Five Dollars at the Door

A group that charges at the door has made membership depend on money, however good its reason, and the Long Form rules that out in plain words. The rent goes up. The basket has been thin for months. At the business meeting someone proposes a simple fix: five dollars at the door, waived for anyone who really can't pay. It sounds fair, and it passes. Now picture the man on his first night with nothing in his pockets, who has to say so to a stranger with a cash box before he gets a chair. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563): "Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity." The rent is real, and A.A. never pretended otherwise. When the money question got a hard look at the 1955 convention, Bill W. reported (A.A. Comes of Age): "There was complete unanimity that through voluntary contributions the legitimate bills of groups, areas, and A.A. as a whole must be paid or we could not properly carry our message." Voluntary contributions pay the bills. The principle Bill names in the same passage is "no compulsory fees or dues." The answer to a thin basket is to tell the members, not to charge the drunk. Test it tonight: ask whether someone could sit in your meeting for a year without paying a cent, and be just as much a member.