# Is "stinking thinking" in the Big Book?

**In short:**
- No. "Stinking thinking" isn't in the Big Book or anywhere else in our sources. Where "stinking" appears at all, it is the ordinary word, in members' stories ("stinking drunk," [p. 283](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-283/)).
- The program text has its own words for the alcoholic's wrong thinking, and they point at two things. One is the thinking that leads to the first drink: "some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink" ([p. 37](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-37/)), "the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree" ([p. 92](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-92/)). The other is thinking run by self: "Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles." ([p. 62](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-62/)).
- The text also says some of the twisted thinking comes from alcohol itself and takes time to clear: "nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling" ([p. 133](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-133/)). For the sober member's day-to-day thinking, its practice is to ask God each morning to direct it ([p. 86](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-86/)).

## What the search found

All our sources were searched for "stinking thinking," "stinkin' thinkin'," "stinking think," "thinkin'" and "stinking," with page breaks joined. The phrase isn't there. "Stinking" turns up four times, always in its everyday sense: a story's "stinking drunk" ([p. 283](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-283/)), another's "naked and stinking" ([p. 484](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-484/)), "stinking penitents" in Bill's account of a revival meeting (*Pass It On*, 1984), and a story in *Experience, Strength and Hope* (2003).

## The book's words for the thinking before the first drink

Chapter 3 sets out to answer one question: "What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?" ([p. 35](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-35/)). Its answers:

- Jim's idea that whiskey mixed with milk couldn't hurt him: "Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity." ([p. 37](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-37/)).
- And not only Jim: "this kind of thinking has been characteristic of every single one of us" ([p. 37](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-37/)). Alongside sound reasoning there "inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink" ([p. 37](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-37/)).
- Fred, repeating what the members had told him, speaks of "the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink" ([p. 40](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-40/)), and after his relapse of "those strange mental blank spots" ([p. 42](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-42/)).
- Chapter 2 describes the inner talk itself ("It won't burn me this time, so here's how!" [p. 24](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-24/)) and warns: "When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid" ([p. 24](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-24/)).
- Bill calls it "the insidious insanity of that first drink" ([p. 8](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-8/)), and Chapter 7 tells the helper to show the newcomer "the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree" ([p. 92](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-92/)).

See: *Is "it's not a drinking problem, it's a thinking problem" in the Big Book?*

## The book's words for thinking run by self

Chapter 5 traces the trouble deeper than the drink, to self:

- The actor who wants to run the whole show becomes "angry, indignant, self-pitying" when it doesn't come off ([p. 61](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-61/)).
- "Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate." ([p. 62](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-62/)). The alcoholic is "an extreme example of self-will run riot" ([p. 62](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-62/)).
- Resentment is the "number one" offender ([p. 64](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-64/)), and the book ties it directly to drinking again: "For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again." ([p. 66](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-66/)).
- Fear is "an evil and corroding thread" ([p. 67](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-67/)).

Chapter 4 also names one "sort of thinking" outright. It is the doubter's touchiness about anything spiritual, "obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice" ([p. 48](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-48/)): "This sort of thinking had to be abandoned." ([p. 48](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-48/)).

## Thinking that alcohol caused

The book doesn't put all of it down to character. Chapter 10 asks an employer whether he can see that his drinking employee "has been a victim of crooked thinking, directly caused by the action of alcohol on his brain" ([p. 140](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-140/)). Chapter 9 warns the family that recovery takes time: "A body badly burned by alcohol does not often recover overnight nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling." ([p. 133](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-133/)). It adds that a spiritual mode of living is "a most powerful health restorative" ([p. 133](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-133/)), and that the help of doctors and psychiatrists is not to be belittled ([p. 133](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-133/)).

## What the book does about thinking

It doesn't tell the reader to stop thinking. It tells him to have his thinking directed and cleaned up:

- Bill: "I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within." ([p. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/)).
- Step Ten: "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear." ([p. 84](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)), and when these crop up, ask God at once to remove them ([p. 84](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)).
- Step Eleven: on waking, "we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives" ([p. 86](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-86/)). "Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives." ([p. 86](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-86/)). Through the day, when agitated or doubtful, we "ask for the right thought or action" ([p. 87](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-87/)).

In the Step Ten passage on staying sober, the warning isn't about a kind of thinking but about letting up on the spiritual program (Chapter 3's "mental states that precede a relapse," [p. 35](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-35/), are the first-drink thinking above): "It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe." ([p. 85](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-85/)).

## What this means

"Stinking thinking" is a later saying. The thing it points at is in the book, under other names: the insane thinking before the first drink ([pp. 24](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-24/), 35–43), and thinking driven by selfishness, resentment, self-pity and fear ([pp. 61–68](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-61/)). The book treats the first as something no human defense can be relied on to stop ([p. 43](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-43/)), and the second as something to be watched for daily and given to God ([pp. 84–87](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)). See: *Is "your best thinking got you here" in the Big Book?*

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" ([pp. 35–43](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-35/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" ([pp. 60–68](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-60/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (Steps Ten and Eleven, [pp. 84–88](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 9, "The Family Afterward" ([p. 133](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-133/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt9.pdf
- Chapter 10, "To Employers" ([p. 140](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-140/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt10.pdf
- The full Big Book and *Pass It On*: https://onlineliterature.aa.org

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| All our sources (searched): Big Book, pamphlets, history, stories, service | — | various |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapters 1–7, 9–10 | 8, 13, 24, 35–43, 48, 60–68, 84–87, 92, 133, 140 | 1939 |
| Personal stories, Parts II and III (ordinary use of "stinking") | 283, 484 | fourth edition (2001) |
| *Pass It On* (ordinary use of "stinking") | — | 1984 |

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