What is the "pink cloud"? Is it in the Big Book?
In short:
- The phrase "pink cloud" isn't in the Big Book's 1939 program text, pages 1 to 164. It appears in two personal stories in the fourth edition (pp. 304, 346), both describing a high that came early in sobriety and didn't last.
- Bill W. uses it in A.A. Comes of Age (1957) for his own excitement in 1937: "riding high on pink cloud number 17," when he thought the Rockefellers would fund A.A. They didn't, not on the scale he hoped.
- The fullest description is by a psychiatrist, Dr. Harry Tiebout, at A.A.'s 1955 convention, printed in the same book. He calls it "a logical aftermath of surrender" and says everyone knows the person on it is "doomed for a fall."
- The program text describes something similar in its own words. It warns against resting on your laurels (p. 85), and it tells families that a man's "spiritual intoxication" early on is a phase (pp. 128–129).
What the search found
All our sources were searched for "pink cloud," "cloud" and other wordings such as "honeymoon."
Personal stories (fourth edition): - "Physician, Heal Thyself!" (Part II): three months sober and reading everything spiritual he could find, the writer "floated higher and higher" until he was "way up on a pink cloud, which is known as Pink Seven, and I felt miserable again" (p. 304). A friend told him he'd "been floating way up on a cloud somewhere" and sent him to page 58 of the Big Book, where the word "thoroughly" struck him (p. 305). - "Because I'm an Alcoholic" (Part II): "For a time I floated on that pink cloud. Then I cried for a year, raged for another year" (p. 346).
Bill W., about 1937. After a promising lunch with Willard Richardson, who ran Mr. Rockefeller's private charities, and the promise of a meeting in Mr. Rockefeller's board room, Bill rushed home and phoned Dr. Bob: "We were riding high on pink cloud number 17" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). At the December 1937 meeting the businessmen were moved, but asked, "Won't money spoil this thing?" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Mr. Rockefeller later gave $5,000 and asked not to be asked for more. Bill looks back on it as "very great news" for A.A. that seemed bad at the time, "a shattering blow to our hopes" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
Dr. Harry Tiebout, 1955. At the St. Louis convention, Dr. Tiebout, a psychiatrist who said he had "joined A.A. by proxy in 1939" when a patient of his became a member (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), spoke about the ego. He said perhaps the commonest sign of the ego coming back is "the individual who falls from his pink cloud, a state of mind familiar to you all" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). His explanation, in short: - "The blissful pink cloud state is a logical aftermath of surrender" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The ego stops striving, the person feels peace and release, and "thinks he has found heaven on earth" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). - What brings him down is "the ego slowly making its comeback" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The descent puts him back into ordinary life, where, with A.A.'s help, he can learn to be "a sober person and not an angel" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). - Tiebout said he had ridden the pink cloud himself in his first years with A.A., went through a period of disillusionment, and came out with a stronger faith than anything a pink cloud can supply (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
Tiebout's talk is one doctor's view, given in 1955 and printed in 1957. It is not program text.
What the program text says on the same subject
The 1939 text doesn't use the phrase, but it describes the early high and the danger of trusting it: - Spiritual intoxication. Chapter 9 tells families that a father may come out of a "stirring spiritual experience" as a religious enthusiast who can talk of nothing else (p. 128). The writers say they've been there: "We have indulged in spiritual intoxication" (p. 128). Like a prospector who has struck gold, he may try to hoard it, not seeing that it pays only if he keeps working it and gives it away (pp. 128–129). The book calls this "a phase of his development" that will pass in an understanding family (p. 129). - Resting on laurels. "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" (p. 85). The relief from drinking lasts "so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition" (p. 85). - Not every awakening is sudden. Appendix II (added in 1955) says the first printing left many readers thinking spiritual change had to come as "sudden and spectacular upheavals," and that this is wrong (p. 567). Most change is the slow "educational variety" (p. 567). Bill's own release was sudden, but he writes that "God comes to most men gradually" (p. 14). - The promises come at their own pace. The promises of Chapter 6 come true "sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly" (p. 84).
Read it yourself
- Chapter 9, "The Family Afterward" (pp. 122–135): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt9.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 84–85): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- Personal stories, Part II, with "Physician, Heal Thyself!" and "Because I'm an Alcoholic": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partII.pdf
- A.A. Comes of Age is 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 1, 6, 9 | 14, 84–85, 128–129 | 1939 |
| Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 567 | added in the second edition, 1955 (Preface, p. xi); post-1950 |
| "Physician, Heal Thyself!" and "Because I'm an Alcoholic," Part II | 304–305, 346 | personal stories in the fourth edition (2001) |
| A.A. Comes of Age: Bill W. on the Rockefeller dinner | — | 1957 (describes 1937); after 1950 |
| A.A. Comes of Age: Dr. Harry Tiebout's talk at the St. Louis convention | — | talk 1955, printed 1957; after 1950 |
Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition. The Preface says the personal stories have changed with every edition (pp. xi–xii); our sources have only the fourth edition, so this page doesn't say when these two stories were first printed.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book and A.A. Comes of Age are © 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.