We often speak about the phenomenan of craving. It is not something that I consider very often. Physical craving goes away after only a short time of abstainence. The deeper work of recovery is in addressing the mental obsession, which is often and incorrectly described as craving, and the underlying causes and conditions which set the obsession into motion, what we 12 steppers call the spiritual malady.

I don’t think about the physical compulsion, the craviing, much because my craving for methamphetamin left me long, long ago. I rarely experience the mental obsession anymore, either. I do have the occasional though of using, but that thought is quickly dismissed.

I am super aware of the phenomenon of craving right now because I decided recently that I must stop smoking. When I was with my family at my grandmother’s funeral, my cigarette smoking was cut in half. It took no effort on my part. I was around non-smokers all the time and I simply didn’t smoke as much. When I came home though my smoking doubled. I am on my sixth cigarette just since I sat down to research and write this. The pack I bought four hours ago only has 7 left in it and yet I haven’t hit that little happy buzz that cigarettes give me.

This craving which seems to be universal to all types of addiction can best be described as a rare and significant, unusual, abnormal sensory experience. Like all phenomena, it is susceptible to description and to explanation. When I put chemicals of any kind in me, I want more. This always happens. And not just with drugs and alcohol. I want to stop smoking. I smoke twice as much. My cupboards get bare. I’m twice as hungry.

Curious then that recovery is also called a phenomenon by Dr. Carl Jung, one of the major well-springs of 12 step recovery. He attributes recovery from addiction to be the result of vital spiritual experiences. “They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.”

I know that the steps worked for me in respect to the other drugs of addiction when I was finally broken enough, when my ego collapsed under it’s own weight. I wonder what it will take to apply the same willingness to surrender my nicotine addiction. I know intellectually that the phenomenon of craving will pass shortly after I remove the drug. Can I manufacture the phenomenon of recovery?