Times are tough and many of us don't have extra money, even for something as important as recovery books. Most meetings will have extra copies they will give you until you can pay for them, but you can also download a free PDF copy of both the Big Book and the 12 & 12 at
Alcoholics Anonymous :.
The only down side to it is it's copy protected, so you cant' print a copy. But you can download it and view it on your computer. One nice thing about that is you can make the print as big as you want!! You can also search by chapters and other means. Just thought I'd put it out there for any newbies that didn't know. Take care.