ASCYPAA is the Arizona State Conference of Young People in AA.

There are YPAA - or young people's - groups all throughout the country. We define young as anyone with room for spiritual growth, so thats everyone! People in the AA community form a committee and put on these conferences. It travels from city to city within the state. The National Conference travels from state to state throughout the US.

I went to my first ASCYPAA when I had 7 months sober. We had it here in Tucson and I was on the host committee. There is so much energy at these conferences!!! They have marathon meetings and dances and games. At the main meeting on Saturday night they have a speaker who got sober young and now has a bunch of time.

Before that, they do a sobriety countdown. So they find the person or persons with the most sobriety and then find the newest newcomers. The crowd cheers for the newcomers and there's a presentation of a big book that has been signed by everyone at the conference. The energy and love for sobriety is amazing!!!

They do a roll call too, calling off cities and you stand up and cheer when your city is called. I've been to 3 of these conferences, two in AZ and one in California. They truly helped me fall in love with sobriety when I saw how much other young people had so much fun in sobriety.

So today I'm taking the girl I sponsor to Phoenix for the main meeting of this years ASCYPAA. She is sooo excited and I'm very excited for her!!! It's gonna be so amazing!!!!