Pros and Cons
A craving lies about the math, pumping up the payoff and hiding the bill. The DBT pros and cons skill is how you write down the real cost while you're clear-headed, then hand it to the version of you who isn't.
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What the Pros and Cons Skill Is
Pros and cons is a DBT skill for weighing what an urge is really offering you against what it’s about to cost — written down ahead of time, so the math is already settled when the craving arrives. You list the upsides of acting on the urge, the downsides of acting on it, the upsides of riding it out, and the downsides of riding it out. Four boxes.
What makes it powerful isn’t the listing, it’s the timing. A craving doesn’t argue fairly: in the heat of it, the pros of using feel enormous and the cons feel like someone else’s problem for later. For addiction that’s the whole danger, because the craving lies about the numbers — it promises relief and hides the bill. Pros and cons is how you write the true cost down while you’re clear-headed, then hand it to the version of you who isn’t.
- Pros and cons is a distress-tolerance skill, meant to be prepared before a crisis, not improvised inside one: it belongs to the DBT distress-tolerance toolkit, and distress-tolerance techniques from DBT have shown usefulness for managing the negative emotional states seen in substance dependence[1].
- It targets the impulse, not just the behavior: emotion dysregulation drives the severity of substance dependence, so an urge you stop to weigh is an urge you’ve started to loosen[2].
- It’s one of a connected set of DBT skills built for the moment a craving hits: DBT skills training has been field-tested for relapse prevention in opioid treatment, and the broader approach works on the emotion dysregulation and impulsivity underneath addictive behavior[3][4].
- The point is to choose toward the life you want, not just away from the drug: disturbances in positive emotion and reward are central to substance use disorders, so a pros list of resisting names what recovery is actually for[5].
Why the Craving Lies About the Math
A craving is a salesperson who only talks about the upside. In the moment, it floods the pros of using straight to the front — the relief, the quiet, the escape, all of it vivid and immediate — and files the cons under later. That pitch runs on the same machinery that makes addiction so hard to outthink in real time, where an impulsive reach for a substance rides on an emotion you haven’t had a second to register[2]. You can’t out-argue a peaking craving, because it has already rigged the scale. So you don’t try. You do the weighing earlier, when the same four facts are all visible and none of them is screaming.
There’s a name for what the urge does to your thinking. DBT calls it emotion mind — the state where feeling is driving and the long view is nowhere in the car. A completed pros-and-cons grid is a message from your calmer self to the one stuck in emotion mind. It can’t stop the feeling. It can hand that version of you a piece of paper that says, in your own handwriting, here’s what this actually costs.
The Four Boxes, One at a Time
The skill is a two-by-two grid. One axis is the choice in front of you: act on the urge, or resist it and tolerate the distress. The other axis is the direction: pros and cons. Work all four boxes, because the craving wants you to fill in only one.
Pros of acting on the urge. Be straight about these. What does using actually deliver in the short term? Relief, escape, calm, the end of the craving’s noise. Naming them isn’t a betrayal of recovery, it’s the opposite: if you pretend the urge offers nothing, the grid is a lie your own mind won’t believe. Write down what the substance really gives you. It’s real, and it’s almost always short.
Cons of acting on the urge. Now the bill the craving hid. The shame, the money, the promise broken, the progress reset, the look on someone’s face, the days it costs to climb back. This is the box the urge works hardest to keep blank, so it’s the one to fill in most. The reach for a substance is so often a reach away from a feeling, and what it buys back is more of the same.
Pros of resisting and tolerating the urge. What you get by riding it out instead. The streak intact. Waking up without the dread. Trust rebuilt one kept promise at a time. The slow return of things the substance had flattened, because addiction blunts the capacity for ordinary reward, and getting that back is a real prize worth listing[5]. This box names what recovery is for, not just what it’s against.
Cons of resisting and tolerating the urge. Don’t skip this one to look strong. Tolerating a craving is genuinely hard — sitting in discomfort, missing the fast relief, getting through the next stretch without the substance. Naming the cost keeps the grid from reading like a pep talk. You’re not pretending it’s easy. You’re deciding it’s worth it anyway.
The Pros and Cons Grid at a Glance
Here’s the whole skill in one frame, the way you might lay it out the next time you sit down to fill it in.
| Acting on the urge (using) | Resisting the urge (tolerating it) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | The short-term payoff: relief, escape, the craving going quiet | What you keep and rebuild: the streak, trust, sleep, the return of ordinary good feeling |
| Cons | The hidden bill: shame, money, broken promises, progress reset, days lost climbing back | The real cost of holding on: sitting in discomfort, no fast relief, getting through the next stretch the hard way |
Why You Do This Before the Urge, Not During
The timing is the skill. The single most important thing about pros and cons is when you fill it in. Build the grid in a calm hour and keep it where you can reach it: in your phone, in your wallet, taped where the craving usually finds you. Then, when an urge spikes, you don’t reason from scratch with a rigged scale. You read.
This is why pros and cons is a distress-tolerance skill and not a journaling exercise. Distress tolerance is the DBT module for getting through a crisis without making it worse, and this skill earns its place there by being ready in advance. Distress-tolerance techniques from DBT have shown usefulness for the negative emotional states that drive substance dependence[1], and a grid you prepared cold is one you can actually use hot.
The same logic runs across DBT’s addiction skills: do the hard thinking when you’re steady, so the moment only asks you to follow through. That’s exactly what tools like a DBT skills app were designed to support — putting the right skill in your hand the second a craving hits[6].
Pre-committing is the whole move. Reading your own true math mid-craving is a form of pre-commitment: you bind your future self to the choice your present self can see clearly. The craving still comes. But now it’s arguing against evidence you wrote, not a blank page it gets to fill in.
Work yours out right here:
Where Pros and Cons Fits With the Other Skills
Pros and cons doesn’t work alone, and it isn’t supposed to. It’s the skill that settles the decision. Once the decision is made, you still have to get through the wave that’s already rolling, and that’s a different job for a different tool.
Pair it with a way to ride the wave out. Deciding not to use doesn’t make the craving vanish on cue. After you’ve read your grid and chosen, you can sit with the urge and let it crest and fall instead of fighting it, which is what the DBT urge surfing skill is built for. Pros and cons settles what you’ll do; urge surfing gets you through the minutes after you’ve decided.
Reach for it inside a pause. When an urge ambushes you, you may need to interrupt the autopilot first, then weigh. The fast crisis-survival skills in the distress tolerance module create that opening, and pros and cons is what you read once you’ve made the gap.
This is by design. DBT teaches a connected set of DBT skills for addiction that fit together, each one targeting the emotion dysregulation and impulsivity underneath the reach for a substance[4]. That lineage runs deep, with DBT studied for substance use since its earliest adaptations, including a trial in opioid-dependent women[7].
Making Pros and Cons Actually Work
A grid you filled in once and forgot won’t help. A few things make this skill stick.
Write it ugly and specific. Skip the tidy generic costs. Use the ones that are true for you: the exact person you’d have to lie to, the exact thing you’d lose, the exact morning-after you already know too well. Specific costs have weight a craving can’t easily wave away.
Keep it where the urge finds you. A grid in a notebook in a drawer is useless at 11 p.m. Put it in your phone, on your lock screen, in the spot where cravings usually catch you. The skill is only as good as your ability to reach it in the worst ten seconds.
Update it as your life fills back in. Early on, the pros of resisting can feel thin and abstract. As recovery gives things back — the steadier mornings, the returning capacity to feel good without the substance — your grid gets stronger, because addiction blunts ordinary reward and reclaiming it is real[5]. Rewrite the grid every so often so it reflects the life you’re actually building.
Don’t toss the skill if you slip. You might read your grid and use anyway. That’s not proof it doesn’t work, it’s information about which moments are hardest for you and which costs the craving managed to mute. The mindful, watch-it-clearly stance underneath this skill is a muscle you build, the same open attention that mindfulness-based approaches bring to addictive disorders[8]. A slip is a rep, not a verdict.
The way through addiction is more bearable than the fear of it, and skills like this are part of why. Pros and cons doesn’t ask you to defeat a craving with raw will. It asks you to do the real arithmetic once, when you can, and trust it later, when you can’t. That’s a fight you can win.
If this skill speaks to you, it’s worth learning inside a fuller plan — the distress tolerance it belongs to, the mindfulness it grows from, and the support that helps the skills hold. Find treatment and people who can help, and pair these tools with the wider dialectical behavioral therapy approach they’re part of. The next craving is survivable, and you can have the real math ready before it asks.
The next step doesn’t have to be a big one. You can find treatment now and get matched with someone who can help you find the right care and take the next step. Reaching out today is a real step forward — and one you can make right now.
Frequently asked questions
What is the pros and cons skill in DBT?
Pros and cons is a DBT distress-tolerance skill for weighing an urge before you act on it. You map four boxes: the pros of acting on the urge, the cons of acting on it, the pros of resisting and tolerating the distress, and the cons of resisting. The power is in the timing — you fill the grid in a calm moment and keep it ready, so when a craving hits you can read your own clear-headed math instead of arguing from scratch. Distress-tolerance techniques from DBT have shown usefulness for the negative emotional states seen in substance dependence[1].
How does weighing pros and cons help with addiction cravings?
A craving rigs the scale. In the heat of the moment it floods the pros of using to the front — relief, escape, quiet — and files the costs under later. An impulsive reach for a substance often rides on an emotion you haven’t had a second to register[2]. Pros and cons is how you write the true cost down while you’re clear-headed, then hand it to the version of you who isn’t. You can’t out-argue a peaking craving in the moment, so you do the weighing earlier, when all four boxes are still visible.
Why should I fill out the grid before the urge instead of during it?
Because the math doesn’t change when a craving hits, but your access to it does. In a peak urge, the real costs of using feel like someone else’s problem for later. Filling the grid in a calm hour and keeping it where you can reach it — in your phone, your wallet, taped where cravings find you — means you don’t reason from a blank page mid-craving, you read. This kind of in-the-moment readiness is exactly what tools like a DBT skills app were built to support, putting the right skill in your hand the second you need it[6].
Do I really have to list the pros of using?
Yes, and skipping them is the most common mistake. If your grid lists only the good of quitting and the bad of using, it reads like propaganda, and your mind discounts propaganda the instant a craving gets loud. Be straight about what the substance actually delivers in the short term, then be just as straight about the bill it hides. A grid that names all four boxes — including the pros of using and the cons of resisting — is one your own mind will still believe when the urge is screaming.
Is pros and cons enough on its own to stay sober?
It’s one of the most useful decision skills, but it works best as part of a fuller plan. It settles what you’ll do; it doesn’t make the craving vanish, so it pairs naturally with a skill for riding out the wave that’s still rolling after you’ve decided. The broader DBT approach has been field-tested for relapse prevention in opioid treatment[3] and works on the emotion dysregulation and impulsivity underneath addictive behavior[4]. Use pros and cons to pre-commit, lean on real-time support when an urge peaks, and pair it with the wider treatment that helps the gains hold.
What is the difference between pros and cons and urge surfing?
They do different jobs and work best together. Pros and cons is the decision — it settles whether you’ll act on the urge by weighing the real cost against the real payoff, ideally before the craving peaks. Urge surfing is the ride — it carries you through the minutes after you’ve decided, treating the craving as a wave you watch rise and fall without acting. Pros and cons answers should I use; urge surfing answers how do I get through the next few minutes now that I’ve chosen not to. Run them together and you have both halves of getting through a craving.
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