First things first! Let’s please be clear that our workshops and related recovery activities are not DA or BDA meetings, so we are not listed on the meeting list at https://debtorsanonymous.org/meeting-search-virtual/. Our workshops, After Parties, and Fellowship Drop-ins are all elements of a single interrelated recovery event, with an emphasis on generosity and reciprocity, especially related to contributions to our fund for provision of free — to recipients, purchased from our group treasury — DA and BDA literature for requestors. The conference spans six months, with a single conference host for all activities, and with a speaker for each workshop, usually in paired workshops.

We are simply a small group of solvent, recovering BDA members practicing the DA and BDA program principles, tools, and promises. We are BDA members helping BDA members … and DA members too. Through the 7th Tradition contributions received from our conference participants, and directly from fellow members, we’ve been able to serve DA and BDA members globally with our literature service for several years. Since 2020, we have happily provided free literature to more than 1,800 requestors from every continent except Antarctica. We like to think there’s been a positive effect from our service. Visit https://www.bdaworkshops.org/free-literature to request free literature.

Unfortunately, our received 7th Tradition contributions, both direct and at the time of registration for our six-month conference, decreased so significantly in 2024 that we needed to make our literature service US-only beginning January 1, 2025. The exception to this new service limitation is non-US debtors who register for the conference. We will continue to ensure that those debtors have access to conference-approved literature.

Over the past five years, we’ve heard concerns that we might be breaking the 7th Tradition because we ask for generous contributions as debtors register for our six-month recovery conferences which, again, are not DA or BDA meetings, but which are closed to non-debtors. We’d like to think these events, like most recovery conferences, are MUCH MORE than meetings. We do not ask for weekly contributions during the conference. 

Here’s our truth: We spend approximately $800 per month purchasing and shipping conference-approved literature to debtors who request it. Conference contributions at the time of registration are our primary funding source for that service with secondary funding coming from direct contributions from gratefully solvent debtors and occasional contributions from DA and BDA groups. Our experience is that immediate practice of generosity and reciprocity in this program has changed our lives and opened us to receiving in ways that we never could before. Please join us in these practices. 

Additionally, we are embarrassed by our fellow members who refuse to contribute despite months or years of recovery in this program, and we do not support that stinginess and ingratitude, although we do offer one-time scholarships. Otherwise, we ask everyone to contribute SOMETHING, and we suggest $60 to $180 for six months, where every $30 buys a set of conference-approved books for someone who requests them (or sometimes for public information outreach). Our steering committee members each contribute $250 to $500 per six-month cycle.

We love helping compulsive debtors, especially business owners, to get and stay solvent and to take the 12 Steps. Please feel free to share this information with other debtors.