Originally Posted by
MindfulMan 
My CBT guru suggested to passively observe your cravings. It worked for me. Fighting them just made them stronger.
I agree that fighting craving is never going to work in the long-time but, as you say, this does not mean that we have to passively accept that we are going to have to experience desire and cravings forever because we can change our thought process about it .
We can change the way we think about a substance and whether our reckless use of it is something we want for the rest of our lives. If we decide that we really and truly don't want all the chaos any more and would prefer to be without it then we simply won't want the substance in the same way. This means that we also won't desire or crave it because this comes from what we want, not from an external or 'alien' force.
I gave up pretty much chain smoking several years ago and I have no desire or craving for it now because it's just not something that I want to do.