8 March 2025

Managing Drug Cravings During Recovery

Why Do People Keep Using Drugs Even When They Know It’s Bad for Them?

Imagine this: suppose you love sweets, but you have diabetes and are overweight, so you need to stop eating them. On the first day, you manage to resist. On the second day, walking past your favorite cake shop, you start to struggle. On the third day, walking past an ice cream shop, you feel a strong urge, but you rush home so you don’t have to sit with the craving. Later that night, you crave sweets so badly that you order two cups of ice cream right then and there, telling yourself, “I’ve held out for three days — one serving won’t hurt.” You enjoy every bite. But once you’ve finished it all, you start to feel bad about yourself, and you give up on your goal of losing weight, thinking, “I probably can’t do this anyway. Going back to eating sweets like before probably won’t hurt. I’m not that sick yet — I can always try to lose weight again later.” This is exactly what happens to someone with addiction, except that their craving for drugs may be a hundred times stronger than your craving for sweets. That’s why, even when we know full well that something is bad for us, we still do it.

How Do Drug Cravings Happen?

In English, this is called “craving,” and it’s a sign that a person’s brain has become addicted — meaning the addiction isn’t simply a matter of habit or learned behavior, but reflects real changes in the brain’s reward pathways. This causes a person to become preoccupied, constantly thinking about the drug. The brain of someone with addiction becomes less responsive to natural rewards — enjoying a good meal, listening to music, spending time with people, traveling and relaxing — so the person no longer feels much pleasure from these things. But the brain responds intensely when it encounters drug-related cues: going to a place where they used to use, eating food they associate with using, running into old friends they used with, or actually using the drug. In these moments, the person feels intense pleasure. These mechanisms are exactly what makes it so hard for someone with addiction to quit.

So How Do You Manage Drug Cravings?

Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, who pioneered mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), compared using mindfulness to tolerate cravings to surfing. A craving is like a wave — you can’t stop it, but it rises and falls. Your job is to stay balanced on the surfboard, without being pulled under by the wave, just as you keep moving through each day without using, and the wave — the craving — will gradually fade on its own. As Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn put it: “You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

How to Practice Mindfulness to Recognize Drug Cravings

The Habit of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is like any other habit — something you can train yourself to develop through consistent practice. Building a strong sense of mindfulness takes diligence and practice. The habit of mindfulness has the following qualities:

1. Observing

2. Describing

3. Participating

4. Non-judgmentally

5. One-mindfully

6. Effectively

Characteristics of the Habit of Mindfulness

Observing

1. Watch what arises in the mind with a neutral perspective, without jumping in to join it, and without reacting to it.

2. Let thoughts, emotions, and other things arise in the mind on their own, without deliberately trying to think them.

3. Act like a gatekeeper — alert to every thought that comes and goes, neither blocking it nor holding onto it.

4. Watch the nature of thoughts and feelings as they “arise, remain, and then pass away.”

5. Notice how you react to them. Watch what you take in through all five senses — what you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, and feel through your body — and notice how you react to each.

Describing What Arises in the Mind, in Words

1. Put words to what arises in the mind. When a feeling or thought comes up, name what’s happening — for example, silently say to yourself, “Anger is here,” “Pain is here,” “The urge to drink or use is here,” “The thought that I can’t do this is arising,” “The thought that I’m not good enough is arising,” “The thought that I’m being judged is arising,” “I’m deceiving myself,” and so on.

2. Describe what’s happening in the mind in words — try to explain what’s occurring, find language for the feeling, recognize a thought as a thought and an emotion as an emotion, without holding onto that thought or emotion.

Participating

1. Engage fully with the activity — stay mindful of what you’re doing in the present moment, let go of thoughts and worry, and become one with the experience, such as when learning to ride a bicycle.

2. Act naturally, following your own good judgment about what’s appropriate and inappropriate for the situation.

3. Practice what you’ve learned until it becomes skillful and a natural part of who you are.

Non-judgmentally

1. Consider things without judging them — look at things without evaluation, focus on the facts and the substance, not on whether something is good or bad, terrible or wonderful, or whether it should or shouldn’t be.

2. Don’t add commentary to the facts — who, what, when, or where.

3. Accept everything, in every moment.

4. Recognize what is good and useful, without judging it as such. Recognize what is not good or useful, without judging it as such either.

5. If you notice yourself judging, don’t judge yourself for judging.

Doing One Thing at a Time (One-mindfully)

1. Do one thing at a time — when you’re eating, just eat; when you’re walking, just walk; when you’re talking with a group, give your full attention, moment by moment, to the conversation with that person.

2. If another activity, thought, or strong emotion pulls your attention away, practice letting go of the distraction and returning your focus to what you’re doing. Practice this again and again.

3. Train your mind to concentrate. If you notice you’re doing two things at once, stop and return to doing just one thing at a time.

Effectively — this is the habit of using both mindfulness and wisdom together.

1. Focus on what produces results — create the conditions that lead to a good outcome in that situation, setting aside notions of fair or unfair, right or wrong, should or shouldn’t.

2. Act to the best of your ability to achieve the outcome that matters in the actual situation you’re facing — not the situation you wish you were in, and not simply whatever would make you feel more comfortable.

3. Focus on your real objective in that situation, and take the actions that will help you succeed at it.

4. Let go of resentment, unproductive anger, and a sense of self-righteousness that only hurts you and accomplishes nothing.

Forms of Mindfulness Practice

1. Breath awareness — focus your attention on the in-breath and out-breath. Notice a long breath as long, a short breath as short, or notice the sensation of air at your nostrils as you breathe in and out. You can silently count along with your breathing, or use the words “Bud” on the in-breath and “dho” on the out-breath.

2. Rising-and-falling awareness — focus on the movement of your abdomen. As your belly rises on the in-breath, note “rising”; as it falls on the out-breath, note “falling.”

3. Movement — such as walking meditation, sixteen-step movement practice, rolling your fingers, or staying aware of standing, walking, sitting, and lying down, noting the physical sensations that arise from movement.

4. Listening to music — instrumental music without lyrics works well. Focus on the sound without adding commentary or elaboration, simply watching what arises in the mind: arising, remaining, and passing away.

5. Contemplating the body — the body is made up of various parts and is a collection of impermanent elements: hair, skin, lymph, saliva, phlegm, sweat, fat, food waste, urine, and feces, all of which change over time and don’t fit neatly into fixed labels. This helps you see and understand things as they truly are, without clinging to them.

6. Watching thoughts and emotions — observe the thoughts and feelings that arise in the mind, watching them arise, remain, and pass away.

7. Mindfulness in daily activities — choose an everyday activity to use for practice, such as bathing, doing laundry, washing dishes, or brushing your teeth. Stay aware of your movements in the present moment; if your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the activity, without getting frustrated with yourself. Move slowly, without rushing. These activities are meant for practice — the point isn’t the outcome, but the practice itself.

What If You Can’t Quit on Your Own?

If you use a strong substance — such as yaba, ice, cannabis, heroin, cocaine, or ketamine — or have been using for a long time, your cravings may be intense and difficult to control on your own. Another option that can help is medication-assisted treatment. Mood-stabilizing medication can reduce drug cravings, help stabilize mood, and reduce drug-seeking behavior. If you’re struggling to quit, you don’t have to fight this battle alone — you can talk with a specialist doctor with a track record of successful treatment, who can help you overcome your addiction.

For anyone who wants to quit drugs or enter treatment, don’t hesitate — seek treatment soon, for a brighter future ahead. Day One Rehabilitation Center is a residential drug treatment center, with a treatment program well suited to supporting the mental and physical health of people in treatment, such as Mindfulness Meditation for present-moment awareness, Music Therapy to help reduce stress and anxiety, Exercise Therapy to reduce preoccupation and cravings, Art Therapy to heal through creative expression, Cooking Therapy to help ease stress and worry, Gardening Therapy to build positive energy and greater inner calm, and Family Therapy to help family members understand the person in treatment more deeply.

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