What’s the Money For?

Registration for the World Services Conference’s in-person fees includes meals and pays for our minimum obligations to the hotel of around $5,000-6,000 for meeting room rentals. The registration fee for worldwide online conference participants covers the expense involved in producing a hybrid conference with the myriad of cameras, microphones, mixers, displays and other technology needed.

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 depend on our members’ contributions to run meetings, maintain a website, keep up communications in a worldwide fellowship, hire an office manager and publish literature.

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.

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 $10, a pack a day costs around $3,650 a year. You could attend 20 conferences a year, or nearly one every two weeks for the registration cost of this one conference.

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.” Together we change.

In Loving Service, the NicA World Services Conference Planning Committee