Practical, evidence-informed recovery
SMART tools and worksheets.
Explore CBT- and REBT-based exercises you can read online, use in a meeting, or download for personal reflection.
Choose what fits the moment
Fourteen practical ways to work on change.
These exercises are educational resources, not a substitute for medical or mental-health care. You do not need to complete them perfectly. Use them to notice patterns, test new responses, and bring useful questions to a meeting.
01Manage thoughts, feelings, and behavioursThe ABCs
The ABC Exercise uses a practical CBT and REBT framework to slow down a difficult moment and understand how beliefs influence feelings and actions.
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The ABCs
The ABC Exercise uses a practical CBT and REBT framework to slow down a difficult moment and understand how beliefs influence feelings and actions.
How it works
Identify the Activating event, the Beliefs you brought to it, and the emotional or behavioural Consequences. Then Dispute beliefs that are inaccurate or unhelpful, and replace them with an Effective new belief.
Try it
Describe what happened without interpretation. Write down what you told yourself, what you felt, and what you did. Ask whether the belief is logical, supported by evidence, and helpful to your goals. Then write a balanced alternative.
Reflect
What thinking pattern intensified the situation? How did your feelings change when you challenged it? What could you practise telling yourself next time?
02Build and maintain motivationCost Benefit Analysis (CBA)
Every repeated behaviour provides some benefit, even when its long-term costs have become severe. A CBA makes the complete trade-off visible instead of relying on the feeling of the moment.
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Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)
Every repeated behaviour provides some benefit, even when its long-term costs have become severe. A CBA makes the complete trade-off visible instead of relying on the feeling of the moment.
How it works
List the short- and long-term advantages and disadvantages of continuing the behaviour. Then complete the same comparison for changing or stopping it.
Use it honestly
Include immediate rewards such as relief, escape, or belonging. Then include delayed effects on health, money, relationships, self-respect, and future opportunities. Weight each item by its importance to you.
Reflect
Which benefits could be met in a healthier way? Which costs have you minimized? What does the full comparison suggest about the direction you want to take?
03Build and maintain motivationCreate a Change Plan
A decision becomes more useful when it is translated into specific actions. The Change Plan turns an intention into a practical map you can revise as you learn.
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Create a Change Plan
A decision becomes more useful when it is translated into specific actions. The Change Plan turns an intention into a practical map you can revise as you learn.
Build the plan
State the change you want, why it matters, the steps you will take, who can help, possible obstacles, and the signs that will show you are making progress.
Make it workable
Use small observable actions rather than broad promises. Decide when and where each first step will happen, and prepare alternatives for predictable barriers.
Reflect
What can you do in the next 24 hours? Who could support the plan? What would make the next step easier rather than relying on willpower alone?
04Cope with urgesUrge Log
Urges can feel random until they are recorded. An Urge Log helps reveal patterns in timing, situations, thoughts, emotions, intensity, and the strategies that helped.
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Urge Log
Urges can feel random until they are recorded. An Urge Log helps reveal patterns in timing, situations, thoughts, emotions, intensity, and the strategies that helped.
What to record
Note the date and time, trigger, intensity, thoughts and feelings, what you did, and how the urge changed. Record urges whether or not you acted on them.
Look for patterns
Review the log after several entries. Notice recurring people, places, emotions, physical states or beliefs. Use those patterns to plan responses before the next urge arrives.
Reflect
Which urges passed without action? What shortened or intensified them? What could you change in your environment or response next time?
05Build and maintain motivationSet an Effective Goal
Goals help direct attention and effort toward a life that reflects your values. Effective goals are clear enough to guide action and flexible enough to survive real life.
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Set an Effective Goal
Goals help direct attention and effort toward a life that reflects your values. Effective goals are clear enough to guide action and flexible enough to survive real life.
Make it effective
Choose a goal that is specific, meaningful, realistic, measurable, and connected to a time frame. Focus on actions that are within your control.
Break it down
Turn the larger goal into small steps. Identify the first action, likely obstacles, useful supports, and how you will notice progress.
Reflect
Why does this goal matter to you? What is the smallest useful step? How will you respond if the plan needs adjustment rather than treating adjustment as failure?
06Live a balanced lifeLifestyle Balance Wheel
Change is not only about removing a problematic behaviour. The Lifestyle Balance Wheel helps you see which parts of life are nourishing, neglected or taking more than they give.
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Lifestyle Balance Wheel
Change is not only about removing a problematic behaviour. The Lifestyle Balance Wheel helps you see which parts of life are nourishing, neglected or taking more than they give.
Map your life
Rate important areas such as health, relationships, work, learning, recreation, rest, community, and meaning. The shape of the wheel offers a quick picture of balance and satisfaction.
Choose one adjustment
Do not try to repair every area at once. Select one area where a modest, realistic action could improve stability or enjoyment.
Reflect
Which area needs attention most? Which area could support the others? What activity would make your life feel more satisfying this week?
07Cope with urgesPut DENTS in Your Urges
DENTS is a memory aid for responding to urges: Deny or Delay, Escape, Neutralize, Tasks, and Swap. It provides several practical options when one strategy is not enough.
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Put DENTS in Your Urges
DENTS is a memory aid for responding to urges: Deny or Delay, Escape, Neutralize, Tasks, and Swap. It provides several practical options when one strategy is not enough.
Use the options
Delay acting until the urge changes, leave a high-risk situation, challenge urge-supporting thoughts, occupy yourself with a task or swap the old behaviour for a safer response.
Prepare in advance
Write several personal examples under each letter. Keep the list accessible so you do not have to invent a coping strategy while an urge is intense.
Reflect
Which strategies fit different situations? What can you leave, postpone, challenge, do or substitute? Who can help you create distance from an urge?
08Manage thoughts, feelings, and behavioursDisputing Unhelpful Beliefs
Beliefs are not automatically facts. This CBT-based tool helps identify rigid, exaggerated, or self-defeating thinking and replace it with something accurate and useful.
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Disputing Unhelpful Beliefs
Beliefs are not automatically facts. This CBT-based tool helps identify rigid, exaggerated, or self-defeating thinking and replace it with something accurate and useful.
Question the belief
Ask whether it is true, logical, and supported by evidence. Look for demands, catastrophizing, low frustration tolerance, and global judgments about yourself or others.
Create a balanced response
A helpful alternative is believable rather than artificially positive. It acknowledges difficulty while leaving room for choice, tolerance, and effective action.
Reflect
What evidence supports and contradicts the belief? Is it helping you? What would you say to someone you care about in the same situation?
09Cope with urgesPersonify and Disarm
An urge is an experience, not your identity or a command. Personifying it can create enough psychological distance to notice its message without automatically obeying it.
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Personify and Disarm
An urge is an experience, not your identity or a command. Personifying it can create enough psychological distance to notice its message without automatically obeying it.
Give it a character
Name the urge voice, and describe its usual promises, threats, and sales tactics. Recognizing the pattern can make it less convincing and easier to answer.
DISARM it
Destructive imagery and self-talk awareness and refusal method (DISARM) involves noticing the voice, refusing to debate on its terms, and answering from your goals and values.
Reflect
What does the urge voice usually say? What does it leave out? How would the part of you committed to change respond?
10Build and maintain motivationDefine Your Values
Values describe how you want to live and what you want your choices to stand for. Making them explicit can clarify motivation when short-term relief competes with long-term direction.
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Define Your Values
Values describe how you want to live and what you want your choices to stand for. Making them explicit can clarify motivation when short-term relief competes with long-term direction.
Identify what matters
Consider relationships, health, integrity, learning, service, independence, creativity, stability, and other qualities that matter to you. Choose your own values rather than the ones you think you should select.
Turn values into action
A value is an ongoing direction, not a box to complete. Identify small behaviours that express each priority, and choices that move you away from it.
Reflect
Which values have been crowded out? What would living one value look like today? Which choice would your future self be glad you made?
11Live a balanced lifeExplore New Pursuits and Passions
Problematic behaviours can consume time, attention, and pleasure. Reconnecting with old interests and experimenting with new ones helps make room for enjoyment, mastery, connection, and meaning.
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Explore New Pursuits and Passions
Problematic behaviours can consume time, attention, and pleasure. Reconnecting with old interests and experimenting with new ones helps make room for enjoyment, mastery, connection, and meaning.
Generate possibilities
Think about what you enjoyed before the behaviour took over, what you have always been curious about, and activities that could provide movement, creativity, learning, service, or connection.
Treat it as an experiment
You do not have to discover a perfect passion. Try small, low-cost versions, and judge them after repeated experience rather than expecting instant excitement.
Reflect
What used to absorb you? What would you try if you did not need to be good at it? Which activity could add pleasure or purpose this week?
12Manage thoughts, feelings, and behavioursPractice Self-Compassion
Recovery can bring shame, guilt, and frustration. Self-compassion means responding to suffering with honesty and care so that mistakes become information rather than reasons to give up.
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Practice Self-Compassion
Recovery can bring shame, guilt, and frustration. Self-compassion means responding to suffering with honesty and care so that mistakes become information rather than reasons to give up.
Three useful elements
Notice the difficulty without exaggerating or avoiding it, remember that struggle is part of being human, and speak to yourself with the same constructive care you would offer another person.
Compassion is not permission
You can take responsibility without humiliation. A compassionate response asks what happened, what can be learned, and what effective action comes next.
Reflect
What is your harsh inner voice trying to accomplish? Is it effective? What response would be both kind and accountable?
13Problem solvingFive Questions
The Five Questions create a direct comparison between what you want, what you are doing now, and what alternative action could move you closer to the future you prefer.
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Five Questions
The Five Questions create a direct comparison between what you want, what you are doing now, and what alternative action could move you closer to the future you prefer.
Ask the questions
What do I want? What am I doing now? How do I feel when I do it? What could I do instead? How might I feel if I tried the alternative?
Use specific answers
Choose a real situation and describe observable actions. The aim is not to criticize yourself but to identify the gap between the current pattern and the outcome you want.
Reflect
Which current action is not working? What alternative is within your control? What is one way to test it?
14Live a balanced lifeSetting Healthy Boundaries
Healthy boundaries protect time, energy, and well-being. They are not walls or attempts to control another person; they clarify what you need and what you will do to care for yourself.
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Setting Healthy Boundaries
Healthy boundaries protect time, energy, and well-being. They are not walls or attempts to control another person; they clarify what you need and what you will do to care for yourself.
A practical formula
Try: ‘I feel… when… Can I ask you to…?’ Describe the specific behaviour and make a reasonable request without blame or mind-reading.
Start small
Practise lower-stakes boundaries before difficult ones. Guilt or pushback does not automatically mean the boundary is wrong. Be clear, respectful, and prepared to follow through on what is within your control.
Reflect
Where do you feel resentment, pressure or depletion? What do you need? How could you communicate one small boundary clearly this week?
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