what is positive recovery journaling (PRJ)?
PRJ is a journaling practice designed to support recovery from addiction. It works by countering the negative emotions that get in the way of a happy, peaceful sober life.
PRJ brings to light what went well in a day and helps people to plan another balanced, successful day.
PRJ uses short lists and can be completed in 10 minutes, making it an easy daily practice. It is designed to be supportive of any recovery pathway.
In Waking Up Sober, Dr. Amy Krentzman introduces Positive Recovery Journaling and makes the practice available to anyone in recovery from addiction.
Dr. K is an associate professor of social work at the University of Minnesota and an addiction recovery researcher.
Find out more about Waking Up Sober.
Join our mailing list to find out when Waking Up Sober will become available.
Waking up Sober is designed to support recovery from addiction using Positive Recovery Journaling (PRJ).
Join our mailing list to find out when Waking Up Sober will become available.
research on positive recovery journaling
results of Three pilot studies
When women in residential treatment for substance use disorders practiced PRJ, their well-being improved
The 15 women in this pilot study described these benefits of PRJ:
PRJ helped them realize that more good things than bad things were happening in recovery.
PRJ showed them that there was more to be grateful for than they had realized.
PRJ helped them reassess negative situations.
PRJ helped them see that they were progressing in recovery.
PRJ served as a planner, which enabled them to achieve small goals leading to feelings of pride and accomplishment.
As participants learned and practiced PRJ, they experienced decreases in negative feelings, depression, and anxiety, and increases in both satisfaction with life and quality of life.
However, these individuals were also in therapy, completing house chores, doing crafts, going to meetings, and engaging in other positive activities. It wasn’t clear whether PRJ was responsible for the positive change, so we designed our next study to include a control group for comparison. Read more about the residential treatment study here.
for people with fewer than 90 days of sobriety, PRJ showed improvement in well-being compared to a control group
Participants in this study were 81 people attending intensive outpatient or residential substance use disorder treatment.
Half of the people learned PRJ right away while the other half learned PRJ at the end of the study. This let us compare these two groups on a range of well-being outcomes.
We learned that people in treatment were interested in journaling. They found PRJ to be as easy as completing a brief recovery check-in, but significantly more satisfying, helpful, and pleasant.
There were no other differences between those who learned PRJ and those who did not. We feel this occurred, in part, because some control group members got value from the check-in surveys that measured their progress. We wrote a separate article about this finding.
However, those in our study who used PRJ and who had fewer than 90 days of sobriety experienced the following compared with similar participants who did not learn PRJ:
Greater satisfaction with life
Greater happiness with recovery
Greater quality of life
Lower levels of negative emotions
Less depression.
The discovery of the impact of PRJ on those with fewer than 90 days of sobriety was something we didn’t anticipate in advance. Read more about this study here.
counselors reported that their clients liked PRJ and FOUND IT EASY TO DO
In this study, we taught PRJ to 38 counselors working in the United States, Canada, Romania, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.
The counselors used PRJ with the people they supported and then described their experiences. The counselors rated PRJ as highly feasible (their clients could do it), acceptable (their clients liked it), and appropriate (it made sense for their setting).
After being trained to use PRJ, most counselors decided to use it with the people they supported.
Counselors described positive group dynamics when their clients shared aloud what they had written, when clients taught each other how to use PRJ, and when clients expressed good wishes for each other.
These positive dynamics suggest that PRJ has potential as a group therapy within treatment centers.
about PRJ research
Taken together, this set of preliminary studies suggests that some people in recovery have benefitted from PRJ.
These studies of PRJ represent some of the only research on journaling to support addiction recovery.
However, by research standards, these three pilot studies are just a start. Future research should, for example, test PRJ with larger numbers of people and in studies conducted by other researchers.
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
Praise from people in recovery
“I would evaluate my days and the things I was accomplishing, and I would actually be able to sit in that happiness for a while.”
— Participant who learned PRJ while in treatment for a substance use disorder
“It has been interesting for me to see that my life is really good when I think it’s not that great.”
— Participant who learned PRJ while in treatment for a substance use disorder
“It makes you feel much better about life.”
— Participant who learned PRJ while in treatment for a substance use disorder
“This journaling practice has saved my sanity many, many times.”
— Rosemary, Minnesota, United States
Praise from counselors
“My clients expressed that PRJ provides them with a reflective tool that gives them more structure in their recovery journey. Recovery work is daunting but rewarding, and PRJ is an excellent companion.”
— Lyn Van der Horst, addictions social worker, Cape Town, South Africa
“Clients noted that PRJ helped them think about important matters, be more organized and effective, and try new things.”
— Jessica Jones, positive recovery coach, London, United Kingdom
“PRJ has been especially helpful to the clients who struggle with very negative thinking.”
— Holly C., mental health professional, Minnesota, United States
“Clients came in tired and somewhat disconnected, and most were engaged and sharing by the end of the PRJ session.”
— Sarah B., day treatment therapist, Pine City, Minnesota, United States
“Clients shared that the process reminded them how important it is to focus on the good things that happened and how useful it is for taking their mind off negative thoughts.”
— Adriana B., peer recovery specialist, Bucharest, Romania
“This journal allowed clients to observe that journaling is not an arduous task.”
— M. Wyze, supervised licensed alcohol and drug counselor, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
“PRJ is a wonderful tool to help all kinds of people in all kinds of situations to see their daily lives in a better light and to guide them to live it well.”
— Nancy A., Nova Scotia, Canada
getting started with positive recovery journaling
PRJ invites you to create a set of short lists designed to help you improve mood, express emotion, and feel grounded.
Follow these steps to learn the first part of PRJ:
Grab any journal or plain piece of paper.
Divide the page in half vertically and then in half horizontally so you have four quadrants.
In the upper left-hand quadrant, review the past day and list as many good things that happened that you can think of. Include things that were even a little bit good. Give special consideration to small good things.
In the upper right-hand quadrant, list things that jump out as having bugged, annoyed, or frustrated you over the past day. Get it all out onto the page.
In the lower left-hand quadrant, list the things that you are grateful for. Consider good things that you might have gotten used to.
In the lower right-hand quadrant, list the people you love and those to whom you send good wishes, whether or not you know them personally. Is anyone on this list recovering from an injury, starting a new job, or worried about a loved one? Reach out to see how they are doing to let them know you are thinking of them.
Waking Up Sober is the PRJ journal that will be published in 2025. It describes all aspects of PRJ, along with examples, tips, and approaches to improve satisfaction with life in recovery. Join our mailing list to learn when Waking Up Sober becomes available.
This composite example of four elements of PRJ is comprised of actual entries from women in residential treatment for substance use disorders. Shared with permission from the women and from The Journal of Positive Psychology.
other findings from dr. k’s recovery research
Happiness with Recovery Predicts Abstinence and Treatment Retention
There is widespread agreement that addiction recovery involves increases in well-being. But which dimensions of well-being are associated with treatment outcomes?
Among positive affect, serenity, flourishing, satisfaction with life, gratitude, quality of life, happiness with recovery, commitment to sobriety, and confidence staying sober, only happiness with recovery predicted both abstinence and treatment retention even after we accounted for the influence of additional predictors of good outcomes.
Happiness with recovery was assessed with one question, "In general, I am happy with my recovery" and rated on a scale of 0 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). This question can be a straightforward way to assess well-being in recovery. Helping people become happier with recovery can be an aim of treatment. Read more about the happiness with recovery study.
Gratitude Supports future abstinence among those who are already abstinent
Among people with alcohol use disorders, higher levels of gratitude were associated with abstinence 6 months later.
But this was true only if the person was already abstinent. If the person was drinking at low levels, then high levels of gratitude were associated 6 months later not with abstinence, but with a continuation of drinking!
Gratitude affirms the status quo. Therefore, with high levels of gratitude at one time point, 6 months later, drinking behavior is the same. If we want to understand the impact of gratitude on recovery, it might be better to assess gratitude for recovery instead of gratitude in general. Read more about this gratitude study.
increases in AA involvement and decreases in drinking were associated with different aspects of spirituality
People with an alcohol use disorder who increased their Alcoholics Anonymous attendance over 6 months experienced the following changes with regard to spirituality:
Greater perspective that during stressful times, aspects of spirituality were positive, benevolent, and helpful
Greater frequency of daily spiritual experiences
Higher levels of forgiveness of others
More frequent use of spiritual/religious practices such as prayer and meditation.
People who reduced their drinking over 6 months (while taking any influence of Alcoholics Anonymous out of the equation) also increased their levels of spirituality. But these forms of spirituality were slightly different and included:
Increased purpose in life
Greater self-forgiveness
More frequent use of spiritual/religious practices such as prayer and meditation.
With or without AA, people who reduced their drinking in this study experienced increases in spirituality. AA was associated with increases in some dimensions of spirituality while reduced drinking was associated with other dimensions of spirituality. Read more about this study here.
gossip plays a role in addiction and recovery in small towns and rural communities
Gossip happens everywhere. But in tight-knit communities like small towns, gossip might wield more influence. We interviewed people in recovery and people who were substance use disorder treatment providers living in rural areas. During active addiction, gossip was negative. In early recovery, gossip was mixed. But in time, the person in long-term recovery became a valuable resource to others suffering from addiction in the community, fostering respect and positive regard. Read more about the gossip study here.
Sunset in Minnesota from Dr. K’s phone
These are the PRJ journals we used in our most recent research study. Watercolor artwork by Katy Lowery.
coming in 2025
waking up sober
positive recovery journaling
by amy r. krentzman, MSW, phd
journaling to support recovery from addiction
Over the years, we have created PRJ journals for use in our research studies. In 2025, we will publish a version for everyone. Click here if you would like us to keep you posted on our progress!
about “waking up sober”
When teaching Positive Recovery Journaling to people in treatment for substance use disorders, the most frequent thing people listed as a “good thing that happened” was that they “woke up sober.”
This is an incredible example of how gratitude works. Gratitude reminds us of extraordinary aspects of life that so easily fade into the background.
About dr. K
Dr. K holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Northwestern University, a master’s degree in social work from New York University, and a PhD in social welfare from Case Western Reserve University. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in addiction studies in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan.
Dr. K has been a social work educator since 1998 and an addiction recovery researcher since 2008. She is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work.
Dr. K conducts research on spirituality, gratitude, forgiveness, sober living houses, Twelve-Step programs, the experience of recovery in rural communities, happiness with recovery, and journaling to support addiction recovery. See Dr. K’s research indexed in Google Scholar.
Dr. K lives in Minnesota and has a down coat that reaches to her ankles.
PRJ is her own daily journaling practice.
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