Say its name and watch it shrink

Right now the urge feels like weather filling the whole room. Here's the strange, proven thing: naming a feeling shrinks it. Not fighting it, not analyzing it — just putting one plain label on it, out loud if you can: 'This is a craving. It peaks and passes.'

Unnamed, a craving gets to impersonate you — it speaks in your voice, says *I* want a cigarette. Named, it's suddenly standing over there: a thing you're watching, not a thing you are. The distance between 'I want' and 'a craving is visiting' is the whole fight.

You can go one step further, the honest step: name it to God. 'This is a craving. I don't want the life it's selling. Hold the door with me.' Naming a thing to someone else — even quietly — breaks its favorite weapon, which is pretending it's a secret between you and it.

Give it thirty seconds under its real name. Watch it lose its costume. It was never a command, never a need, never you. It was a craving. They pass. You stay.