What YPAA means
ITALYPAA stands for Italian YPAA, and YPAA means Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous. By “young” we mean everyone who is willing to grow: alcoholism has no barriers, age included. ITALYPAA is an AA event whose sole primary purpose is to carry the AA message.
These events share the same kind of name all over the world. In Europe there are, among others, SCANCYPAA (Scandinavia), IREYPAA (Ireland), UKYPAA (United Kingdom) and the well-known EURYPAA, the European convention, which was held in Rome in 2015 and then in Vilnius (2018), Barcelona (2019), Warsaw (2022), Berlin (2023), Ljubljana (2024) and Glasgow (2025). Like ITALYPAA and every YPAA convention, it moves to a different city each year, wherever the local AA community invites it to bring its experience, strength and hope.
A story that began in 1945
Around 1945 the first YPAA groups began to form in Los Angeles, Cleveland and Philadelphia; today they exist all over the world, Europe included (Sweden, England, Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania). In 1958 a gathering of young AA members from the United States and Canada became what is now ICYPAA, the International Conference of Young People in AA, held every year since.
At the 1960 convention Bill W. noted that new members were much younger than when he and Dr. Bob had founded AA twenty-five years earlier. In 1969 he wrote to the 12th ICYPAA in Philadelphia:
“…in recent years I have found nothing for greater inspiration than the knowledge that A.A. of tomorrow will be safe, and certainly magnificent, in the keeping of you who are the younger generation of A.A. today.”
YPAA groups are no different from other AA groups, and they carry AA’s fundamental message according to the Responsibility Declaration:
I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.
Young people in AA
Young in age and young at heart, because alcoholism has no barriers, age included. Anyone can get sober, recover and be a vital part of AA as a whole.
The illustrated Third Tradition in our Conference-approved literature explains that “a group, or a group of groups, may always be formed having a ‘special interest’, whose members are either young people, or all men or all women, or clergy, or belonging to any particular category whatsoever.”
The number of people who suffer from alcoholism and seek help in AA, especially among the young, keeps growing. ITALYPAA is, and will remain, committed to carrying AA’s message of recovery to alcoholics of every age.
ITALYPAA and AA Italy
ITALYPAA was born after EURYPAA Rome 2015, where some Italian alcoholics, young in age or at heart, met and discovered a shared wish to create a similar event in Italy. The first convention took place in Milan in April 2016, and every year since then young AA members have gathered to carry the message and celebrate their sobriety.
At the AA Italy General Service Conference of April 2026, ITALYPAA officially became part of AA Italy.
The convention is organised by Alcoholics Anonymous members living in Italy, often also in service within AA Italy, to celebrate the sobriety of members young in age and at heart who take on service roles in respect of AA’s Traditions and Concepts. It is a bilingual convention, in Italian and English, giving AA members in Italy and abroad the opportunity to come together in harmony and share their experience, strength and hope.
In a spirit of cooperation with AA as a whole, ITALYPAA is living proof that sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous is possible at any age. The Responsibility Declaration and AA’s three legacies, Recovery, Unity and Service, guide ITALYPAA gatherings just as they guide every other AA group and event. ITALYPAA cooperates with the groups and service structure of the Areas where it is held and contributes to the General Service Office; its participants are often in service in their home groups too. All AA members are welcome.
The letters
To my younger friends in A.A.
On this occasion of your 12th International Conference, please have my warmest greetings and congratulations.
Besides, I want every one of you to know that in recent years I have found nothing for greater inspiration than the knowledge that A.A. of tomorrow will be safe, and certainly magnificent, in the keeping of you who are the younger generation of A.A. today.
With great affection for you all — and may God bless you, and A.A., forever.
Always devotedly, Bill
Bill W.’s words, together with more than sixty years of YPAA history around the world, reassure us that ITALYPAA continues, and will continue, to carry the life-giving message of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Dear Michela, I am sorry that another AA commitment will keep me from attending your convention this year. I look forward to rotating in service so that I can attend more AA events, and ITALYPAA is on my wish list.
As you know, I was very active in the International Conference of Young People in AA, serving on the Host committee and on the Advisory committee. Learning our Traditions and Concepts on that committee is what led me to continue in General Service. After being part of ICYPAA for many years, I learned that it does not separate me from AA; rather, it teaches me a great deal about the Unity our Traditions speak of. Without ICYPAA I would not be a trustee today.
Congratulations on your convention, and please greet your committee for me.
With love and in AA service, Billy N.
General Service Trustee, chair of the World Services Committee
Advisory and Host
- Advisory Committee (Advisory Board)
- The service committee that acts as guardian of the convention. Its servants serve five-year terms and come from the Host committees of previous years: with their experience they support each new Host committee and, during the convention, vote on the next host city.
- Host Committee
- The committee in the host city that organises the convention. A new one forms every year, organises all the services of that year’s event and ends its term when the convention ends. Before rotating out, it elects three of its members to join the Advisory Committee, using the Third Legacy Procedure.