If you never had cravings and recovered from addiction would not be difficult. Unfortunately, most recovering alcoholics and addicts have significant cravings that are triggered by certain stimuli, which are specific to each person. Thus learning to manage your triggers and cravings is a key to successful recovery from addiction. Triggers can be people, places, things, or mood states. Here are some examples of stimuli that might be a trigger for you. Anger. Movies that show drug use. Beer commercials. A certain kind of music. Stress. Sporting events. Payday. A specific part of town. Drinking buddies. Hot weather. Fishing. Feeling anxious. Celebrations. Relationship problems. A crab feast. Sadness. Boredom. Sunday football. Are being alone. For successful recovery you must identify your triggers and make a plan for each, which is why alcoholics anonymous says to change your people, places, and things. However, some triggers cannot be avoided, such as feeling stressed or getting paid. Thus you must make a plan for each trigger you can avoid. For example, you would need to learn healthier and more effective ways to deal with stress, or you might have your paycheck directly deposited and not carry your debit card with you on payday. The important point is this. Identifying and managing triggers well increases the chances of maintaining your sobriety. Still, there will be times when you're triggered in the cravings, so you must have a strategy for getting through cravings without drinking or drugging. The truth is cravings don't last forever. They come, they peak, and they go away. So your goal must be to find ways to manage your cravings until they subside. In addition, you want to avoid feeding your cravings by telling yourself they'll never end, or by believing you can't manage them, or by fantasizing about using, or by keeping yourself in any triggering situation. The truth is you have more power than you realize to manage your cravings, but it'll take educating yourself about cravings, learning new skills, self-awareness, practice, and motivation to maintain your sobriety. For the severe addict or alcoholic in recovery, managing cravings can be the difference between life and death. Cravings can't kill you, but drinking and drugging can. Whenever I work with clients who are struggling with cravings, I help them make a fail-safe list of anything that will help them cope. I make suggestions for working through the cravings, and they come up with things they know or imagine would help. Of course, your fail-safe list will be unique to you. Someone's coping skill, such as playing a video game, might be another person's trigger. So think of your fail-safe list as a work in progress whereby you add new suggestions as they come to mind and remove old suggestions that haven't helped. Here is an example of a fail-safe list. Call my sponsor. Take a walk. Practice a breathing meditation. Remind myself of how bad I felt in jail for the DWI. Visualize how my son would feel if he knew I was using again. Clean the garage. Play my favorite video game. Call my therapist. Write down the negative consequences of the last time I had a binge. Play my guitar. Go to a meeting. Read the big book. Talk to my wife. Work in the garden. Go biking. You should carry your fail-safe list with you or keep it in your phone as a memo. And then when you're experiencing cravings, pull it out and go down the list trying each suggestion until the cravings subside. Coping with cravings is the key to maintaining sobriety. If you change your lifestyle so you aren't triggered into so many cravings and learn to manage your cravings when they do occur, then you're in the driver's seat. And isn't that what it's all about? Gaining control of your life. If you'd like help, learning to manage triggers and cravings so you can maintain your sobriety, then visit my website, SerenityOnlinetherapy.com to learn more about me and the online services I provide. If you found this video helpful, please click the thumbs up button. And if you want to hear more from me, then click the subscribe button at the bottom right corner of the screen. I'll be publishing at least one new video every month. And finally, keep paying attention to your life. Until next time.