Is "it's not a drinking problem, it's a thinking problem" in the Big Book?
In short:
- The saying isn't in the Big Book or anywhere else in our sources.
- Half of it is close to the text. The program says plainly: "Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body." (p. 23), and "Our liquor was but a symptom." (p. 64).
- The other half isn't. The book never says it isn't a drinking problem. It keeps a physical side in the picture ("the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind," p. xxvi), and it puts the root of the trouble deeper than thinking: in selfishness, and in a spiritual sickness whose overcoming, it says, straightens out mind and body (pp. 62, 64).
What the search found
All our sources were searched for "thinking problem," "drinking problem," "stinking thinking" and "problem of the mind," with page breaks joined. "Thinking problem" appears nowhere. "Drinking problem" appears in the program text only in ordinary use, such as a book meant for "anyone concerned with a drinking problem" (p. 19). One fourth-edition story, "Flooded With Feeling," has a near-cousin: the writer once joked of not having a drinking problem but "a stopping problem" (p. 372), and later saw "I had a starting problem too" (p. 372).
Where the text is close to the saying
Chapter 2 asks why the alcoholic takes the first drink when he knows what follows (p. 22). It answers that the body's reaction would be beside the point if he never took that drink: "Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body." (p. 23). Ask him why he started his last bender and he'll give one of a hundred alibis, or admit he doesn't know (p. 23).
Other passages point the same way: - "Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions." (p. 64). - "Bottles were only a symbol." (p. 103). - Chapter 3 is a study of "the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking" (p. 35), the "curious mental phenomenon" of an insanely trivial excuse beating sound reasoning (p. 37).
So a reader who says "the Big Book says the main problem is in the mind" is quoting it fairly, as long as he reads p. 23 with the page before it: what's "in his mind" there is the first drink.
Where the text parts company with the saying
The body is in the picture too. The same paragraph that puts the main problem in the mind starts from the body: "once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop" (pp. 22–23). The writers introduce Dr. Silkworth's longer statement as confirming "that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind" (p. xxvi), and say "any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete" (p. xxvi). Silkworth himself: "I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control." (p. xxix). Some of his patients "were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control" (p. xxx). See: What is "The Doctor's Opinion," and who wrote it?
It is a drinking problem. The book's opening claim about its members is "They have solved the drink problem." (p. 17). Step One is about being powerless over alcohol (p. 59). The only relief Silkworth knew was "entire abstinence" (p. xxx).
The root is not "thinking" but self, and the cure is spiritual. "Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles." (p. 62). And in the inventory: "we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick" (p. 64). "When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically." (p. 64). Chapter 4's opening says the alcoholic may be suffering from an illness "which only a spiritual experience will conquer" (p. 44).
What this means
The book's picture has three parts: a body that reacts abnormally once alcohol is in it, a mind that can't hold out against the first drink, and a spiritual sickness rooted in self that the program sets out to cure. The saying keeps the middle part and drops the other two. Where it says "not a drinking problem," the text disagrees: drinking is the problem the book was written to solve, and where liquor is called a symptom, the causes the book goes on to name are self, resentment and fear (pp. 62–68), not thinking as such. See: What does the Big Book mean by alcoholism as an illness?
Read it yourself
- "The Doctor's Opinion" (pp. xxv–xxxii): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_foreworddoctorsopinion.pdf
- Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" (pp. 22–24): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt2.pdf
- Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (pp. 35–43): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 62–64): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| All our sources (searched) | — | various |
| "The Doctor's Opinion" | xxvi–xxx | 1939 (kept intact, p. xi) |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 2–5, 7 | 17–23, 35–37, 44, 59–64, 103 | 1939 |
| "Flooded With Feeling," Part II | 372 | 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.