What’s the Money For?

Our Seventh Tradition states: “Every Nicotine Anonymous group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.” By not receiving any outside contributions, this ensures we are free to seek recovery our way instead of someone else’s.

This tradition refers to all NicA activities too, not just group expenses. It costs money to hold a conference, retreat, or convention. We need money to run meetings, maintain a website, keep upcommunications in a worldwide fellowship, hire an office manager and publish literature.

Registration for the 2024 World Services Conference in Asheville, North Carolina is $150 in person and $75 online. The in-person charge includes meals and pays for our minimum obligations to the Holiday Inn of more than $5,450. The registration fee for worldwide online conference participants is higher than in the last few years but is expected to finally cover the expense involved in producing a hybrid conference.

For too long, we paid for our dependence on nicotine with our money, our health and our self-esteem. In some cases, our life. Our lives were not our own. One way we start to recover from this degradation is by applying the principle of self-support: We pay our own way. Self-support helps restore our personal dignity and freedom.

And though the only requirement for Nicotine Anonymous membership is a desire to stop using nicotine, many privileges come with it. And with privileges come responsibilities. One of the greatest of these is the privilege and the responsibility of paying our own way—to help NicA be self-supporting. We also have the privilege of being able to reach out to others with the same help that was offered us.

Before we quit nicotine, we didn’t hesitate to drop money on a pack of smokes, a new vape cartridge or a pouch of tobacco, no matter how much it cost. As an example, if the average price of a pack of cigarettes in the United States is $8, a pack a day costs $2,920 a year. You could go to 19.5 conferences a year, or nearly one every two weeks at $150.

If we don’t pull together to keep Nicotine Anonymous alive and working, nobody else will do it for us. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Each of us needs to do our part to support the fellowship that supports our recovery—with our treasures, time and talents. As our First Tradition tells us, “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on Nicotine Anonymous unity.”

In Loving Service, the “Nothin’ could be finer…” 2024 WSC Conference Planning Committee