The 10th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous says:
“We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it.”
An inventory is essentially a journaling exercise in which you reflect on your actions and put pen to paper and deal with who you are honestly. This is not an exercise in shame. It’s not designed to make you feel bad and you should NOT beat yourself up over your mistakes. It’s an exercise in accountability and creating lasting change in your life.
The Psychological Benefits of Doing a Step 10 Inventory Every Night
Nightly Step 10 inventories offer a powerful psychological reset. They’re refreshing and they create a space for self‑reflection, emotional regulation, and good morals and values.
By reviewing the day with honesty and without shame, people strengthen something called metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to observe your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors rather than be ruled by them and act on them without thinking it through first — which reduces impulsivity and overreactions over time.
The practice also supports emotional clarity. This means that identifying resentments, fears, or harms early prevents them from building up inside you and poisoning you with overwhelming stress.
Gratitude and accountability help you develop a positive attitude toward life.
Lastly, acknowledging and celebrating your progress builds up your motivation to stay in recovery and keep going.
Taken together, Step 10 becomes a nightly ritual that stabilizes mood, deepens self-awareness, and strengthens the psychological foundation needed for long‑term change.
What to Write in Your 10th Step Inventory
The 10th step inventory revolves around these three important questions:
- Have you been honest and real with yourself and other people today?
- Are you living according to your values?
- Are you doing what you need to do to stay sober, with the help of your higher power?
It’s a nightly reflection on your progress in sobriety. It can be fun to look back at old 10th step inventories and see how far you’ve come!
Below is the inventory I designed, based on the 10th step, which I use every night. It’s a free printable template for you to use in your journal. Feel free to share it with other people- it’s for anyone who needs it.
To learn more about all the steps of AA, read this post describing the steps in an agnostic way.
For more recovery worksheets and self-care journaling pages, check out this guided journal, Sober and Steady.
To learn more about Step 10, here is the description of the step from the Big Book of AA.
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