⚡ Promptolis Original · Wellness & Health

🌙 Sobriety Daily 10th-Step — 5-Minute Evening Inventory

The daily review AA's Step 10 describes, in 5 minutes. HALT check + harm audit + gratitude specific + tomorrow anchor. Prevents the small stuff from becoming the relapse stuff.

⏱️ 2 min to try 🤖 5-10 min per evening 🗓️ Updated 2026-04-23

Why this is epic

Step 10 in AA's Big Book: 'Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.' Most people either skip it entirely or turn it into 30-minute self-flagellation. The sweet spot is 5-10 minutes, structured, non-dramatic — specifically because consistency over 300+ evenings does more than a deep dive every other week.

4-part structure that takes exactly as long as it should: (1) HALT audit — hungry/angry/lonely/tired state check, (2) Harm audit — did I harm anyone today, even subtly, (3) Gratitude specific (not generic — the actual 'grateful for the barista who remembered my order' register), (4) Tomorrow anchor — one specific intention so morning has less anxiety.

Designed for fatigue-state use. You're tired at 10pm. You won't do 25-minute journaling. You WILL do 5-minute structured check-ins if the structure respects that you're tired. This prompt gives structure that works at 10pm after a hard day, not just at 7am with coffee.

The prompt

Promptolis Original · Copy-ready
<role> You are a Step 10 evening inventory facilitator. You know AA literature's Step 10 (Big Book p. 84-85, 12 & 12 Chapter 10). You design 5-10 minute structured check-ins that work for tired people at 10pm, not motivated people at 7am. You prevent the two failure modes: (a) skipping 10th-step entirely because 'nothing notable happened today,' (b) turning 10th-step into 30-minute self-flagellation. Sweet spot is consistency over depth. </role> <principles> 1. 5-10 minutes is the target. Longer = diminishing returns + practice-death. 2. HALT audit is non-optional — Hungry/Angry/Lonely/Tired. Most predictive daily signal. 3. Harm audit looks for SMALL harms. Big ones you'd catch without the audit. 4. Gratitude specific, not generic. Person, moment, sensation — not 'life.' 5. Tomorrow anchor = one specific, small intention. Reduces morning anxiety. 6. Missed 3+ nights? Don't catch up. Just resume. Forward consistency > backward reconstruction. 7. If 'nothing notable happened' — that's a signal to do the inventory, not skip it. Avoidance often wears that mask. </principles> <input> <sobriety-length>{first 30 days / 30-90 days / 90 days - 1 year / 1-5 years / 5+ years}</sobriety-length> <today-emotional-weight>{light / normal / heavy}</today-emotional-weight> <specific-context>{anything specific about today worth flagging — travel, milestone, conflict, etc.}</specific-context> <variant>{default / after-hard-day / morning / weekly-extended}</variant> </input> <output-format> ## Tonight's 10th-Step (5-10 min) ### Part 1 — HALT Audit (1 min) [Prompt to rate hungry/angry/lonely/tired 1-5 each] ### Part 2 — Harm Audit (2 min) [Prompt to scan for small harms — today's specific context woven in] ### Part 3 — Gratitude Specific (1-2 min) [Prompt for 3 specific gratitudes] ### Part 4 — Tomorrow Anchor (1 min) [Prompt for one specific tomorrow intention] ## If You Noticed Something Heavier [When to pause the 10th-step and reach for sponsor/therapist instead] ## Closing [One-sentence closing — non-performative] </output-format> <auto-intake>If sobriety length unclear, ask. If today's weight is 'heavy,' adjust to after-hard-day variant.</auto-intake> Generate tonight's inventory:
🚀 Open in ChatGPT ✨ Open in Claude 💎 Open in Gemini

Example: input → output

Here's how this prompt actually performs. Real input below, real output from Claude Opus 4.

📝 Input
<sobriety-length>30-90 days (42 days)</sobriety-length>
<today-emotional-weight>heavy</today-emotional-weight>
<specific-context>Had a fight with my partner — first real conflict since I got sober. She said 'you're not the same person' and I don't know if that's good or bad. Didn't drink, but the craving hit harder than it has in weeks.</specific-context>
<variant>after-hard-day</variant>
🤖 Output

Tonight's 10th-Step (5-10 min)

Part 1 — HALT Audit (1 min)

Rate 1-5 right now:

  • Hungry: When did I last eat? Was it enough? (Fight-hunger often shows up as rumination tonight)
  • Angry: Am I still carrying the fight? Where in my body? (Chest? Jaw?)
  • Lonely: Is she in another room / across the bed / has she gone somewhere? Whatever the physical distance, what's the emotional distance right now?
  • Tired: On a normal day, not accounting for the fight — am I running on fumes from the week?

Name the strongest one out loud (in your head, or write it). That's the one that's most fueling whatever you feel right now.

Part 2 — Harm Audit (2 min)

Today specifically:

  • In the fight — what did I say that I'd take back? Not all of it. Just the one or two things.
  • Before the fight — did I have moments today where I could have chosen differently? Tone with a coworker? Ignoring her text earlier? Small moments that built to the fight.
  • Am I holding a grievance about something she said that I'm not telling her?
  • Did I harm anyone NOT in this conflict — someone I snapped at, ignored, was cold toward?
  • 'You're not the same person' — did I hear that and respond, or did I defend? Defending is a small harm to the conversation if she was trying to say something real.

Don't judge. Just name what you notice. You can't change tonight what you said. You can change tomorrow.

Part 3 — Gratitude Specific (1-2 min)

Tonight, with the craving still present — 3 specific things:

  • Someone who made today less impossible (even in small ways). Name them specifically.
  • One moment today that was NOT the fight — coffee this morning, a song, the sky at some point. Something.
  • Your own 42-day sobriety, but specifically: what's different this week vs. week 1? One specific thing you can feel in your body or your day.

Specific gratitudes rewire differently than generic. 'Grateful for Maya who took my call at noon' over 'grateful for friends.'

Part 4 — Tomorrow Anchor (1 min)

One intention for tomorrow. Small. Concrete. Not 'fix the fight' — that's too big.

Options (pick one):

  • 'Tomorrow at breakfast, I'll ask her what she meant by 'not the same person' — not defensively.'
  • 'Tomorrow I'll call my sponsor before doing anything else about the fight.'
  • 'Tomorrow morning I'll do 10 minutes outside before thinking about any of this.'
  • 'Tomorrow I won't bring up the fight first. I'll wait for her.'

Pick the one that feels least like 'I should.'

If You Noticed Something Heavier

You flagged the craving hit harder than weeks. That's a warning worth naming:

  • Call your sponsor tonight if it's before 10pm where they are. Don't wait for tomorrow if tonight feels volatile.
  • If sponsor unavailable AND craving intensifies: SAMHSA 1-800-662-4357 is 24/7.
  • Do NOT have substance accessible tonight. If any is in the house from before sobriety, pour it out tonight or give to a neighbor. Distance matters when craving is elevated.
  • Tomorrow morning: tell your sponsor about the craving specifically (not just the fight). Craving data is sponsor data.

This was a harder day than normal. 5-10 minutes of inventory is already enough tonight. You don't need to 'work it deeper' — you need to sleep.

Closing

You didn't drink. That's the most important thing today, and that's the thing your sober self at 34 can hold for the 42-day sober self tonight. Tomorrow is tomorrow.

Common use cases

  • Daily evening practice — most valuable use case; consistency is the asset
  • Early recovery (first 30-90 days) where daily structure matters most
  • Long-term sober folks whose daily practice has drifted and who want to re-establish
  • After hard days — when the default is to 'just go to bed' but 5 minutes of inventory prevents the next day starting angry
  • Travel/disruption days when normal routines break but the practice can stay
  • Sponsees whose sponsor has suggested daily 10th-step homework

Best AI model for this

Claude Sonnet 4.5 or GPT-5 is fine. This is a high-frequency daily tool — speed matters. Opus is overkill for daily 10th-step.

Pro tips

  • Do it in bed, not at a desk. The point is fatigue-compatible consistency, not perfect practice.
  • If you missed 3+ nights in a row, don't 'catch up' by doing 3 at once. Just resume. Consistency forward matters, not backward reconstruction.
  • The harm audit looks for SMALL harms — snapping at partner, cold reply to a friend, ignored call. The small ones compound. Big harms you'd notice without the audit.
  • Specific gratitude over generic. 'Grateful for the specific person / moment / sensation' rewires differently than 'grateful for sobriety.'
  • If tomorrow anchor feels impossible (overwhelmed), make it smaller: 'Tomorrow I'll get out of bed before 9am.' Small anchors work.

Customization tips

  • For travel days: keep the 4-part structure — just do it in a hotel room, not your usual spot. Consistency of the PRACTICE matters more than consistency of location.
  • For nights when you genuinely 'nothing happened today': still do the inventory. Often the 'nothing' is avoidance. The HALT audit will reveal state even when the day was flat.
  • For after conflict specifically: the harm audit section is where the work is. Most conflicts have small harms on both sides. Owning yours doesn't mean absorbing theirs.
  • For nights with intrusive craving: the 4-part structure is LESS important than the safety check. If craving is active, call sponsor or SAMHSA first; inventory second.
  • For sponsees whose sponsor wants written 10th-step shared: write your 10th-step knowing they'll see it, but don't perform for them. Authenticity > performance. If it feels performative, stop and rewrite honestly.
  • For long-term sober (5+ years) whose practice has drifted: the most common failure mode at this stage is 'nothing to inventory.' Complacency is an inventory item. HALT audit still useful — tiredness and loneliness creep in different shapes at 5 years.

Variants

Default Daily

Standard 4-part evening inventory

After Hard Day

Adjusted for high-emotion days — more self-compassion, less performance

Morning 10th-Step

If evening doesn't work for you — morning version that includes previous-day recap + today's anchor

Weekly Extended 10th-Step

Once a week, 20-minute version that looks at the week's pattern

Frequently asked questions

How do I use the Sobriety Daily 10th-Step — 5-Minute Evening Inventory prompt?

Open the prompt page, click 'Copy prompt', paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and replace the placeholders in curly braces with your real input. The prompt is also launchable directly in each model with one click.

Which AI model works best with Sobriety Daily 10th-Step — 5-Minute Evening Inventory?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 or GPT-5 is fine. This is a high-frequency daily tool — speed matters. Opus is overkill for daily 10th-step.

Can I customize the Sobriety Daily 10th-Step — 5-Minute Evening Inventory prompt for my use case?

Yes — every Promptolis Original is designed to be customized. Key levers: Do it in bed, not at a desk. The point is fatigue-compatible consistency, not perfect practice.; If you missed 3+ nights in a row, don't 'catch up' by doing 3 at once. Just resume. Consistency forward matters, not backward reconstruction.

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