I had an experience recently with an urge to drink the one glass of wine left in the bottle in my fridge. Wine is not on my protocol, but my mom had stayed the night before, brought the bottle for herself and left the open bottle behind. One of the topics of conversation that night was whether it was safe for her to travel that upcoming weekend during the pandemic. I had been working on feeling at peace with her decision to travel, but allowed myself to feel relief when she decided not to. When she called the next day to say she was contemplating going after all, I felt stressed and had the urge to drink the wine. I allowed the urge and was proud of how I handled it. Later, my brother called to discuss the same issue and explain why he was pushing her to travel and I again experienced the same urge. I allowed it and it passed. About 30 minutes later though, I decided 2 urges was enough and I simply didn’t want the wine in my fridge. I’m wrestling with whether that was intentionally avoiding my next urge or if it was wise to toss the wine since it isn’t on my protocol.

Here’s my model:

C: 1 glass of wine in fridge
T: There’s no reason to indefinitely allow the same urge.
F: Relief
A: Poured the wine down the sink.
R: I didn’t need to allow the urge because it didn’t return.