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Is "sick and tired of being sick and tired" in the Big Book?

In short:

  • No. The saying isn't in the Big Book or anywhere else in our sources; neither is "sick and tired."
  • The program text does describe the state people mean by it, in its own words: Bill's "loneliness and despair" in "that bitter morass of self-pity" (p. 8), and the alcoholic who came "to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it" (p. 25).
  • But it says that being fed up, and even wanting badly to stop, isn't enough by itself: the alcoholic reaches a state "where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail" (p. 24). Bill's own despair didn't keep him sober: "Fear sobered me for a bit," and then he drank again (p. 8). What the book offers the despairing man is a spiritual solution (pp. 25, 43).

What the search found

All our sources were searched for "sick and tired," "sick and tired of," "tired of being," "sick of being," "tired of," "tired of it," "sick of," "fed up," "had enough" and "sick unto," with page breaks joined. Neither the saying nor "sick and tired" is there. The nearest is in a fourth-edition story, "Window of Opportunity": six months sober and miserable, the writer says "I was miserable, and I was sick of it. I decided I had had enough." (p. 428). That was a sober member's despair, not a drinker's, and what changed things was being honest with another member at a meeting (p. 428). It is one member's story, not program text.

Bill's despair, in Chapter 1

After his second stay in hospital, Bill's wife was told it would end in heart failure during delirium tremens or a wet brain, perhaps within a year (p. 7). He writes: "No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity." (p. 8). "I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master." (p. 8).

The next lines matter as much: "Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was off again." (p. 8). His despair was real, and it didn't stop him. What changed him came later that month: an old school friend, sober, sitting across his kitchen table (pp. 8–11). Even then, Bill says, "I was shocked, but interested. Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless." (p. 10).

The hopeless state, in Chapter 2

Chapter 2 describes the alcoholic who has lost the power of choice in drink (p. 24):

  • "At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail." (p. 24).
  • "So many want to stop but cannot." (p. 25).
  • Then the turn: "There is a solution." (p. 25). The members took up "the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet" (p. 25) because they "had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it" (p. 25), and were approached by people in whom the problem had been solved (p. 25).
  • "We were in a position where life was becoming impossible" (p. 25), with two alternatives: "One was to go on to the bitter end" (p. 25), "and the other, to accept spiritual help" (p. 25). They chose the second "because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort" (pp. 25–26).

So the chapter agrees that people came to A.A. at the end of their rope. It doesn't say that being at the end of the rope is what gets them sober; it says the despair made them ready for a solution that came from outside them.

Other places the text describes it

  • Chapter 3: "There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it—this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." (p. 34). It adds that early on 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).
  • Chapter 11: the last days of drinking bring "the hideous Four Horsemen—Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair" (p. 151). The dry drinker who can't picture life without alcohol will one day "be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end." (p. 152).
  • The Doctor's Opinion: Dr. Silkworth writes that men have cried out to him, "Doctor, I cannot go on like this!" (p. xxix), and that they emerge from each spree "remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again" (p. xxix), only to repeat it. Unless such a person can "experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery" (p. xxix). See: What is "The Doctor's Opinion," and who wrote it?

How the text uses despair

Despair does have a place in the program text: as something that opens a man to help.

  • To the helper: "Call on him while he is still jittery. He may be more receptive when depressed." (p. 91). "The more hopeless he feels, the better. He will be more likely to follow your suggestions." (p. 94).
  • "You are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer." (p. 96).
  • Of a man not yet interested: you may have to drop him "until he changes his mind. This he may do after he gets hurt some more." (p. 95).
  • And of themselves: "We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men." (p. 28).

What this means

The saying names something the program text knows well: the alcoholic worn out by drinking and wanting to stop. The book uses that despair, and says it can make a man ready to listen (pp. 94, 96). But it says plainly that the wish to stop, however strong, doesn't keep the real alcoholic sober (pp. 24, 34), and Bill's story shows despair giving way to the first drink (p. 8). Its answer is the one in Chapter 3: "His defense must come from a Higher Power." (p. 43). See: Does the Big Book say you have to "hit bottom"?

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
All our sources (searched): Big Book, pamphlets, history, stories, service — various
"The Doctor's Opinion" xxix 1939 (kept intact, p. xi)
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 1–3, 7, 11 7–11, 24–28, 32–34, 43, 91–96, 151–152 1939
"Window of Opportunity," Part II 428 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.

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.