lucky ones that experience this euphoric state in your early days, ride the wave! Use the newfound lease in life to initiate some positive momentum in your recovery journey. Like all good things it is unfortunately not a forever place, but why not maximize the return? Set yourself up for long-term success.
Day 26: Sugar Tooth
Alcohol, amongst other things, contains sugar. Lots of sugar. Use mixers? Then it contains next-level sugar. You may find yourself reaching for the candy jar, and if that is what you need to make sure you don't drink, then so it goes. A piece of hard candy can be a good way to go in a bind. Long-term, of course, you will want to watch out for this and work to adjust your body's expectations of the sugar rush.
Day 27: If You Are Tired…..Sleep!
Under normal circumstances, we may not be able to sleep or nap whenever we want to, but whatever freedom you can give yourself to sleep when you are tired..... DO IT! This is a massive adjustment for your body, mind, and spirit. It's normal to be more tired than usual.
Day 28: Hydrate
There is probably nothing more underrated in all of our day to day than the value of drinking water. You hear it all the time — but do you actually believe it? One glass of water can help many things, but true hydration is built with regular habits. Right now, throw in some electrolytes for some accelerated benefit.
Day 29: Finish Something
Go to mom's house and raid her puzzle closet. I know, I know. Here is why.....so much that we do and work on is always unfinished. A puzzle is finite — it has an end as long as some A-hole did not lose a piece! Do a puzzle. Finish something.
Day 30: Find Yourself in Others
Discover the dopamine of finding your story in someone else. Join the Quit Lit party. If you like to listen, try podcasts (like ours) or get a library card, plus the Libby App for FREE audiobooks! There is community here as well.
