Business Debtors Anonymous

BDA is a distinct and dynamic but not separate part of DA, created to focus on the recovery of members of the fellowship who are self-employed people or business owners. Together, members of BDA support one another in applying the DA principles and tools when owning and running a business. There are particular issues that arise for such people, both in managing their businesses, and in keeping them separate from their home lives. Note that the primary purpose of BDA is to operate businesses without incurring debt, and personal debting issues should be addressed at regular DA meetings

However, as part of DA, there is no separate membership for attending BDA meetings. As it states in our Third Tradition, “the only requirement for DA membership is a desire to stop incurring unsecured debt”. This applies to both professional and personal debt. It is understood that paying bills for goods and services rendered according to agreed upon terms does not constitute debting.

How do you know if you are a compulsively debting business owner? Some of the experiences and behaviours that led to compulsive debting were:

• We neither knew when bills or taxes were due, nor did we remember if and what we had paid or still owed.
• We confused our personal finances with our business finances.
• We often did not know the exact costs of our overhead, operating expenses, or profit margins.
• We had no business plan.
• We lived in a state of deprivation for the sake of our business.
• We under valued and under priced our goods and services.

In B.D.A. we learn to operate our business along spiritual lines and find that operating in integrity and being of service is profitable. We accumulate cash reserves, pay our bills and employees on time. and build a thriving, prosperous, debt-free and financially solvent business.

The meeting list specifies which meetings focus on BDA issues.