Explore Addiction Cravings Through Sensation Awareness

A therapeutic tool using techniques from neuroscience to uncover and explore the unique sensations of your addiction cravings. The goal is to increase distress tolerance, resilience, and change your relationship to the craving, and potentially other painful feelings in recovery.

Transcript

Hi,

My name's Beth Burgess.

I'm an addiction therapist and the author of The Happy Edit,

The Recovery Formula,

And some more stuff.

But let's get on to you and your craving.

I'm in recovery from addiction myself,

So I'm well aware that there's a fine line between being able to sit with things and having to distract.

So only do practices which are designed to be with and tolerate sensations and feelings as much as you can.

But if it ever gets too much,

Just stop the practice and sometimes you have to distract,

Sometimes you have to connect.

So you may find it helpful,

Particularly if you have a very,

Very strong craving,

To call a friend,

Go to a meeting,

Whatever.

But it is extremely helpful,

Obviously,

To learn to tolerate these things.

Because in recovery,

You do have to learn to tolerate stressful situations,

Painful emotions,

Horrible experiences,

Without running away.

So think of craving awareness as a tool in your toolkit,

A tool to help you bear more things.

And the better you get at it,

The better you'll be able to function in life without your substance.

However,

It's only a tool.

And there'll be other parts of your recovery pathway which are more active.

I also recommend,

And when I work with people,

What we do is explore the whole pathway of craving.

From where it starts to where it stops to all the manifestations of craving,

Whether they be stories that start coming up or whatever else.

But this practice is purely focused on exploring the sensation of craving.

And there are actually some inbuilt tools which will also help you to reduce the craving if it becomes too much while doing this practice.

And then to build it up again and see how far you can go with it and to reduce it again and so on.

You get the picture,

Basically.

Don't ever do too much.

Your recovery is far more important than being,

You know,

The big shot at recovery.

If you need to go and get help,

Do that.

So with disclaimers out of the way,

Let's get on to exploring your craving.

Now first notice where the sensation of craving begins in your body.

People have cravings in all sorts of different ways.

I mean,

Really,

I've heard them explained using different colours,

Textures,

Sounds,

All sorts of interesting things.

When I used to have cravings,

I experienced it as what I described as feeling like a tiger's claws.

Like inside my stomach,

Clawing down from my chest down my belly through my throat,

Like internally.

That was the core,

The most strong part of my craving for me.

It felt like a desperate tiger,

Like,

Grr.

Inside,

It may be different for you.

It probably is different for you.

But here's where we find out.

So first,

Just notice whether your craving is a feeling of stillness or movement.

So mine was a moving claw.

Yours might be a stillness,

Like a block.

Notice where it is in your body to start feeling whether it's moving or still.

So it could be a whole body sensation.

It could be focused only in the stomach,

In the chest,

In the head.

And just notice whether it feels like it's still or moving.

If it is moving,

Notice if it's an actual movement that you can quantify,

Such as a swirling movement.

Or in my case,

A clawing,

Downward stroke of a movement.

Or it might be,

You know,

If it's more of a static thing,

It might just be a vibration or a pulsing.

So just become aware of the amount of movement,

The type of movement.

Really be curious about the craving.

Curiosity is another wonderful tool in recovery,

Or to unlock recovery.

And when you've noticed if there is movement,

You can notice if there's a direction.

So with my tiger claw,

It was downwards.

If you have a swirling movement,

It might be clockwise,

Anticlockwise.

It might oscillate between the two.

It might just be completely random,

Seeming like a swirling,

Pulsing,

All over the place feeling.

Whatever it is,

It's fine.

Just be aware of how that craving manifests.

And now it might be helpful to notice if your craving has a colour.

The first thing that comes to your mind is usually the correct answer.

It's sometimes difficult to notice a colour.

Sometimes the colours change.

Sometimes it's really vivid,

It's obvious.

Again,

It doesn't matter.

Just be aware of what that is for you.

Whether it's a clear feeling with no colour,

A kind of vibrant bright colour,

A muddy colour,

An iridescent colour that changes.

And then become aware of the quality of that colour.

Or non-colour.

So whether it appears as sparks of colour or dots like static on a TV screen.

Or whether it's just really firm like a block,

An insistent block of colour.

Just notice all those things.

I'm going to give you a little tip now which you can use to lessen the craving if it comes too much.

Because concentrating on things like this can become a little bit overwhelming.

So if you have noticed something like a movement or a colour,

You can basically just tone that down and that will reduce the craving.

So if you've noticed it's a really bright red,

You can clean the colour out of that red so that it's like a washed out red,

Like a sucked lollipop.

A sucked ice lolly.

Or if you've noticed it's moving around all over the place,

Just centre it.

Centre it so it's still,

Keep it a little bit more contained.

Now the idea is to explore this craving fully,

Not just get rid of it.

There are other tools that you can use to do that.

In fact you can go the whole way and get rid of that craving.

But that's not what we're here to do.

We're here to explore.

So that's just something to tone it down if it's a bit much.

The rest of it is done very,

Very individually,

So please don't try and fiddle around with it so much that it's just gone,

Because it will depend on your individual needs.

But there are little adjustments that you can feel free to make during this exercise to just minimise the craving a bit before building back up again if you find at any point that you're struggling to continue the exercise.

So let's get back to being curious now that you know that little tip.

So now notice if there's any texture to your craving.

So mine felt very sharp,

Like a tiger dragging its claws down my belly inside.

Sharpness.

Sharp pain.

But yours could be anything.

It could be like a misty kind of texture.

It could feel heavy.

Like a heaviness in your belly.

It could feel jagged.

Again,

It so doesn't matter what it is for you,

It's so individual.

But just notice it.

And notice you might have already done this when you've noticed the texture.

You might notice a shape.

Some cravings have a very particular shape.

It could be a square.

A rectangle.

You'll be building up by this point a picture of your cravings.

So it could be a big red block in your head that's kind of pulsating slightly.

You know,

It could be like mine,

A scraping colourless tiger claw moving from the top to the bottom of my chest and stomach.

So notice the shape,

The colour,

The movement,

The texture.

And there may be additional things.

Sometimes it will come with the sound.

Now most of us are aware of that internal voice that tells us things like oh,

I can't cope,

I need to go and have a drink.

I need to act out.

That may be the sound of your craving.

Or there may be something else.

There may be another sound that it has.

It might have a whirling sound.

Like choppy water.

It might be something else.

Not everyone has this.

It's fine.

Not everyone has any of these things,

In fact.

There's always elements of it.

No one won't experience any of these things.

But not everyone will experience all of them.

So just be aware if there is a sound.

I think mine was like a.

.

.

Not sure if that was like an internal anguish or like the tiger roaring,

But there it was.

And again,

You may notice accompanying all this some kind of taste.

It's not as common,

But some people get it.

I sometimes would get like a burning at the back of my throat when I used to drink.

I think sometimes that was there slightly with the craving.

Not always.

That was sometimes just something I wanted,

Which is not the same as having a craving that feels really,

Really strong.

And do remember to use your tools if this becomes overwhelming at any time.

You are very welcome to stop or reduce the craving by minimizing the colour,

Reducing the movement,

Or even changing the texture.

If it's a big red block in your body,

You can just scatter it out a bit.

Imagine you've smashed it with a hammer and you can see all the little bits scattering.

That can minimize the feeling as well.

But before you continue,

Remember to piece it back together again so you can be fully aware of your craving.

And by now,

You've built up quite a strong and full experience of your craving as sensation.

So you should be able to note whether it's got a colour or not,

A movement or not,

A shape or not,

And all the other things associated with it.

Now just so you can minimize the craving,

You can also intensify it.

Interesting.

So if you really like to strengthen your resilience,

You can turn the volume up on your craving,

So to speak.

You can make it brighter,

Bigger.

So if you've got a big red block for your craving,

Expand it.

See what happens to the craving.

It increases,

I bet.

Then you can make it smaller.

Now this is a key part of resilience,

Actually,

And I think it's not just sitting with things.

It's sitting with them long enough to learn about them.

And when you learn about something,

You can change it.

It's like these situations where you feel powerless.

And usually there is something you can do.

Even if it's something small,

It's changing your relationship to whatever's going on.

That's a way of getting through something.

So here you're just changing your relationship to your craving.

You're seeing that you can make it smaller or you can make it bigger.

You're not powerless over it.

When you're not powerless over it,

Guess what?

And this doesn't mean you can ever drink again or take drugs again or whatever.

That's a far more complex subject.

But you can certainly change your relationship with your craving.

You can sit with it for longer because you know that you can maximise it,

Minimise it.

You can manipulate it.

It's just a feeling.

It doesn't own you.

It doesn't rule you anymore.

I wonder how many other things about your life you could apply this to.

How many other feelings that you feel so enslaved by,

Whether it's anger,

Anxiety,

Fear,

Stress,

Problems.

Simply changing your relationship with something starts with sitting with it.

Sitting with it,

Being fully aware of it,

Understanding it,

Then changing your relationship with it.

So do feel free to come back to this practice whenever you like.

And do feel free to take the life lessons away as well.

I hope you found this interesting.

And here's to your recovery.

Reviews

Love the content, especially remarkable and authentic as you speak out of your own experience, big thank you 🫶🏾🙏🏼👌🏾🥰

Thankyou. That was so helpful for my migraine.. and my pattern of clutching to my addictions and annoyance by distraction and numbing. Useful tools. Thank you

Very helpful! Will use with my clients also
Thanks

Amazing

Wow that was amazing. Will use it often. Thank you. ❤🙏