Externalizing the Urge

Allan Marlatt:

The most effective cognitive coping strategy with craving and urges is to develop a sense of detachment with regard to these experiences. Most clients tend to "identify" with the urge; they equate the urge with a volitional desire to indulge in the addictive behavior. Identification with the urge makes it more difficult to resist the temptation to indulge, whereas to "remove oneself" from the experience is to gain some control over it. The client is likely to think, "I'm dying for a cigarette," instead of "I am experiencing an urge to smoke—this is a useful signal to me that I need to cope with the situation." The best way to facilitate "disidentification" with the urge is to externalize it—to perceive it as a response to some external cue or situation instead of stemming from an internal physical source. By externalizing the urge, the client is more likely to assume an objective position of detached awareness instead of a subjective identification with the experience.

From GYE Members

• ...Seeing the fantasy thoughts as the nisayon they are, clarified it as something outside of me and not a reflection of me, as I used to think. Once I identified it for what it was, I could now actually work on overcoming it. #aa thoughts