Managing Cravings
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About this ebook
Terence T. Gorski
Terence T. Gorski, MA, N.C.A.C. II, is the president of CENAPS® Corporation, a consultation and training firm that specializes in alcoholism, drug dependence, and mental-health services. He lives in Flossmoor, Illinois.
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Managing Cravings - Terence T. Gorski
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PART ONE
THE STAGES OF CRAVING
I don’t know what happened,
Bob, a recovering addict, told his counselor. I was feeling fine. I hadn’t used in about ten weeks and hadn’t felt a craving or an urge for almost eight weeks. Then all of a sudden it happened. I went to a movie that dealt with drug dealing. It had vivid scenes of people snorting and free-basing. All of a sudden my palms got sweaty and my heart started to race. I could actually taste the substance in my mouth. I was overwhelmed by memories of using. I wanted to leave the movie and call my pusher. It took all of my strength to call my sponsor and go to a meeting instead.
This is craving! A powerful and at times overwhelming need for drugs, craving is a major cause of relapse for people recovering from substance dependency.
Battling the intense craving can drain energy and sap strength. Lacking skills and knowledge to deal with craving, we who are recovering addicts can only resist for so long before we feel depleted and want to give in. But once we give in to the urge, the madness of addiction begins all over again.
Craving is a serious problem that plagues many substance dependent people. Uninterrupted, it often leads to relapse. Most substance-dependent people who relapse report that their inability to cope with craving was the main reason they went back to using the drug. Thus, recovering addicts need to focus on craving and its management.
This pamphlet can help us understand cravings and learn to manage it before we relapse.
How Craving Begins
When we think of craving, what’s the first thing that comes to our mind? Most of us think about the gut-wrenching need to pick up our drug of choice and use. We’re so preoccupied with this intense urge to use that we forget that craving is a process. We focus on the end result, the powerful craving, and forget about the things that set us up to experience the craving in the first place.
The Three Stages of Craving
Set-up behaviors
Trigger events
The craving cycle
We build to the point where we crave substances in three stages. First, we use set- up behavior, which lowers our resistance. When our resistance is down, we’re vulnerable to the trigger events that cause the actual feelings of craving to start. Once we feel the urge to use, we do things that amplify or make