It Is Going to Take Millions

Tradition Six answered a threat from inside: A.A. wanting to become what the treatment industry is now. Bill W. remembered the argument over money (A.A. Comes of Age). One side said: "One alcoholic carries the message to another. Let's keep it that simple and stay out of money trouble." The other side said: "We need hospitals, paid therapists, traveling lecturers, rehabilitation centers, and heaven knows what else. It is going to take millions." And where would the millions come from? "Well, we will get it from the public, just as most other good works do." Read that list again: hospitals, paid therapists, rehabilitation centers. If that side had won, A.A. would own buildings, carry a payroll and answer to donors, and the free drunk at the door would have become a cost. The short form keeps the reason in its last words (Big Book, p. 562): "lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose." Prestige means standing in other people's eyes. The Traditions kept the groups on the simple side and put the hospitals well outside A.A. Today the second list exists, fully built, outside A.A., and it often wants A.A.'s rooms inside it. Test it tonight: ask whether anything your group does would need more money than the basket brings in, and who would be paying for the rest.