“The gifts of Al-Anon are not without a price tag; freedom, for example, can only be achieved by paying the price we call acceptance.” (ODAT, 8 May)
To be strict, acceptance is the prize; but acceptance has a price, and the price is the foregoing of all alternate universes.
One does like to live in those, but they are concomitant with all forms of unhappiness, and all forms of unhappiness are concomitant universes that never existed and never will exist exactly the way one wishes them to exist.
Once one sees the benefits of acceptance, namely complete freedom, then the price appears to be less a price and more the relief of an awful burden.