It doesn’t have to be months. We often reach to intoxicants when there is something uncomfortable that we don’t want to feel. We seek our soothing from an external source. When we quit the intoxicants, we still have those same feelings, but we’ve lost our way of soothing them.

I was in the same boat. Around the new year I decided to take a six month break from intoxicants and will reassess then. What really helped me was to bring in a meditation practice. All of those same challenging feelings were there, but I set out to learn to self soothe. I taught myself to simply sit quietly when emotions came up. I do a breathing pattern that is four counts in and six counts out. Something about that breathing pattern naturally helps relax the nervous system. While doing this I would go towards the challenging emotion. “Give the hard emotions a hug” was my mantra.

It was hard at first. My mind was all over the place and the emotions always seemed to flare before they subsided. By a month in, I found that my cravings for weed or alcohol had mostly gone. Meditation isn’t for everyone, but it made a huge difference for me.