12-Step Basics
This is the only step you can work perfectly, because it asks you only to admit powerlessness and unmanageability.
What is Step 1?
This shape describes the link between how we think, how we feel, and how we act.
What is the CBT Triangle?
This DBT skill helps you stay in the present moment without judgment.
What is mindfulness?
This popular acronym states goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
What are SMART goals?
This masked horror icon first appeared in 1978 and stalks the fictional town of Haddonfield on Halloween night.
Who is Michael Meyers?
This step involves sharing “the exact nature of our wrongs” with ourselves, our Higher Power, and another person.
What is Step 5?
This common cognitive distortion involves assuming we know what others are thinking without evidence.
What is mind-reading?
This distress tolerance acronym reminds you to change your body chemistry fast—with ice, movement, or paced breathing.
What is TIPP?
This kind of goal focuses on daily habits or behaviors rather than long-term outcomes.
What is a process (or short-term) goal?
This Marvel hero is known as “The Merc with a Mouth.”
Who is Deadpool?
This prayer or passage is often read aloud at meetings states, “_______ is the answer to all my problems today.”
What is The Accept Prayer? -or- What is "Acceptance Was the Answer"?
This CBT technique asks you to gather proof for and against a distressing belief, like a detective.
What is Examining the Evidence?
This interpersonal effectiveness skill helps you ask for what you want using describe, express, assert, and reinforce.
What is DEAR MAN?
This approach involves breaking a large task into small, manageable steps to build momentum.
What is chunking (or breaking it down)?
This team famously broke the “Curse of the Bambino” by winning the 2004 World Series.
Who are the Boston Red Sox?
This step requires becoming “entirely ready” to have our defects removed, even if we aren’t sure what that will feel like.
What is Step 6?
This type of thought error involves seeing situations in only extreme, either/or categories.
What is black-and-white thinking?
(or “all-or-nothing thinking”)
This DBT concept describes the middle path between emotion thoughts and reasonable thoughts.
What is Wise Mind?
This type of motivation comes from personal values and meaning, rather than external rewards.
What is intrinsic (or internal) motivation?
This 1973 horror classic was the first supernatural film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
What is The Exorcist?
This AA tradition states that “anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”
What is Tradition 12?
This CBT concept suggests our long-held ideas act as “lenses,” shaping how we interpret events—often without our awareness.
What are core beliefs?
This skill set teaches how to reduce vulnerability to emotional spirals using routines like sleep, nutrition, and exercise.
What is PLEASE?
This barrier to goal progress occurs when someone subconsciously sabotages their efforts due to fear of failure—or fear of success.
What is self-sabotage?
This world leader’s assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 is widely considered the event that triggered the start of World War I.
Who was Archduke Franz Ferdinand?