Dismantling Cravings

My Stance on What They Are and What They Mean

We are disturbed not by events, but by the views which we take of them.

-Epictetus

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Image credit to stockcake.com

Cravings for alcohol still surface in my mind now and again, seemingly out of nowhere.

But they don’t have the power they once did. They pass through my awareness like a ripple in a pond, rather than the tidal waves that once could have consumed me. Now they’re rare and transient thoughts that fade almost as quickly as they arrive.

This transformation didn’t happen overnight, nor was it without effort. It emerged from applying deliberate choices, consistent behavioural changes, and a relentless commitment to uncovering and addressing root causes.

By reframing cravings and disrupting their habitual pathways, I’ve dismantled their perceived power by stripping them of their illusion of control and turned my relationship with them into a source of insight.

Neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself—has made all this possible. By deliberately letting old destructive pathways atrophy, and solidifying healthier ones with repetition and reinforcement, I’ve transformed my responses to cravings into healthier patterns.

My sobriety is wholly down to taking ownership of myself through informed choices, leveraging the biology we all possess, and applying what I can control to what I wish to be changed.

Here, I’ll explore the habit loop— cue, craving, response, reward—as the framework to help explain a self-empowered model of recovery, paying particular attention to dismantling cravings.

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Cue

Dismantling Cravings Starts With The Trigger

Every craving begins with a cue— a trigger that initiates a habit loop into motion, whether you can pinpoint it in that moment or not.

The cue might be external, like the sound of clinking bottles, the smell of an old favourite drink, or the money landing in your bank on payday. Or they could just as easily be internal: a lingering memory, an unprocessed raw emotion, or the itch of an unmet need. Some cues are loud and obvious, while others quietly hum beneath the surface.

In early sobriety, it’s essential to tackle these triggers head-on, as best you can.

I put in the work early to identify and manage mine. I’ve distanced myself from people, places and routines associated with alcohol, and I’ve replaced old knee-jerk reactions with healthier strategies. I have a sturdy ‘relapse prevention’ fortress built around me—strong walls made of external habits and an even stronger foundation of inner resilience. Nowadays I don’t need to think about relapse prevention because it’s just part of who I am.

Still, even the strongest fortress can’t hold everything back. Life still happens. Shit still happens. And sometimes that old sensation of desire might still sneak through the walls. While a craving might seep through, permission never does. No matter the circumstance, I never grant myself permission to drink.

More often than not, my cravings stem from an internal trigger—a sudden twinge or subtle wave of sensation seeking my attention. Given that the source is not always obvious, this might take a little reflection.

The real power lies in what happens next: how I frame what the craving means to me, and the response I choose to give to it.

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Craving

Understanding Cravings as a Conditioned Reflex

A craving, also known as an urge, is a fleeting sensation of desire that pulls you towards the perceived reward of a behaviour.

But a craving is nothing more than a conditioned reflex, born from old associations or learned patterns. It’s the brain’s highly efficient attempt to lead you towards a reward it believes will bring pleasure or relieve pain. And it does that by reaching for what seems familiar, even if that’s not the best option.

The power of a craving lies not in the craving itself but in the meaning you assign to it. Granting power to a thought is always, on some level, a choice. And to me, cravings are normal synapses firing along normal neural pathways in a normal brain doing exactly what normal brains do. That is all.

Thanks to neuroplasticity, these old patterns are not set in stone. They are entirely ‘curable’ because there’s nothing actually wrong with them. You can reshape your own habits, and rewire their neural pathways. You fortify the habit pathways you choose and repeat. Over time, the brain will reinforce new habit pathways, and weaken old ones until they fade into the background.

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Response

First And Second Impressions

The Stoics laid out timeless wisdom for managing thoughts, much of which still exists in modern cognitive-behavioural therapy. They taught us that our first impressions of events—that initial flash of emotion—are involuntary, reflexive, and beyond our control.

A craving is such a first impression: a natural and automatic reaction to a cue. A first impression isn’t inherently good or bad: it just is.

Our real power lies in our second impression. This is how we interpret and respond to that initial impulse. Here we may pause, explore, reinterpret, reframe, and choose to take control of controllable factors.

Viktor Frankl so eloquently wrote:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

This space between stimulus and response is where choice lives. And this is where personal mastery begins.

When cravings arise, I don’t try to resist them. Resistance creates friction, and friction amplifies intensity. Instead, I allow the craving to exist. I let it ripple freely through my awareness, observing it from a distance with curiosity, yet detachment.

I call it out for what it is using neutral language: “I am noticing a craving.” By identifying it, I bring it into the light, which severs any automatic grip it might have had on me. This perspective shifts me out of autopilot mode and into awareness, creating that space to choose my response.

At this moment, I rethink what a craving truly represents. It can’t be a nudge for alcohol—because I don’t drink and I don’t miss it. So it must be a signal triggered by a different cue, asking for my attention. I’ve come to see cravings as gentle reminders that I’ve overlooked some aspect of my self-care, but they’ve been misrouted down old pathways as if they hopped on the wrong bus. And it’s my responsibility to figure out what I’ve missed.

By recognising this, I take back control. I can respond with healthier choices that may unearth the genuine need that the craving was trying to express, and work to meet that.

In fact, I view being able to have these ripples as an advantage. It’s my internal warning system that alerts me when something in my life needs tending to, like my spider sense is tingling when there’s something amiss.

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Reward

Fulfillment Happens Through Meeting Your Real Needs

When a craving lingers, I pause and gently ask myself, “Why is this here? What cue has sparked this? Is there an unmet physical or emotional need I’ve overlooked? How can I meet that need in a healthy, natural way?”

These introspective questions guide me closer to the root causes of the craving. I know that what feels like a desire for alcohol is actually a misinterpretation of a deeper need, perhaps for connection, rest, emotional release, safety, or purpose. These kinds of human needs are often overlooked or disrupted in the isolation and distraction of modern living, and I consider them the real drivers behind the craving.

Meeting the real need becomes the reward. There’s a natural satisfaction in fulfilling what your mind and body are truly asking for. This is the brain’s original programming, long before alcohol or other substitute behaviours hijacked the system.

Finding and meeting these needs might require some deeper work through therapy, support groups and self-directed learning, but it is far less complicated than it may seem. Once you know your needs, you can begin to meet them with intuition and abundance. In the meantime, tools like HALT and The Five Ways to Wellbeing can offer practical starting points. I’ve outlined some key human needs here which might help you on your own path.

When you address the underlying cause, and complete the habit loop in a healthy way, you reinforce more constructive and fulfilling patterns. With time and repetition, meeting your authentic needs simply becomes who you are, and the pursuit of seeking inauthentic rewards shrinks into irrelevance.

But the greatest reward of all goes far beyond the immediate satisfaction of meeting your needs. It’s the bigger picture: your life coming together in a way that feels whole, built on authenticity and joy rather than distractions and substitutions.

This might be slow, but that’s part of its beauty. The ongoing unfolding makes it all that more meaningful. The joy of gardening isn’t only in what a garden produces each season, it’s in the act of gardening itself: tending, nurturing and being present whilst it grows and changes.

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Agency Underpins Everything

Agency—your capability to act upon your own will—lies central to habit change. To have agency is to recognise your own capacity to make independent and informed choices.

Remember: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Agency lives right here, in this space, along with the choices that having agency opens up. Here lies your chance to observe and re-interpret your first impression of anything, not just cravings. This ability to pause, observe, and respond appropriately is the foundation of personal mastery.

By practising and exercising agency, we can reduce the intensity and frequency of cravings, even reframe them as opportunities for growth. Each time you choose to respond rather than react, you reinforce the pathways that support your well-being and strip older destructive pathways of their power.

So the next time a craving arises, just pause and consider your choices. The craving is a signal telling you something deeper that you need to know. See it as an invitation to reflect on how you meet your needs.

The power to choose your response is, and always will be, yours.

Thank You.

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