# Is HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) in the Big Book?

**In short:**
- No. Neither the acronym HALT nor the list "hungry, angry, lonely, tired" is in the Big Book, or anywhere else in our sources.
- Each of the four words does turn up in the program text on its own, most strongly anger: resentment "destroys more alcoholics than anything else" (p. 64). The book never puts the four together as warning signs.
- The book's main point about relapse cuts against any checklist of moods: Fred drank on a day when "Physically, I felt fine" and he had no worries (p. 41). The program text says that at certain times the alcoholic has no mental defense against the first drink at all, and that his defense "must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43).

## What the search found

All our sources were searched for "HALT," "hungry, angry" and each of the four words, and for any two of them within a sentence of each other. Nothing turned up. Where "halt" appears it is the ordinary word, as in a therapy that "came to almost a complete halt" (p. 283) or a motion that brings debate to a halt (A.A. Service Manual); one hit in *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* is a scanning error for "Half." No story in any edition in our sources uses the acronym.

## Where the four words do appear in the program text

**Hungry.** In Chapter 3, Jim's relapse begins when "On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar." (p. 36). The book doesn't treat the hunger as the cause. It calls what followed, the idea that whiskey in milk on a full stomach couldn't hurt him, "plain insanity" (p. 37). Elsewhere, Chapter 9 passes on a doctor's suggestion, "of course depending upon a doctor's advice" (p. 133), to keep chocolate on hand "for its quick energy value at times of fatigue" (p. 134), since a vague craving at night could be satisfied by candy (p. 134).

**Angry.** This is the one with the most weight. Resentment is the "number one" offender, and "It destroys more alcoholics than anything else." (p. 64). "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger." (p. 66). A wife's nagging about her husband's smoking and coffee threw him "into a fit of anger. He got drunk." (p. 135), and the book adds that he was "dead wrong" (p. 135). Chapter 10 names "The greatest enemies of us alcoholics" as "resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear" (p. 145). Chapter 3 also says that when they drank deliberately, feeling justified "by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like," the justification was "insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened" (p. 37).

**Lonely.** Bill's own story has loneliness leading to a drink, years before A.A.: sailing for the war, "I was very lonely and again turned to alcohol." (p. 1). After that, loneliness belongs to the drinking: Bill in "that bitter morass of self-pity" (p. 8), and "the chilling vapor that is loneliness" of the last days of drinking (p. 151). In the Akron hotel lobby, Bill thought that without a few drinks he might "have a lonely week-end" (p. 154); what he did was phone a clergyman to find another alcoholic (p. 154). Chapter 7 promises the helper the chance "to watch loneliness vanish" (p. 89).

**Tired.** Step Eleven's practice of pausing through the day ends: "We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly" (p. 88). Chapter 10 warns employers that a newly sober man "may overdo" and may need his sixteen-hour days curbed (p. 146). And there is the chocolate "at times of fatigue" (p. 134).

## What the book puts at the centre

Chapter 3 is the book's study of "the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking" (p. 35). Its examples don't fit a list of moods:

- Jim was a little irritated and hungry (p. 36), but the book's point is that "parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink" (p. 37).
- Fred had no trigger at all. "Physically, I felt fine. Neither did I have any pressing problems or worries." (p. 41). It was "the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon" (p. 41), and he ordered a cocktail without thinking of the consequences (p. 41).

The chapter's conclusion: "The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink." (p. 43), and "His defense must come from a Higher Power." (p. 43). Chapter 2 says the same: "We are without defense against the first drink." (p. 24).

So the book does want the alcoholic watching for resentment, fear, selfishness and dishonesty, every day (pp. 84, 86), and it takes anger very seriously. But it doesn't rest safety on noticing moods or meeting physical needs. A list like HALT can be sensible advice; the Big Book's own answer to the first drink is a spiritual one, kept up daily (pp. 84–85). See: *Is the definition of insanity in the Big Book?*

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (pp. 30–43): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (resentment, pp. 64–67): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (p. 88): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 9, "The Family Afterward" (pp. 133–135): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt9.pdf
- Chapter 10, "To Employers" (pp. 145–146): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt10.pdf
- Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" (pp. 151–154): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| All our sources (searched): Big Book, pamphlets, history, stories, service | — | various |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapters 1–3, 5–7, 9–11 | 1, 8, 24, 35–43, 64–66, 84–89, 133–135, 145–146, 151–154 | 1939 |
| "The Missing Link," Part II (ordinary use of "halt") | 283 | fourth edition (2001) |

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.*