Im a cutter and havent cut in over a year and recently the urge came up full force.

What helped me was the fact that I knew I had gone a whole year without cutting so obviously I have some great coping skills to help me otherwise I would not have been able to make it through that one year.

So I sat down with paper and pen listed how I had managed to go a whole year without cutting.

The corage to heal workbook and text book chapters on dealing with crisis,celebrating accomplishments, and so on.

Taping emergency phone numbers to the phone for a friend and my therapist and my family physician

Music
Writing
Biking
Walking
Calling a frriend
Emailing friends
Do nancy J napier relaxation techniques and others that I have learned
taking a bath
read a book
watch a movie
play games on computer
Play game boy advance games
pull out my mad box (box full of magazines carboard and so on for making collages and tearing things up
squish play dough and other types of clays
paint
splatter arts
dot arts
diaramas
visit my on line support groups and read positive threads and posts and pm a few people who I know are going through the same situations that are making me want to cut
clean the kitchen floor by hand not a quick sweep and mop but down on hands and knees with a cloth and cleaning supplies
shampoo the carpet

the list goes on...

Then I just did those things again because those things have worked for a whole year so they are automatic permanent winners for me. I say they are permanent winners because If they didn't work for me I wouldn't have gone that whole year right.

and sinse they have worked for a whole year they worked for me now and I am still cutting free.

Anyway the bottom line is look at those things that got you through a year and those thing will get you throu it now.