Panel Meeting: We Are Not The Future - YPAA

Panel Meeting: We Are Not The Future - YPAA

What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This Young People in AA (YPAA) panel shows that age doesn’t disqualify anyone from Alcoholics Anonymous — it just changes the details. Recorded at the Aniston Young Peoples Mini Roundup in 2012, this panel features several young alcoholics sharing what it was like to come into rooms filled with people old enough to be their parents or grandparents, and why that didn’t stop them staying.

One speaker remembers arriving at 16 to a room of much older members and thinking, "Am I supposed to be here?" That fear was answered with simple kindness: they were treated "genuinely like a member of Alcoholics Anonymous," not a curiosity. Rashad, who got sober at 22, explains how crucial that attitude was.

He describes being the youngest person in the meeting by 20 years, yet the men "made no reference to age" and spoke to him as an equal, staying up with him until 1 a.m. so he didn’t have to sit alone with his restless mind. Later, a small group of serious young members formed their own tight-knit fellowship, hanging out after meetings, going bowling and, most importantly, staying sober and sponsoring others.

The panel keeps circling back to service: group consciences, starting meetings, taking positions, and learning that you don’t need decades of sobriety or a fancy CV to be useful. As one speaker puts it, if you’ve got two days sober and someone has one, "you have an hour more, a minute more than them" — and that’s enough to offer help.

This episode is especially helpful if you’re young, unsure whether you "qualify", or worried you won’t fit in with older members. It’s also a gentle nudge to long-timers: are young people being welcomed as full members today, or treated like they’re just "the future"?