Dallas Bragg, six years sober, answers the two questions he hears most about meth cravings: when they stop and how to handle them. Cravings come from your subconscious and you can't prevent them, but you choose how you finish them. Complete it with memories of pain instead of fantasies about using, and you retrain your brain to associate the drug with suffering, not pleasure.
I've been asked about crystal meth cravings a lot, so listen up. Questions I get are, when will the cravings stop? And how do I deal with them? As far as what to do with them, well, listen, when the subconscious pops a craving into your mind, you cannot help that. It will be spontaneous, it will be out of nowhere, and then you have a choice. Because you cannot help what the subconscious brings to you. If you finish that craving out with a thought of using, or a fantasy of a sexual encounter you had, or what would it be like if I used right now, that is completing that craving out into a relapse. When you finish that thought out with something negative, like remembering when you were homeless, remembering what a comedown was like, remembering a horrible experience you had, and I know you've had them, that finishes that craving out into a negative experience. So the subconscious begins to equate using more with the pain than the pleasure. You're retraining your subconscious to think, oh, using is bad. As far as when they'll stop, I'm sober 6 years and they haven't stopped. I've just gotten better at dealing with them.
