Getting started~15 minSMART Recovery–style
Cost–benefit analysis
Look honestly at both sides — what the old pattern gives you and what it costs — so the choice is clearer.
Weighing what the old behavior gives you and costs you — and what changing would give and cost — is one of SMART Recovery's core tools. Naming the benefits you'd lose matters as much as the costs: they're the needs you'll have to meet another way.
- Be honest about the benefits of the old behavior. If it gave you nothing, you wouldn't have kept doing it.
- For each cost and benefit, ask: is it short-term or long-term?
- Come back and add to it. New costs and benefits show up over time.
1. The behavior I'm weighing
Drinking, using, betting, restricting, bingeing, scrolling…
2. What I get from it — the benefits of keeping it
Relief, fun, escape, numbness, control, sleep, belonging…
3. What it costs me — the costs of keeping it
Health, money, relationships, trust, time, self-respect, legal trouble…
4. What I'd gain by changing
5. What changing will cost me, or what will be hard
Losing a way to cope, losing certain friends, boredom, facing feelings…
6. Looking at my lists: which benefits are short-term, and which costs are long-term?
7. The needs the old behavior was meeting — and other ways I could meet them
8. What I conclude after looking at all four lists