Hi, my name is Irma and I am an alcoholic from Vilnius, Lithuania. My home group is the “Young People in AA” group which meets Fridays at 7:30 PM. It is a bilingual group (sometimes even trilingual) and we go to fellowship afterward. I came into the rooms when I was 23 years old and my life never been the same since. I’ve lived in 3 countries and the safest places always were my home group.
When I came into the rooms, I was not sure what was wrong with me that I came without a career or family to AA. I was not sure why I was such a loser, as everyone else there had families, proper jobs and money . . . at least for a period of time. I felt that if there was a bottom, that I was way beyond it because I could not hold a job, I was far away from married, etc.
A big part of my recovery was “copy what others do”. YPAA conventions were a great place to copy (good and bad things, but it was life lessons). This is how I started sober dancing in AA. There I met a lot of people who listened to the same kind of music that I did, they watched the same movies that I did and they were very passionate about recovery and AA. The most memorable moment I had was most of us (Eurypaa gang, ICYPAA gang and etc) meeting in Atlanta for the AA World Convention. I lived in the US at the time and I got to meet some European YPAA friends after 5-6 years. It was the moment where I felt that it doesn’t matter how life goes – we are all here to recover – even if it’s not easy sometimes. I felt that my HP was really working.
Irma P.
CER Young People’s Liaison Officer
