173. Alcohol Cravings Don't Last As Long As You Think (And 4 Steps To Take When One Hits)

You're walking home after a long day. You round the corner, your favourite pub comes into view — and suddenly, every cell in your body wants to walk through that door. 

We’ve all been there. But what if that pull isn't actually about the drink at all?

Alcohol cravings are one of the most misunderstood parts of changing the way you drink. They're not a sign of a problem, and they're not a sign of weakness — but they can feel overwhelmingly powerful in the moment. 

What most people don't know is that the craving itself rarely lasts as long as it feels like it does. 

Armed with that knowledge and a few practical strategies, you have far more control than you might think. 

I walk you through a four-step approach to acknowledging, understanding, riding out, and replacing the urge — without relying on willpower alone or beating yourself up for feeling it in the first place.

0:00 Take a walk with me

3:39 Is a 'craving' a sign of a 'problem'?

4:33 What are you really craving?

7:29 I still get cravings 5 years in

8:42 How long do cravings last

10:40 Four Steps To Handle Urges

11:36 Think. about what you really want

12:53 Ride it out

13:37 Simple replacements in the moment

15:12 The underrated connection between movement & cravings

19:56 Three things definitely NOT to do

21:26 It's ok to find this hard

23:05 Download your Surf the Urge Vault tool

Best episode to listen to next: 

111: Drinking on Autopilot: How Daily Stress Fuels Your Evening Habits - https://www.mindfuldrinkinginmidlife.com/2229527/episodes/17853665

Join the membership and get the resources you need to make the change you want - https://mindfuldrinking.substack.com/s/the-vault

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You can email me at denise@lownodrinkermagazine.com

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🗝️ Join the membership and unlock full access to The Vault - https://mindfuldrinking.substack.com/s/the-vault

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*Some links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may earn a commission that helps me keep the show going. Thank you.

Transcript

Take a walk with me

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Imagine this, it's 6 pm and you're finally on your way home after a very long day at work. As you round the corner, your favourite pub or bar comes into view. You're trying not to get pulled towards it, but as you get closer, something else starts to take over your senses. You can smell the familiar waft of hops as beer fills the air. You can hear the clinking of wine glasses, and you can see arms waving in excitement and cheers as familiar faces smile and make merry. You've already decided that for whatever reason you don't want to consume alcohol tonight. But the closer you get to walking past that pub, the stronger you feel the pull to pop in and oh, just have one. Why are alcohol cravings such a powerful draw? Can you really not resist the temptation to drink, or could there be something else going on here? That's what we're talking about today. You're listening to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast, where it's my goal to help you take back the power of choice from alcohol. I'm your host and mindful drinking mentor, Denise Hamilton Mace, and this is the start of your journey to a life less intoxicating. Ah, cravings. Cravings for alcohol can hit us at any time and in any place. Okay. Um, but maybe you don't call them cravings. Maybe you prefer to call them a hankering. That's cute and harmless. Uh Jonesing, no, that's definitely too strong. Perhaps you call it just an urge or an impulse or a pull, whatever term you use, whatever word you use, the desire to reach for a drink when you've already told yourself that you uh don't intend to have one for whatever reason, for whatever length of time, that pull can be really intense. And that doesn't just apply to people who are in recovery, uh, who are going teetotal, who are trying to be sober. Even those of us who moderate, who try to drink mindfully, are on a flexible drinking path. There are times when we might say to ourselves, this is a no-booze zone for me at the moment, but then something grabs a hold of you and says, Oh, go on, just have one. And it can be a real pain in the ass to fight it off. Maybe something happens at work, maybe I often use the example of your boss being a bit of a prat because let's face it, it's something we can all relate to, even me, and I'm my own boss. Um, maybe it's something at home, maybe it's with the kids, but whatever kicks it off, you suddenly find yourself with two choices. Choice A is to go with it and to have the drink, and choice B is to do something about it. Now, as is always a message with this show, neither of those is right or wrong. If you choose to consume alcohol, then you have at it as long as it is your choice. But if you've decided that you don't want to uh allow alcohol into that specific moment, then dammit, you do want to be able to stick to your convictions, right? You want to be able to carry through with what you've told yourself you are going to or not going to do. So let's talk a bit about cravings, and then later on, I want to talk to you about how long they last and of course what you can do about them. Now, first of all, the language and the words. I am using the word craving to in this conversation with you today because it's a word that we all understand, right? It's something that if I say I've got a craving, you know what I mean. It is a very strong word, and I don't want you to start to associate a craving for alcohol as a sign of a problem. To me, it's no different from those moments when I have a craving for a Big Mac. Okay. It's something that I go, oh, do you know what I really want one of those, I really fancy one of those. And sometimes it's a really strong pull, and sometimes it's a little bit milder, sometimes it passes quickly, sometimes it lasts a bit longer. So just because you're feeling a craving, or we're talking about cravings today, it's not a sign of uh a dependency or an addiction or a problem. It's just the language that we use to describe something that we can all understand. Okay. So when is a craving not a craving? That sounds like a really weird question. I'm not just being cryptic to keep you intrigued. Um the reason I ask that, or reason why I frame it like that, is just because you have that inkling or desire for booze, it doesn't actually always mean that you do want booze. Let's take that example that I shared in the introduction of you walking down the street and walking past your favorite pub or bar. You know, maybe this is at home, maybe this is after work, wherever you are. When I took you on that journey, what was it that was brought up for you? Because depending on how you process uh memories and thoughts, it might have been uh olfactory for you. You might have started to think that you can smell the beer or the wine in the air. Perhaps it was uh audible and you could hear the sort of chattering of people around you and the clinking of glasses. Maybe it was a more visceral feeling, like you felt like you were back inside that pub again or inside that beer garden. And the people that you were with were a huge part of that feeling for you because these memories are often connected to the feelings that we had when we were experiencing them, experiencing them for the first time. In that instance, in that specific example, it wasn't actually the alcohol that you were craving. You were craving the connection with people that you cared about and enjoyed spending time with. You were craving perhaps the relaxation of letting your hair down and just being with people that you could be yourself around. Maybe it was the laughter if you've had a rough day and you just need to lighten up. Perhaps it was a friendship because you want to connect with somebody one-on-one and de-stress with somebody who you know cares about you. Maybe it's the uh stress relief of sharing what's created a bad day with somebody who you know will care about what you've got to say and help support you through it. It could have been any one of those or any number of other states that you used alcohol to get you into in the past, but that you feel like you're missing in this very moment. And that's normal. We all do it. All of us who are choosing to drink less or drink differently in this very moment have times when we look back on our past drinking with uh what I like to call rose-tinted spectacles, and all we remember is the good times, it's the joy, it's the laughter, it's the fun. And those are very valid memories. I never want you to uh dismiss those or to try to put those out of your mind because we had some great times and had some lovely times, and that's perfectly okay. The point is that now you've decided that there is a valid reason why alcohol isn't going to be the thing that you use to give you those feelings again. Okay. So, how long then does that feeling last? And I think this is a really big question that people um don't really know a lot about. And a lot of people worry that once you're hitting uh an urge to drink, that it's not going to go away until you give in to it. But that's not actually true. So when a booze craving hits, whether you're trying to go teetotal, as I said, or you're just taking a break or just having a night off, it can hit the same way for all of us and it can feel very intense. Even for me, after five years of drinking differently, I still have moments where suddenly I feel a wave of desire to pour myself a very stiff drink. And it's not always in response to stress or upset or anything negative. Sometimes it's a really positive uh situation that I'm in. And I have to make a choice as to whether or not I'm going to allow alcohol into that moment or not. But my point being that it doesn't matter how far along you are on this journey, all of us at times can feel that desire to pour and to sip on that full strength drink. While it might feel in the moment like that craving is going to last a lifetime, you might be surprised to learn that most alcohol cravings will pass in anywhere from just five to up to about 15 minutes. That's all. It's not actually the craving itself that lasts a really long time. It's how we react to them that makes them feel never-ending. And I don't know about you, but when I first learned a while ago that cravings only last five minutes, I was like, well, what do you mean only five minutes? It definitely feels like longer than that. But it's because our reaction to them can amplify them that they tend to feel like they last even longer. And of course, if it does last a bit longer, more towards a 15-minute end, that can feel like a really long time. If you're doing, I don't know, if you're doing some exercise and you're doing uh squats and you've got to stay in a squat for 30 seconds, that feels like a really, really, really long time, but it's not. Um so it's really important to recognize that just because you're feeling a draw towards drinking right now, that doesn't mean that you are going to be feeling the same way in 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes time. So that's good news, right? It's good news to know that uh a craving for a booze can pass in as little as five minutes. Um, what I would say is that sort of staying in the same environment, staying in the same situation, hyper-focusing on it, not thinking about anything else, getting annoyed with yourself or the fact that you feel that way, and then just hoping that the craving will wander off on its own, isn't likely to be very effective. Sorry. But the good news is that now that you know it's just a few minutes until the urge to grab a drink passes you by, you can start to see how you can do something positive about it. So let's look at what you can do. The first thing you can do, and I know that this might sound a little bit counterintuitive, but it's to acknowledge it. It's to stop what you're doing, to take a moment and sit in the fact that you do want a drink because there's nothing wrong with that. Okay, it is perfectly normal. It might be annoying, but it is perfectly normal. And just trying to uh ignore it or to pretend that that feeling isn't there isn't actually going to make it go away. Uh, it's going to open a loop in your mind that isn't going to get a chance to be closed and it's going to keep on niggling at you. So acknowledge it, sitting it, accept it, think about how you're feeling, maybe what caused it, and know that there are things that you can that you can do about it, and that this is the first stage in you taking those steps to combat the urge that you don't want to have. So, stage two is to think about it in detail. Okay. What is it that you actually want? Going back to our pub example, and as I said, that's just one example. Maybe you're not walking past the pub, maybe you're sitting uh on the sofa at home watching your favourite Netflix and chill series, and that's what's uh triggered it. Maybe you're going out for dinner with your other half. It could be all manner of things. Okay, we all have different uh triggers or cues for those feelings. But but what is it that you're feeling really? Are you feeling lonely and in need of good company? Are you feeling stressed and in need of winding down? Uh are you feeling hungry and craving something to eat? Um, I will do an episode on this actually, it's really fascinating. But quite often uh our desire to drink is actually a desire to do something else. For example, eat, particularly as alcohol contains quite a lot of sugar, depending on what you uh generally drink. But quite often what we're actually craving is just something to eat and not necessarily alcohol to drink. Um, but when you remember that a craving isn't about the booze, then you'll have more space to think about what it is that you do really actually need. Step three is to ride it. So, where is it that this craving is trying to take you? Is it really that you just want one drink, in which case you might be okay with that, depending on what your goals are? Or will it likely lead to more? Will you find that once you have the one, then you will be more likely to have the second and the third? Only you know that. But there's a reason that you decided that this was a non-drinking moment, okay? So where is this craving trying to take you? And what are you putting in jeopardy, if that's not too strong a word, if you go back on the agreement that you already made with yourself? Step four then is to replace it, okay? Uh, and the truth is that five minutes obviously isn't very much time at all. Even if your craving lasts a little bit longer and you find yourself heading into the sort of 10 to 15 minute territory, it's still just a small fraction of your day. And I would bet that you could find something to do for five, ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes that would help you to refocus your energy on something else. Occupying your mind or your body with literally anything else is a far better option than just sitting and tapping your pen and as you hope that the craving will go away. Now, it's only a few minutes here, so we're not saying that you need to go and uh rewrite the great works of Shakespeare, but you do need to find something to do that will occupy more of your mind than less of it. Or for you, if you're more physical, it might be occupying more of your hands and your body uh than just sitting there. So a few small things that you could try. Um go for a walk. I know I've said this before, and it sounds really, really simple, and you're like, Denise, that's not really an ingenious tactic. It's not, but sometimes simple is best. And I'm promising you that getting out for some fresh air and a touch of natural vitamin D can genuinely work wonders for you. Uh, but if you need something a bit more uh rigorous, you could, if you're working in an office, for example, go and climb uh the next three floors of your building. It gives you a little bit of exercise, works the glutes, can't go wrong with that. And exercise is always your friend when it comes to cravings, whether you enjoy it or you're good at it or not, exercise, whether it's just a walk around the block or running up the stairs or something like that, actually does great wonders for you here. And a little side note that one of the fascinating things about exercise is that whilst you're doing the exercise, uh, one, your mind is distracted because you're focusing on doing the thing that you're doing, doing the movements, getting them right, not falling over and not hurting yourself. Um, so you're not going to be thinking about the alcohol. The other thing is that whilst you're doing the exercise, you might not feel that much better in that very moment. But the actual endorphin effect of doing exercise, the a dopamine boost that you get from working out, takes about 20 minutes to hit and to impact you and to start to lift your mood. So during the time that you're waiting for your craving to pass, you are giving your brain something positive to work towards, meaning that by the time you finish your workout, you have elevated your mood, um, increased your natural uh serotonin, endorphins, dopamine, and your craving has passed. So you will feel double good at the end of it, and that desire to drink is likely long, long gone. But some other things you can do, because I know not everybody is into exercise. I am trying to get back into it myself, and it's not easy. And there's no uh there's no law to put despite what Instagram tells you, that just because you are drinking less or drinking differently, that you're suddenly going to start running marathons. You really don't have to. Um, but some other things you can do. Go and phone a friend, go and speak to somebody who makes you smile, go and do something nice for yourself, have a treat. Why don't you have an ice cream? Go and eat an ice cream, you don't need a reason for it. It's ice cream. Um, you can, depending on where you are and the time of day, you can substitute it for an alcohol-free wine or a non-alk beer. Be careful here if you are the type of person who gets um who, when you have alcohol-free drinks, you feel more inclined to have alcohol full ones, then maybe that's not the best for you, and you can have an alcohol alternative or really nice soda or something like that. Um, you can plan something really nice for yourself. Go online and look up some recipes to make yourself a really lovely dinner for you on your other half or just for you, be selfish, why not? Um, if you're the type of person who likes journaling, this could be a really good time to journal what triggered the craving, uh, see how it feels in your body, what you're doing about it, uh and how that's working for you. If you're at home, go and take a shower. You know, that's got nothing to do with drink, it's got nothing to do with exercise. It's something that you need to do, it takes your mind off it, put on a podcast whilst you're doing it, put on some music, have a dance. There's a lot of different things that you could do to occupy your time for five to twenty minutes whilst your brain works through the fact that actually I don't need to have this. And now that I've reached the stage where I haven't had it and I still feel fine, I'll know that an urge to drink alcohol isn't something that I always have to feed immediately. And every time you do that, you teach yourself to go longer and longer and longer without giving in to the desire to drink. But there are a couple of things I definitely don't want you to do. Okay, if you are feeling that pull to have alcohol and you're feeling it's quite strong, I don't want you to occupy your time by scrolling on Instagram and comparing yourself to everyone else and their shiny sober days posts. Um, I don't want you to give in to temptation without fully thinking through why you made the choice not to drink in the first place. You know me, I'm not here to tell you that you can't or you shouldn't drink, but I do want to tell you that it has to be a conscious choice that you're making. So don't just give in to temptation because it's an easy thing to do. I want to make sure that you've fully thought through why you decided not to drink and why you might decide to go back on that decision that you made with yourself and if it's really worth it. And the third thing that I don't want you to do is I don't want you to beat yourself up uh for falling back into old patterns or old habits or old desires that you have built and relied on for decades. I don't want you to feel that you are failing or that you can't do this just because you feel a strong pull to have alcohol when you've told yourself you're not going to. It is a perfectly, perfectly natural, uh, like I said before, annoying but normal reaction to not using something that you have used maybe daily for a very, very long time. All right. Changing the way that you respond to a craving for alcohol and going from uh autopilot drinking or submission to taking full control is not going to be plain sailing. Have I just mixed my metaphors again? I think so. I tend to do that a lot. Um it's not going to be plain sailing. And I think it's really important that you acknowledge that and accept that. And therefore, you won't be surprised when you find it difficult. You'll just you'll just be able to say to yourself, okay, yeah, this is one of those tough times that Denise was talking about. Okay, I know what to expect. Uh, I'm gonna make a plan and I'm gonna try this technique today, and I'm gonna see how it works for me. Make a note of that. And if it works really well, I'll put it in my memory bank to come back to again. And if it didn't, I'll strike it off the list and I'll try something else next time. As a mindful drinker, sometimes you might decide that you do want to indulge in that glass of rose or whatever it is. Um, if you do decide that that drink is a good choice for you in that moment, then that's okay. Just make sure, as I said to you before, that it is definitely your choice and not a reaction to a feeling that you might be able to serve better by connecting with friends, spending some time in nature, giving yourself a moment to pause and unwind and reflect, or just getting your body moving and having a To your favorite 90s boy band throwback, whatever it is. Now, look, if you would like a little bit of help managing those uh inconvenient cravings, I did create a great tool for the mindful drinking vault via my Substack membership. It's called Surf the Erge. It goes through the stages that we've talked about today, but there's also a downloadable tracker that you can use so you can start trying different techniques to occupy your time and see which ones actually work for you. Because they won't all work, and some that even the ones that do work, some will work better than others. Um, so if you want to better understand what's driving your urges and track what alternative techniques work best for you over time, make sure you head over to the Mindful Drinking Substack. There are links in the show notes for you, of course. And if you haven't signed up to be a paid member yet, you can start with a seven day free trial and download the surf the urge tool and see how that works for you. Okay, thank you for being with me today. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week, and until then, cheers to a life less intoxicated.