Included in the Price

A.A. looked at owning treatment beds and refused, in writing. Bill W. put it plainly (A.A. pamphlet P-17): "Years ago we used to think A.A. should have its own hospitals, rest homes and farms. Nowadays we are equally convinced we should have nothing of the sort." Care belongs to doctors; A.A. keeps nothing it could sell. But refusing to own beds did not stop the beds from selling A.A. A facility charges tens of thousands for a stay, and part of what is inside is A.A. itself: the meeting on the schedule, the chairs in a circle, the Steps on the wall — the same thing your town holds for free every night of the week. The invoice never says A.A. It does not have to. Everything inside the walls is included in the price. And hold on to this rule, because it works in every country and under every system: if someone is being paid, then someone is paying. The drunk, his family, an insurer, or every taxpayer at once — even when nobody sees a bill, recovery money is buying what A.A. gives away. So the man discharged after thirty days has learned the price of a meeting, and it is not a dollar. He was sold a free thing. A.A. never saw a cent, and never wanted one.