Is the definition of insanity in the Big Book?
In short:
- No. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" appears nowhere in the Big Book: not in the main text, the forewords, the appendices, or any of the personal stories.
- The Big Book doesn't define insanity at all. It says so: "Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity" (p. 37).
- What the book calls insane is narrower and stranger than the saying. It's the moment before the first drink, when an alcoholic who knows exactly what will happen drinks anyway, on some trivial excuse that beats all his sound reasoning (pp. 37–43).
What the search found
The whole fourth-edition text was searched for "same thing," "different result(s)," "over and over," "expect" near "different," and "definition." None of them turns up the saying. The nearest wording is in "The Doctor's Opinion," where Dr. Silkworth describes the drinker's cycle of craving, spree, remorse and resolution: "This is repeated over and over" (p. xxix). That describes a cycle; it isn't a definition of insanity.
One Part III personal story quotes a different saying, a dictionary definition of rationalization that calls socially unacceptable behavior "a form of insanity" (p. 550). That's one member's experience, and a different idea.
Where the saying came from is outside our sources. It didn't come from the Big Book.
What the Big Book calls insanity
The word belongs mostly to Chapter 3 (pp. 30–43), "More About Alcoholism," which is about the thinking that comes before a relapse.
Jim and the whiskey in the milk (pp. 35–37). Jim knows he's an alcoholic, knows another drunk means the asylum and losing his family, and still decides that whiskey mixed with milk on a full stomach can't hurt. The book says: "Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity" (p. 37). What makes it insane isn't repetition. It's that "parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink" (p. 37), and the excuse won.
The jay-walker (pp. 37–38). This illustration does involve repetition. A man keeps running in front of traffic, injury after injury, despite his own promises, until "Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he?" (p. 38). Put alcoholism in place of jay-walking, the book says, and "where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane" (p. 38). Even here the point is that the man can't stop despite knowing better. Nobody in the story expects a different result.
Fred the accountant (pp. 39–43). Fred had heard all about "the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink" (p. 40) and was sure his self-knowledge would protect him. It didn't. On a good day, with no trouble at all, he ordered a cocktail without thinking of the consequences (p. 41). The book's conclusion: the alcoholic at certain times has no mental defense against the first drink, and "His defense must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43).
The same idea appears elsewhere: "We are without defense against the first drink" (p. 24); Bill's "insidious insanity of that first drink" (p. 8); resentment cuts us off from the Spirit, and "The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again" (p. 66).
Why the difference matters
The saying suggests a fix: stop repeating the same method and try something different. The Big Book says self-knowledge and new methods don't work for the real alcoholic (p. 39). Chapter 3 lists the methods they had tried, from beer only to swearing off (p. 31). Its answer is a Power greater than ourselves. Step Two speaks of being restored "to sanity" (p. 59), and Chapter 6 describes the result: "For by this time sanity will have returned" (p. 84), meaning the problem of drink has been removed rather than outsmarted.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 3 (pp. 30–43), "More About Alcoholism": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 2 (p. 24), "There Is a Solution": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt2.pdf
- "The Doctor's Opinion," pp. xxv–xxxii: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_foreworddoctorsopinion.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works," Step Two on p. 59: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, whole fourth-edition text (searched) | — | 1939 text; fourth edition 2001 |
| Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" | 30–43 | 1939 |
| Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 | 8, 24, 59, 66, 84 | 1939 |
| "The Doctor's Opinion" | xxix | 1939 |
| Personal story in Part III (rationalization quote) | 550 | fourth edition or earlier; personal experience, not program text |
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.