How to Overcome a Craving

We usually adopt certain behaviours because they fulfil a desire for us. By carrying out the behaviour we fulfil the desire and we feel good for the moment that we do so. Unfortunately, some ways in which we fulfil our instantaneous desires create long term problems due to an accumulation of small side effects. In the case of smoking the long term effect generally leads to some form of health deficiency. In the case of over eating or eating the wrong kinds of foods it too can lead to some form of health deficiency. In the case of anger it can lead to broken relationships and loneliness.

When we know that a behaviour causes us long term damage we often seek to remove it because we want to remove the problems that it will cause. The big problem is that we assess our emotional state of well-being in the moment and in the moment that we want have a desires and can quickly fulfil it we will more often than not do that because we don’t think about the consequences.

When we want to get rid of a bad behaviour we can begin by rationalising all of the bad things that are created through indulgence. This helps to give good reasons and to fortify our resolve to overcome the bad habit. However, it is rarely enough to remove the behaviour because these rationalisations need thinking about and the rewards are usually only felt after a long sequence of beneficial actions. In the moment of the craving we don’t think about the rationalisations - we just think about fulfilling the desire.

Consequently, when we have a craving we need to replace it with another form of instantaneous, or near instantaneous reward, that gives us equal or better feelings of fulfilment to the behaviour that we want to replace. Below I give an example of how I overcame a craving.

How to Overcome a Craving – Drinking Beer

Once I set out on my dieting process (please see losing weight article) I did have a problem in cutting down the calories due to my enjoyment of beer. Unfortunately beer has many calories and a litre has close to one third of the daily intake that I needed to lose weight. I really like beer. I like the taste and I like the mild intoxication that comes from a bottle or two. Over the years I have had a lot of fun with a few beers inside of me. Also, when I go out for dinner in Berlin I often find that beer works out cheaper than soda and sometimes cheaper than water. Put those benefits together and I find it very difficult to forego beer in order not to get fat. However, remaining slim has great importance to me and so reluctantly I sat down to think of all the negatives pertaining to the drinking of beer:

It makes me fat
If I put on weight and do nothing about it for too long then eventually I either have to endure an even longer period of a low calorie diet, which I will find an annoying sufferance, or I will have to exercise greatly to burn off the calories – an even greater sufferance. Alternatively, I can just accept that I have habits that put on the pounds and that I will continuously grow fatter and fatter. Well, my vanity will not allow the latter, plus I have a personal rule that says that if I see a problem, actively engage in making it worse and do nothing to fix the problem on a permanent basis then I lack the competence to manage myself and my life and such a thought for me is sacrilegious.

Stinginess
I do sometimes pay attention to the value of items and the fact that where I live the beer sometimes retails cheaper than the water really bugs me. I mean, why pay for water or a soda when for less you can drink German beer? That proves quite a conundrum for me. I either eat less to offset the beer calories or else I find ways to circumvent my stingy genes. I tell myself that these poor restaurateurs make most of their profit on drinks and so I don’t really pay for the liquid content of a drink, I in fact pay for the service, the ambience and the atmosphere. By reinterpreting the value of what I pay for it helps me to undermine raw comparisons that logic and desire would otherwise cause to heavily influence my decision. I also titled this section ‘Stinginess’ to give a bit of a negative slant. If I titled it ‘Cost Consciousness’ it might cause some conflict.

Drinking at home
Sometimes I get bored at home or sometimes stressed and a beer, or two, takes the edge off of my tension. However, it tends to make me groggy first thing in the morning and since I hate to have my golden hours for writing disturbed and impaired I have stopped drinking at home. I make a point not to buy beer at the supermarket so that I don’t have it ready and waiting for me at moments of weakness. If I do buy beer late at night then I have to go to my local kiosk and pay over the odds for it and that tends to stop me from extra beer drinking on a whim. Sometimes though, after a particularly productive day and if I haven’t indulged myself with too much food during the day then I do pop out for a cold one.

Feeling good
In the days when I didn’t feel good about myself and I entered into all manner of damaging behaviours, beer drinking became a major distraction for me. It fuelled nights out and coming from a British background I got into the habit of binge drinking and of using beer as a way to feel better. Now that I understand that any emotional problems that I have come from a difference between my desires and my reality then when I now feel bad I deal with the cause and not the symptom. By dealing with my desires and fantasies and getting real I have less emotional angst and hence less compulsion to indulge in distractions and damaging behaviours. Consequently a need for beer to fuel distraction and to prop me up temporarily has mostly disappeared. Now, I drink beer only occasionally and because I enjoy it as a pleasure in and of itself. Exceptions arise when I go out with friends for whom the whole beer drinking thing forms part of the event. That happens a lot less these days.

Putting It into Action

Going through the exercise of rationally thinking about the benefits and disadvantages, needs and desires revolving around my impulses for drinking beer helped to build leverage to adopt better behaviour but I found it insufficient to deal with moment-to-moment impulses when I could almost hear a refreshing beer call out to me. I fell into the classic trap of remaining focused on the problem (drinking too much beer) rather than the solution. My thinking went something like this:

“Mmm, I’d really like a beer right now… No! I must not drink beer… but I really like beer… No!… Ah, a nice cold beer on a hot summer’s day…” and on it went with me struggling because I remained focused on beer and the pleasure that it gave me. This short-term impulse for instant gratification caused me to keep reverting to drinking beer. I even became impetuous about the circular arguments in my head and started thinking, “It’s my right! I’ll have a beer if I want it. No one can deny me.”

I really didn’t like the struggle and then I remembered that I had a problem because I continued to focus on the negative and on the ‘do not…’ order. When I remembered this I could quickly turn things around by focusing on what I wanted – in this case a nice flat stomach, a slim body and the self-esteem that comes from knowing that I can control my impulses. The next time the idea of a beer entered my head it would follow with the second idea that I must not drink an excess of beer at this time. If I left it there I would struggle with my impulses but by then focusing on a better positive result – the flat stomach that I want and the satisfaction of controlling myself – I quickly controlled myself on a moment-to-moment level, got back on track and kicked out thoughts of beer because I had replaced them with a better focus.

Therein lies the key to this powerful method – by focusing on a better outcome we push out thoughts, and hence focus, on the undesired outcome. It only takes a little time to think about a better result and possibly three or four times where you might have to consciously catch yourself focusing on your impulsive desires and then consciously replace the negative with a positive. As long as the positive replacement has some immediate benefits (and in my case I simply felt very good when I imagined a flat stomach and I felt even better when I realised that through going through this process I exercised great and mature self-control) then the replacement thinking will quickly displace the old thinking and a new habit can become established.

For further reading on the underlying importance of what to focus on please read: negative and positive focus

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