# What is a "dry drunk"? Is it in the Big Book?

**In short:**
- The phrase "dry drunk" is not in the Big Book: not in the 1939 program text, pages 1 to 164, nor in the forewords, the appendices, or any of the personal stories in the fourth edition.
- In all our sources the phrase appears once, in *Pass It On* (1984). Describing Bill W. in late 1940, it says some people called him "on a dry drunk," which it explains as having "all the symptoms of being drunk except the alcohol."
- An older, similar phrase, "dry bender," is in *A.A. Comes of Age* (1957). Bill uses it for a sober member in 1940 who was angry and unreasonable, and for himself in the late 1940s.
- The Big Book doesn't use either phrase, but it does say that staying sober isn't the whole job (p. 82), and that what a member has is "a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (p. 85).

## What the search found

All our sources were searched for "dry drunk," "dry drunks," "dry bender," "white-knuckle" and other wordings.

**"Dry drunk"** appears only in *Pass It On* (1984), Bill W.'s biography. Late in 1940, Bill had no job, the Big Book wasn't selling, and A.A. wasn't getting the publicity it needed. He was "frustrated, impatient, restless, dissatisfied, and depressed" (*Pass It On*, 1984). Then: "Some even described him as being on a dry drunk" (*Pass It On*, 1984). The book defines the phrase in the same sentence: he had "all the symptoms of being drunk except the alcohol" (*Pass It On*, 1984). That is the only definition in our sources, and this page doesn't add to it. The book doesn't say who used the phrase.

**"Dry bender"** is in Bill's own writing:
- In spring 1940, a member who had been sober four years "was on what we nowadays call a 'dry bender'" (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957). He grew more and more "adamant and violent," then broke down and went back to drinking.
- Writing about a furious memo he sent the Foundation's trustees before 1948, Bill says of himself: "Obviously I was on a dry bender of the worst possible sort" (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957).
- Recalling the 1940s, when psychiatrists warned that the fellowship was "emotional dynamite," Bill asks: "Now that we were sober, would dry benders and emotional jags blow us up?" (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957).
- In his 1955 article "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous," he uses it about the whole world's hunger for power, fame and money: "On this appalling dry bender, society seems to be staggering down a dead-end road" (P-17, 1955).

So by 1957 Bill could call "dry bender" something "we nowadays" say. In both of his uses about people, the man is sober and behaving badly: "adamant and violent" in one case (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957), sending "blistering memorandums" in the other (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957). Bill doesn't define the phrase further.

**"White-knuckling"** turns up once, in a fourth-edition story, "On the Move" (Part III): "After white-knuckling it for almost two years in A.A., I finally broke down and saw that I could not stay sober all by myself" (p. 491). That is one member's word for staying dry on one's own strength; the story doesn't call it a dry drunk.

## What the Big Book says on the same subject

The program text doesn't use either phrase. These are the passages that speak to an alcoholic who is sober but still in trouble. They are given here for comparison, not as a definition of "dry drunk."
- **Sobriety alone isn't enough.** Some alcoholics say all they need to do is keep sober. "Certainly he must keep sober," the book answers, but he's "yet a long way from making good" to his family (p. 82). A man who says sobriety is enough is like the farmer who came up from his cyclone cellar to a wrecked home and said, "Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?" (p. 82).
- **Not cured.** "We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (p. 85). It's easy "to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels," and that leads to trouble (p. 85).
- **Restless before the drink.** In "The Doctor's Opinion" (1939), Dr. Silkworth describes drinkers who, without alcohol, are "restless, irritable and discontented" unless they can again feel the ease a few drinks bring (pp. xxviii–xxix). He is describing the state that leads back to drinking, not a sober member of A.A.
- **Resentment.** "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger" (p. 66). Harbored resentment shuts a man off from "the sunlight of the Spirit," and the insanity of alcohol returns (p. 66).
- **Crankiness after the drinking stops.** Chapter 9 tells the family that the man, "though marvelously improved, is still convalescing," and that his "periods of crankiness, depression, or apathy" will pass with tolerance, love and spiritual understanding (p. 127).

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 82–85): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.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" (p. 66): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- P-17, with "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous" (1955), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/assets/p-17_AATraditions.pdf
- *Pass It On* and *A.A. Comes of Age* are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, whole fourth-edition text (searched) | — | 1939 text; fourth edition 2001 |
| Chapters 5, 6, 9 | 66, 82–85, 127 | 1939 |
| "The Doctor's Opinion" | xxviii–xxix | 1939 |
| *A.A. Comes of Age* (Bill W.) | the 1940 office dispute; the trustees memo; the "emotional dynamite" warning | 1957; after 1950 |
| "On the Move," Part III | 491 | fourth edition (2001) |
| P-17, "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous" | 48 | 1955; after 1950 |
| *Pass It On* | late 1940 | 1984; after 1950 |

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition. P-17 page numbers are the pamphlet's printed numbers (© 2019).

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, A.A. Comes of Age and Pass It On are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; P-17's articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.*