Cravings & Triggers: A Sign of Healing (and How to Get Through Them)

If you’re noticing opioid cravings or triggers, there’s something important to say first: this means you’re in recovery, and that’s worth celebrating! People who are actively using don’t usually pause to reflect on cravings. The fact that this feels like a problem to solve means you’ve already changed direction.

You’re choosing to get your life back. And while cravings can be uncomfortable, they are a small price to pay for freedom, clarity, and health. Most importantly, cravings do not mean you’re starting over. They are reminders of where you’ve been, not where you’re going.

Why cravings and triggers happen

Cravings don’t come out of nowhere, and they’re not a sign of weakness or poor willpower. They’re a predictable brain and body response that develops when a substance has repeatedly been linked to relief, pleasure, or survival.

Over time, the brain learns patterns. Certain people, places, emotions, smells, songs, stressors, or memories become linked with substance use. When those cues show up again, the brain reacts automatically, often before you’ve had time to even consciously think.

What happens in the brain during a trigger?

At the core of addiction is the brain’s reward and survival system. Substances that can cause addiction flood the brain with dopamine, a chemical involved in motivation and learning. Dopamine doesn’t just make things feel good. It teaches the brain, “This is important. Remember how to get this again.”

With repeated use, the brain starts to over-value the substance and under-respond to naturally rewarding moments or behaviors. This re-wiring is what causes cues associated with past use to have such a profound reaction in how you feel.

At the same time, stress and emotional centers of the brain become more sensitive, while the part responsible for planning, impulse control, and decision-making feels less accessible under that pressure. That’s why cravings can feel sudden, intense, and urgent—even when someone knows for sure that they don’t want to use. Triggers light up memory and survival circuits, not logic or values.

Why cravings can feel physical

Cravings aren’t “just thoughts.” They often come with real physical sensations like a tight chest, restlessness, increased heart rate and strong urge to act immediately. This happens because the brain is preparing the body for something it has learned before.

It connects using with relief from this anxiousness, but it doesn’t remind you of the misery that follows when that short term urge is satisfied. THAT is why we cannot follow the temptation and must rely on our recovery skills to ride this out. The good news is that cravings rise and fall. Even intense urges usually peak and pass within minutes.

Support and therapy truly help

Understanding triggers is important, but you never have to manage this alone. Working with a therapist can make a very meaningful difference. Therapy helps identify your unique personal triggers, understand why they exist, and build tools that work in SUPPORT of your nervous system, not against it.

If you’re not currently in therapy, this is a strong reason to consider it. Support doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re investing in evidence-based treatment to stay well. Many people find that with the right guidance, cravings significantly lose their power and recovery feels more sustainable.

Tools therapists recommend to get through triggers

Because cravings are brain-based, effective tools focus on regulation and safety.

1. Delay and ride out the wave: Tell yourself, “I don’t have to decide anything right now. I can think this through better when my nerves have settled.” Set a short window and let the urge crest and fall. Congratulate yourself every time you choose your health and sobriety.
2. Change the body state: Movement, slow breathing, grounding, or even cold water on the face can calm the stress response and bring the thinking brain back online. Learn grounding and mindfulness strategies through your therapist, sponsor, physician or favorite health app.
3. Name what’s happening: “This is a craving. It will pass.” Naming it creates space between you and the urge.
4. Interrupt the pattern: Change locations, call someone, shift sensory input. New input helps weaken old pathways.
5. Plan ahead for known triggers: Preparation builds confidence. This is where the avoidance of certain “people, places and things” can help decrease the frequency of triggers, and increase your odds of resisting the urge. Allow yourself to set personal boundaries that limit your exposures to triggers.

The hopeful truth

Cravings are learned brain responses—and learned responses can change. Every time you move through a craving without using, you strengthen new pathways and weaken the old ones. That’s not starting over. That’s progress.

Congratulations on how far you have come to get here. You’ve got this!