MNYPAA, Minnesota Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous held a convention this past weekend April 10-12th at a Holiday Inn in St. Paul. MNYPAA is an annual conference held for any and all members of AA, and is organized primarily by young, recovering alcoholics. They define young as “young at heart”.
This was my first time at such a convention and am already excited to attend the next one. StepUP pre-registered fifteen students to attend. As we car pooled over there I had no idea what to expect. Over a quarter of the StepUP population attended the conference and as a handful of us entered the Holiday Inn (pictured on the right) there was music bumping and we started to dance. There were hundreds of recovering alcoholics attending and I felt right at home.
The energy during this event was something I have never experienced in recovery. People were chanting and jumping up and down celebrating sobriety time. It was the perfect spiritual experience StepUP students needed with finals coming up. It was beautiful to witness students reconnecting with friends they have not seen in quite some time.
The event held marathon meetings, speaker meetings, and dances on Friday and Saturday night. There was even a rap battle that took place late Saturday afternoon. I was happy to see a former StepUP student winning the rap battle. There was a wide variety of sobriety time from a few days to over thirty years.
I was grateful to be a part of something larger than myself. It is always a great reminder to see how large the recovery community is, especially within the youth. YPAA does conferences all over America and a handful of the attendance was from out of state. With only a few weeks left of the school year I feel much more grounded and humbled by my experience at MNYPAA.
-Blake Halvorson