What to do when a craving hits can feel like an urgent question, but an urge is not an instruction. Cravings often rise, peak, and change over time. The goal is not to solve your entire recovery in one moment. The immediate goal is to create a little space between the urge and your next action.
The following 10-minute plan is a practical tool you can use when a craving for drugs or alcohol appears. Adapt it to your situation, and keep the steps somewhere easy to find.
Minute 1: Pause before acting
Say to yourself: “I do not have to decide anything for the next 10 minutes.”
Delaying is not the same as ignoring the craving. You are giving your thinking brain time to catch up with the urge. If possible, move away from anything immediately connected to using.
Minutes 2–3: Change your surroundings
Cravings are often connected to people, places, objects, routines, or emotions. A small environmental change can interrupt an automatic pattern.
- Step outside or move to another room.
- Leave a store, parking lot, or gathering connected to using.
- Put distance between yourself and money, contacts, substances, or equipment.
- Go somewhere public and safer.
If leaving would put you in danger, stay where you are and contact someone you trust.
Minutes 4–5: Slow your breathing
Take five slow breaths. Inhale gently, pause, and make the exhale a little longer than the inhale. You are not trying to make the craving disappear. You are helping your body move out of automatic reaction mode.
“I am having a craving. It is uncomfortable, but it can change.”
Minutes 6–7: Check what you actually need
Sometimes an urge becomes stronger when another need has gone unattended. Ask yourself:
- Am I hungry?
- Am I angry, anxious, ashamed, or overwhelmed?
- Am I lonely?
- Am I tired?
- Did something specific happen just before this craving?
Address the smallest immediate need you can. Drink water, eat something, sit somewhere safer, or write down the trigger. Understanding the pattern helps you respond differently the next time.
Minutes 8–9: Contact another person
Send a simple message or make a call. You do not need a perfect explanation.
“I am having a difficult craving and could use ten minutes of company.”
Contact a trusted friend, family member, sponsor, counselor, peer, recovery group, or treatment provider. If one person does not answer, try another. Preparing a short contact list before a craving happens can make this step easier.
Minute 10: Choose the next safe action
When the ten minutes end, do not ask, “Can I handle the rest of my life?” Ask, “What is my next safe action?”
- Repeat the 10-minute plan.
- Take a walk or shower.
- Attend a recovery meeting.
- Remove a contact or block access to money temporarily.
- Spend time with someone supportive.
- Contact a treatment provider.
After the craving changes
Write down what happened before the urge, what you felt, what you did, and what helped. This turns a difficult moment into useful information. Over time, these notes can reveal trigger patterns and help you create a more personal prevention plan.
A craving does not mean you have failed. It means your brain and body have encountered a learned signal. Responding differently—even for ten minutes—is practice in changing that pattern.
When self-help is not enough
General recovery tools can be helpful, but they do not replace medical care or individualized treatment. Suddenly stopping alcohol, benzodiazepines, or certain other substances can cause dangerous withdrawal. Seek medical guidance instead of trying to manage severe withdrawal alone.
Call 911 for an overdose, trouble breathing, loss of consciousness, seizure, immediate danger, or another medical emergency. In the United States, call or text 988 for a mental health or suicide crisis.
Suncross Foundation provides individualized substance use disorder assessments and treatment services in Fresno. If cravings are frequent, intense, or leading you back to substance use, a confidential assessment can help identify appropriate next steps.
Learn more at Suncross Foundation or call (559) 515-6272.