Recovery worksheets, made beautiful.
The 12-step worksheets clinicians actually use — Step 1, Step 4 fearless inventory, Step 8/9 amends, Step 10 daily inventory — plus the clinical workhorses: HALT, trigger maps, craving logs, sobriety trackers, urge surfing, and the recovery vision and values work. Free, print-ready, and built for clinicians supporting clients in any recovery path.
Urge Surfing Worksheet
Ride the wave of a craving or urge without acting on it
A mindfulness-based urge regulation worksheet. Notice the wave, locate it in the body, rate it every five minutes, and watch it crest and fall — usually within twenty.
Chain Analysis Worksheet
DBT behavioral chain analysis for one problem behavior
Linehan's behavioral chain analysis on one page: vulnerability factors, prompting event, link-by-link chain, short and long-term consequences, where the chain could have broken, and repair.
Decisional Balance Worksheet
Pros and cons of changing — and of staying the same
A 2×2 decisional balance: pros and cons of changing AND of staying the same. Surfaces the hidden cost of the status quo, then asks which value each option honors before naming a smallest next step.
Relapse Prevention Worksheet
Catch the slide weeks before the behavior returns
Maps emotional, mental, and behavioral warning signs, high-risk people and times, HALT patterns, a 3-action interrupt plan, support contacts in order, and a lapse-not-relapse plan.
Craving Log
A weekly tracker for urges — when they hit, what helped, what passed
A printable weekly craving and urge log. Captures time, trigger, intensity 0–10, what the client did, and how long it lasted, plus a HALT check, a deep-dive on the strongest urge of the week, and space for patterns and what helped most. Use alongside the Urge Surfing tool and the Relapse Prevention Plan.
Step 1 Worksheet — Powerlessness & Unmanageability
The honest first inventory: where willpower stopped working and where life started to bend
A printable Step 1 worksheet for AA, NA, and other 12-step programs. Two evidence sections (powerlessness over the substance or behavior; unmanageability of the rest of life), an honesty self-rating, and a willingness commitment to share with one safe person.
Step 4 Worksheet — Fearless Moral Inventory
The classic AA 4-column inventory: resentments, fears, and harms
The traditional AA Step 4 format — resentments columned by person, cause, area of life affected, and your own part — plus a fears inventory and a harms list to carry into Step 8. Print as many copies as you need.
Step 8 & 9 Amends Worksheet
Make the list, sort the type, and plan the conversation without re-injuring anyone
Builds the Step 8 list of people harmed, then sorts each amend by type — direct, living, delayed, or not safe to make — with planning columns and a sponsor-review check. Distinguishes the apology from the lasting living amend.
Step 10 Daily Inventory Worksheet
The two-minute end-of-day check-in that keeps small things small
A printable weekly Step 10 grid. Each day: where I was selfish/dishonest/resentful/afraid, what I owe, what I did well, and a mood/craving/sleep/meeting line. The maintenance step that prevents the slow drift into relapse thinking.
Sponsor Check-In Worksheet
A printable page to bring to a sponsor or sponsee call
Structures a sponsor call so the important things actually come up instead of dissolving into chat: days clean, craving and honesty ratings, current step work, a moment of pride, a moment that wasn't, stuck thinking, and concrete action items for next call.
HALT Check Worksheet — Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired
Run the 10-minute HALT intervention before deciding an urge is really about the substance
The early-recovery shortcut: when an urge spikes, check Hungry / Angry / Lonely / Tired first. Rate each, address the loudest with a concrete 10-minute action, then re-rate the urge. Usually one of the four was doing most of the work.
Sobriety Cost-Benefit Worksheet
The decisional balance for staying sober — honest about all four boxes
Motivational-interviewing 2x2 adapted for recovery: pros and cons of using AND pros and cons of staying sober. Honest about what the substance does for you and what sobriety costs — naming both is what keeps ambivalence from running the show.
Trigger Map Worksheet — People, Places, Things, Emotions, Times
Map every lane of triggers and the concrete plan for each one
Walks the client through five lanes of triggers (people, places, things, emotions, times) with a heat rating and a concrete plan column per lane — avoid, prepare, or who to call. Closes with the single hottest trigger of the season.
90-Day Sobriety Tracker — Printable
One row per day for 90 days — sober, urge, mood, support, and what helped
A printable 30-day grid (print three pages for a full 90-day cycle) covering the early-recovery window where the nervous system recalibrates. One row per day: sober checkbox, urge 0–10, mood 0–10, meeting/support, and what helped. Ends with an end-of-month reflection.
Recovery Vision & Values Worksheet
Build the positive target — who you are becoming and the daily proof
Recovery isn't only 'not using' — it's a life worth being sober for. Sketches the future-self in plain language across relationships, work, and health, names three driving values, defines one observable daily proof per value, and lays out the rhythm of the first 30 days.
Adult Children of Alcoholics — Laundry List
Rate the 14 ACA traits and the family role you carried
The original Tony A. 'Laundry List' of 14 traits adult children of alcoholic or dysfunctional families tend to carry — rated 0–10 with space for one concrete example each — plus a section on family roles (hero, scapegoat, lost child, mascot, caretaker) and where they still run today.
Al-Anon Detachment & the Three C's
I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it
A worksheet for the family and friends of someone who is drinking or using. Walks through the Three C's, names enabling behaviors, distinguishes detachment-with-love from cutoff, and helps the client put energy back into their own life.
CRAFT — Community Reinforcement & Family Training
The evidence-based alternative to detachment until they hit bottom
Meyers & Smith's CRAFT model on one page: reinforce sober/connected behavior, remove accidental rewards for using, build a personal safety plan, rebuild your own life, and prepare the right-moment treatment invitation.
Enabling vs. Helping Inventory
An honest 90-day audit of what protects them from consequences
A 12-item behavior checklist (money, lies, rides, bail, clean-up, called-in-sick-for-them) plus the story behind each one, a side-by-side helping-vs-enabling distinction, and one enabling behavior to stop this week with the natural consequence allowed to land.
Codependency Recovery — Beattie's Six Patterns
Caretaking, control, low self-worth, weak boundaries, denial, dependency
Built on Melody Beattie's framework. Self-rate the six codependent patterns 0–10, name what each looks like now, list what you gave up to manage the relationship, and identify one recovery-of-self experiment that's not measurable by whether they noticed.
Boundaries with an Addicted Loved One
What I will do — and whether I'll actually keep it
A 6-row boundary worksheet specifically for the addiction context: situation, what you'll no longer do or accept, your consequence, and an honest willingness check. Includes warm scripts, a prediction of how they'll respond, and how you'll hold the line anyway.
Ambiguous Loss — Grief for the Living
Pauline Boss's framework for losing someone who is still here
Names the specific grief of a loved one lost to addiction (or dementia, severe mental illness) — physically present, psychologically gone. Holds the both/and of who they were and who they are now, the losses no funeral marks, and a ritual that honors the grief without abandoning hope.
SMART Recovery ABC Worksheet
REBT-based tool to catch the belief that turns an urge into a using episode
A cognitive ABC-DEF worksheet from SMART Recovery — activating event, belief, consequence, dispute, effective new belief, new feeling. Targets the demand-and-awfulizing under most cravings.
SMART DISARM — Destructive Images Refusal
Name the seductive image your addict brain sells you and play the whole tape
SMART Recovery's DISARM technique on one page: name the tempting image, personify the voice selling it, play the tape all the way through the morning-after, and rehearse the refusal line.
Refuge Recovery — Buddhist Inventory
A Buddhist-informed recovery inventory for clients who don't want a Higher-Power framework
Maps the Four Noble Truths onto addiction — the suffering caused, the craving underneath, moments of relief without using, and one path practice for the week. A secular / Buddhist option for step-averse clients.
MAT Reflection — Medication-Assisted Treatment
Name the shame that hangs around MAT and hold onto the facts
A reflection page for clients on buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone, acamprosate, or disulfiram — what the medication does for them, what they've been told about it, and the facts they want to remember when a meeting or family member weaponizes it.
PAWS Tracker — Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome
The 6–18 month window where mood, sleep, and cognition swing — tracked weekly
A weekly log of mood, sleep, cravings, and cognitive fog through the PAWS window. Names PAWS so bad weeks stop being interpreted as personal failure and stops clients from making major life decisions during a wave.
Sober First Year — Milestone Hazards
Predictable walls: 30/60/90 day, six-month pink-cloud crash, nine-month restlessness
Maps the predictable first-year hazards — the 30/60/90 walls, the six-month pink-cloud drop, the nine-month restlessness, the one-year 'I've got this' trap — with a plan and a person-to-call for each.
Recovery Capital Inventory
Personal, social, and community capital — the resources a bad week has to absorb
The White & Cloud recovery-capital framework on one page: personal capital (health, purpose, skills), social capital (sober support, family, therapist), and community capital (meetings, faith, treatment access). Identifies the weakest area and one action to build it.
High-Risk Situations Map (Marlatt)
Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social-pressure risks — mapped and planned
Marlatt's classic taxonomy — 75% of relapses come from negative emotions, interpersonal conflict, or social pressure. Maps YOUR specific triggers in each category with warning signs, coping move, and backup.
Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions Log
The 'innocent' choices that stack into being alone with the bottle
Marlatt's SID concept as a working log: track the small decisions that walk you closer to using, the story you told yourself at the time, and what the decision actually set up.
Abstinence Violation Effect Worksheet
The 'I already blew it, might as well' cascade — interrupted in the first hour
Names the AVE thoughts after a lapse ('I'm hopeless', 'might as well finish the weekend'), pre-loads reframes, and writes the first-hour interrupt plan so a lapse doesn't become a full relapse.
Play the Tape Through
Write the full movie now — first sip through morning-after — for the next urge
A rehearsal script for the next high-craving moment. The urge shows you the trailer; you write the whole film, including the scenes it always leaves out (the blackout, the lie, the morning-after).
Sober Refusal Scripts
Three rehearsed refusal lines, plus the broken-record for the pushy person
Drafts short, medium, and honest refusal lines plus a broken-record script and exit plan for people who won't take no. 'No thanks' is a complete sentence — but only if you've rehearsed saying it.
Sober Dating Plan
New relationships in early recovery — done deliberately if you're going to
A one-page plan for clients considering dating in the first year: non-negotiables in a partner, sober date ideas, disclosure timing, and red flags. Written to hold the space where the culture and the program disagree.
Boundaries with Using Friends
Sort friendships by risk and draft the actual language for each
Categorizes current friendships (high / medium / low risk), decides desired contact (none / limited / normal), and drafts scripts for each — including the ones you're distancing from.
Meeting Reflection Log
One line a day so meetings don't blur — and themes surface
A weekly meeting log with one takeaway, how it landed, and one action per meeting. Especially useful for court-mandated clients — turns compliance into actual engagement.
Gratitude in Recovery
'A grateful alcoholic doesn't drink' — daily attention training, not performance
A daily 3-item gratitude log framed for recovery: a thing, a person, a moment. Plus a checklist of what sobriety returned. Names gratitude as practice, not mood.
Higher Power Exploration
For step-workers who stall on the word 'God'
A guided exploration for clients doing step work who resist religious language — inventory of what they heard growing up, what to keep, what to discard, and a working Higher-Power definition (which can change).
Cross-Addiction Check
Squeezing one addiction and watching the water balloon
Rates food, sex, gambling, shopping, screens, work, exercise, and caffeine 0-5. Names what has ramped up since primary sobriety and picks one area to watch this year.
Process Addictions Map
Bottom-line, middle-line, top-line for behavioral addictions
For gambling, porn, shopping, gaming, food. Same treatment logic as substances: define bottom-line abstinence, name middle-line risky behaviors, and describe the top-line life you want instead.
Sober Anniversary Reflection
Not a victory lap — a written inventory of what changed, what didn't, what's next
For 30 days, 90 days, one year, five. What life looked like at Day 1, what it looks like now (honest), what you'd tell early-you, and what recovery is asking of you in the next chapter.
What recovery worksheets do
Recovery work happens on paper as much as in rooms. The 12-step program asks for a written inventory (Step 4), a written list of amends (Step 8), and a daily inventory (Step 10) for a reason — externalizing what's been carried in the head is where the charge starts to drop. Clinical recovery work runs in parallel: HALT checks for the in-the-moment cravings, trigger maps for the upstream planning, decisional-balance grids for the ambivalence that runs underneath, and tracking pages that make the 90-day window of nervous-system recalibration visible.
Every worksheet here is a single printable side, designed to be filled by hand and reviewed with a sponsor, therapist, or peer in recovery. The 12-step formats follow the Big Book and standard sponsorship; the clinical sheets pull from motivational interviewing, ACT values work, and DBT crisis skills.
Where to start
For a newcomer in early recovery, the HALT check and Trigger Map are the highest-leverage first pages — both make the next craving less mysterious. For step work, start with Step 1 (powerlessness and unmanageability) and move sequentially. For ambivalent clients still in the contemplation stage, the Sobriety Cost-Benefit Worksheet is usually the right first move; it works with the resistance rather than against it and surfaces the hidden payoffs that any successful recovery plan will need to address.
For clinicians supporting clients in 12-step recovery, the Sponsor Check-In Worksheet is useful as an artifact for sessions — bringing the weekly sponsor-call page into therapy gives a window into the parallel recovery work without requiring formal coordination.
A note on scope
These worksheets are tools, not treatment. Severe substance use disorders require comprehensive care — medical detox where indicated, medication-assisted treatment, mental health treatment for co-occurring conditions, and a fuller relapse-prevention plan than any single page can hold. The worksheets here support that work; they don't replace it.
We also include both 12-step worksheets (for clients in AA, NA, and other fellowships) and program-agnostic clinical sheets (for clients in SMART Recovery, LifeRing, secular recovery, harm reduction, or standard clinical treatment). Different recovery paths fit different clients; the library is meant to support all of them.
Frequently asked questions
What are recovery worksheets used for?+
Recovery worksheets give clients in addiction recovery — and the clinicians supporting them — structured pages for the specific work of getting and staying sober: 12-step inventory and amends, daily check-ins, trigger and craving tracking, ambivalence and cost-benefit work, and the vision and values that turn 'not using' into a life worth being sober for. They sit alongside meetings, sponsorship, and therapy as the written artifact of the work.
Are 12-step worksheets clinical?+
The 12 steps themselves are a peer-support program, not a clinical treatment. But many clinicians integrate 12-step worksheets — particularly Steps 1, 4, 8, 9, and 10 — into therapy with clients who are working a program, because the format is one the client is already engaging with and the material it surfaces (resentments, fears, harms, daily inventory) is directly clinically relevant. Outcome research on AA and other 12-step programs is mixed but generally favorable when used as an adjunct to other treatment.
Which recovery worksheet should I start with?+
For a newcomer, the HALT check and trigger map are the highest-leverage first pages — they make in-the-moment cravings less mysterious. For step work, Step 1 is the starting point. For ambivalent clients, the sobriety cost-benefit worksheet (the motivational interviewing decisional balance adapted for recovery) is often the most useful first move because it works with the resistance rather than against it.
Can I use these worksheets if my client isn't in AA?+
Yes. The 12-step worksheets are specifically formatted for AA / NA / SLAA / GA programs, but the rest of the library — HALT, trigger maps, cravings work, sobriety tracking, vision and values — is program-agnostic and works in SMART Recovery, LifeRing, secular recovery, harm reduction, and standard clinical addiction treatment.
Are these recovery worksheets free?+
Yes. Every worksheet is free to print and free to send to clients via secure link from a TherapistAssist account. No watermarks, no per-sheet limits.