Where does it hurt, exactly?

A good doctor's first question isn't why. It's where. Ask the craving the same thing. Where is it, exactly? Point to it. For a lot of people it's a tightness high in the chest. Or something restless at the base of the throat. Or a fizz running through the hands. You can't hunt for something and obey it in the same moment.

Now describe it the way you'd describe a pain to that doctor. Fist sized or plate sized? Warm or cool? Sharp edges or blurry ones? Pulsing or steady? Give it a size, a temperature and a shape, and nothing else. No story about why it came. No forecast about how long you can stand it. Up close, it's only sensation.

Keep watching it for a minute. Maybe it swells, slides left, thins out, settles into a smaller patch. Something that changes shape that fast isn't a fact about your future. The cigarette got its orders obeyed by keeping them blurry. A blurry ache sounds like a command. A measured one is just a feeling, and the tape measure's in your hand.

It may still be there, faint, when you finish. Good. You didn't need it gone. You needed it demoted. Tell God what you're noticing. You see this too. Stay with me while it moves. Then go do the next thing with it still hanging around in the background. You measured it, and it shrank to fit.