Which Prospects Deserve Them

A group that starts paying for members' treatment has gone into business, and the business soon starts choosing among drunks. A newcomer can't afford a detox bed, so the group passes a second basket and covers it. It works once. By spring there is a fund, a treasurer for it, and business meetings that run an hour over arguing whose bill to pay. One man paid his back and two didn't. Somebody asks whether a man on his third slip should get it again. Bill W. saw it across the groups (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 15): "practically all group schemes to finance or guarantee hospital bills for fellow members have failed also. Not only do many such loans go unpaid, there is always the controversial question in the group as to which prospects deserve them in the first place." A prospect is a drunk who might join. A room open to any drunk is now sorting drunks by who is worth the money. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 564): "An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business." Lending money is a business, and so is buying beds. A member's own wallet is his affair; the group's treasury is for the message. Test it tonight: ask what your group's money paid for this year, and whether any of it was a judgment on a person.