The Recovery Files · Printable Guides
Reel Recovery: Film Guides
Seven printable guides that use well-known films as a mirror for recovery. Watch the film, or just remember it, then work through the reading and reflection questions. Scored self-assessments stay in the app.
The Recovery Files is not affiliated with or endorsed by the films' studios or creators.
Stuck in the cycle
Patterns that repeat, and what finally breaks them.
Groundhog Day
The Same Day Again
Living the same day over and over: mapping your own patterns, from repeating cycles and the illusion of control to despair and isolation, then planning the steps that break the loop.
Inside: pattern mapper, transformation plan.
5 pages
Wile E. Coyote
The Same Trap, Again
The elaborate plan that always backfires: six parallels between the cartoon chase and addiction, finding your stage of change, and why breaking the cycle takes help from outside.
Inside: six parallels with reflection questions, stage-of-change check.
9 pages
Quicksand
The Harder You Struggle
Shane Falco's quicksand speech from The Replacements: why fighting harder can pull you deeper, surrender, reaching up for help, and small, steady movements in early recovery.
Inside: reading with reflection points, ten-part worksheet.
10 pages
Old School
Frank the Tank
One party, one drink: how Frank's return to drinking illustrates the allergy, craving and loss of control described in the Big Book.
Inside: scene analysis, six-part worksheet, key concepts.
Quotes short passages from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not produced or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
9 pages
Hope and a way out
Isolation, endurance, and the long road to freedom.
The Shawshank Redemption
From Darkness to Light
Addiction as a prison: the decision to escape, the long tunnel, coming out into the rain, and turning pain into gratitude, ending with a letter to your past self.
Inside: journey map, stage-by-stage reflections, gratitude and letter exercises.
14 pages
Forrest Gump
Running Through Life
Forrest's braces and his running as a picture of addiction: early pain, first use as escape, running from everything, stopping, and learning to walk again in recovery.
Inside: running timeline, stage reflections, insight questions.
45 pages
Cast Away
Alone on the Island
Isolation and what keeps you going: the unopened package Chuck carries as the spiritual potential we carry, the timing of spiritual awakening, and moving from isolation to connection.
Inside: interactive reading, reflection questions, spiritual practice worksheet.
12 pages