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Who is the man who stayed sober twenty-five years and drank again (p. 32)?

In short:

  • He is an unnamed man in Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism." The book gives no name and nothing in our sources identifies him. It introduces him as one of "a few instances" it had heard of, where people with "definite signs of alcoholism" stopped for a long time "because of an overpowering desire to do so" (p. 32).
  • He was a spree drinker at thirty who stayed "bone dry for twenty-five years" (p. 32), then at fifty-five decided his long sobriety had qualified him to drink like other men. He was in hospital in two months, could not stop, and "was dead within four years" (p. 33).
  • The book's lesson: "here is a man who at fifty-five years found he was just where he had left off at thirty" (p. 33), so there must be no "lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol" (p. 33).
  • The story is not presented as a model. The book warns that young people may take from it that they can stop on their own will power, and it doubts "if many of them can do it" (p. 33).

The story, in order (pp. 32–33)

Chapter 3 says that early in their drinking most of them might have stopped, "But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time" (p. 32). Then: "We have heard of a few instances" of people with definite signs of alcoholism who stopped for a long period through sheer desire. "Here is one" (p. 32).

  • At thirty he was "doing a great deal of spree drinking" (p. 32). He was very nervous in the mornings and quieted himself with more liquor. Ambitious in business, he saw he would get nowhere if he drank at all, because "Once he started, he had no control whatever" (p. 32).
  • He decided he wouldn't touch a drop until he had succeeded in business and retired. "An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years" (p. 32), and retired at fifty-five after "a successful and happy business career" (p. 32).
  • Then "he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has" (p. 32): that his long sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. "Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle" (p. 32).
  • In two months he was in hospital, "puzzled and humiliated" (p. 32). He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, with several more trips to hospital. Then he gathered all his forces, tried to stop altogether, "and found he could not" (p. 32).
  • Everything money could buy was available to him. "Every attempt failed" (p. 33). A robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly "and was dead within four years" (p. 33).

What the book draws from it

"This case contains a powerful lesson" (p. 33). Most of them, the book says, had believed that after a long sober stretch they could drink normally. This man found at fifty-five that "he was just where he had left off at thirty" (p. 33). Then comes the saying the book quotes: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" (p. 33), and "Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever" (p. 33). So for anyone planning to stop, "there must be no reservation of any kind" (p. 33). See: Does the Big Book say "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic"?

Two things in the story are worth noticing because they cut against easy readings:

  • He did stop, for twenty-five years, by himself. The book doesn't deny it. It calls him "exceptional" (p. 32) and says such cases are "a few instances" (p. 32).
  • His long sobriety didn't change what he was. Stopping was not the same as recovering control. The chapter opens with "no real alcoholic ever recovers control" (p. 30) and "We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones" (p. 30). See: Can an alcoholic ever drink normally again?

The warning to "young people" (p. 33)

Right after the lesson, the book heads off the obvious misreading: "Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think that they can stop, as he did, on their own will power" (p. 33). It doubts many can, for two reasons it gives: none will really want to stop, and hardly one of them, "because of the peculiar mental twist already acquired" (p. 33), will find he can win out. Several of their own members, "men of thirty or less" (p. 33) who had been drinking only a few years, had found themselves as helpless as men who had drunk for twenty years.

It goes on: one doesn't have to drink a long time or in large quantities to be gravely affected, "This is particularly true of women" (p. 33), and the writers saw "large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere" (pp. 33–34). (A footnote added in a later edition says that by 2003 about one-fifth of A.A. members were thirty and under, p. 34; the footnote is not part of the 1939 text.)

Where the story leads

The next paragraphs make the same point from the other side. The writers felt they had drunk "many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power" (p. 34). If anyone wonders whether he is in that dangerous area, he can try leaving liquor alone for one year; a real alcoholic far along has "scant chance of success" (p. 34). And even someone who stops for a considerable period "may yet be a potential alcoholic" (p. 34). Whether a person can quit "upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not" (p. 34).

The man of thirty is the book's example of one of the rare people who stopped on desire alone, and of what happened when, after twenty-five years, he drank again. The rest of the chapter turns to the mental states before a relapse (p. 35), and ends with the alcoholic's defense against the first drink: "His defense must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43).

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" 30–35, 43 1939
Footnote on p. 34 (2003 membership survey) 34 added in a later edition
All our sources (searched for this man's identity) — various

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi).

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.