San Diego, Philadelphia and New York · 1946–1958
Young alcoholics told they were too young started groups of their own, and in 1958 a conference.
“We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere. But try and get them to see it!”
The first Big Book knew a few young drunks. Several of the early members, it said, were “men of thirty-five or less” who had been drinking only a few years and were as helpless as the old hands. But most of AA’s first members were middle-aged, and the young ones were “regarded almost as curiosities,” as a history written for AA’s office put it. A young newcomer might be told he was too young to be an alcoholic, and to go out and do some more drinking.
In January 1946 six members in Philadelphia started a group for “men and women, 35 years of age and under.” It took four months sober to vote. By the time one of them wrote to the Grapevine, AA’s magazine, that November, it had about thirty members, and he asked other groups what they thought. “Most young people have not been hurt badly enough or often enough, so they think,” he wrote, to feel they needed AA.
That Halloween a Young Men’s Group, for men under forty, held its first meeting in San Diego, with six young men and twenty older members on hand. The older men, the “old goats,” kept coming for three months, until the meeting grew so large it had to be split. Left on their own, the young men did it their way: round-table meetings, and no applause for the speakers. In the older groups, one of them wrote, they had got “the feeling we couldn’t make the Program because we hadn’t been knocked around enough.”
New York’s Thirty-Five and Under Group began in 1947 with “a mere handful” and had 75 to 100 members three years later. Not every older member approved. In some places young people’s groups were left out of the local service structure because they were “not A.A.”
In April 1958, members from Buffalo and Toronto held the first international conference of young people in AA, at the Hotel Niagara in Niagara Falls, New York. About thirty-six young people’s groups were registered with AA’s office by then. Fewer than a hundred people came, and some called the conference a splinter group.
It’s Halloween, 1946, in San Diego. Six young men sit down for the first meeting of a group of their own. In the older groups, they’ve felt they couldn’t make the program because they hadn’t been knocked around enough. Twenty older members come too, and keep coming for three months, until the meeting is so big it has to split.
Then they do it their way: round-table meetings, and no applause for the speakers. Philadelphia already has a group for members thirty-five and under, and New York will have one the next year. Not everyone approves. Some older members say these groups aren’t really AA.
But by 1958 there are more than thirty young people’s groups, and their members meet at Niagara Falls for a conference of their own.
One group at a time
What the early groups for young members were like, as their own members described them in the Grapevine.
From letters and reports in the Grapevine, 1946–1961, AA’s newsletter Box 4-5-9, and the history Bob P. wrote for AA’s office in 1985. Groups in Los Angeles and Cleveland are sometimes dated as early as 1945; no account of them has turned up.
January 1946 · Philadelphia
Men and women 35 and under, six of them at the start. Four months sober to vote. They thought they were trailblazers, until visitors told them it had been tried before, “although with very little success.”
About thirty by November
B.D.Mc., Grapevine, November 1946
October 31, 1946 · San Diego
Men under forty. Its one rule that was never bent: “NO WOMEN.” Round tables and no applause. A Young Women’s Group, for women under thirty-five, met separately.
About fifty by 1948
W.B.A., Grapevine, May 1948
1947 · New York
It grew from “a mere handful” to 75 or 100. It urged its young members to go to older groups’ meetings as well, for “a more rounded and stabilized type of thinking.”
Both kinds of meeting
I.B., Grapevine, July 1950
1948–1958 · Boston
Boston’s young people’s group decided to disband after ten years. When it started there had been “a definite need” for it. “Today, young people are well represented in most groups.”
No longer needed
Roy L., Grapevine, June 1958
April 1958 · Niagara Falls
Members from Buffalo and Toronto organized it, at the Hotel Niagara, with the theme “Youth Finds Serenity.” AA’s newsletter expected “a sizeable number” of the thirty-six or so young people’s groups to be represented.
Fewer than a hundred came
Box 4-5-9, March 1958 and April–May 2008; Bob P., 1985
1961 · A look back
Looking back on the youth groups, a Grapevine writer found that some young groups had “turned into social clubs, or other Traditions were broken, and groups died.” Others thrived. One central office secretary called them “the lifesavers of AA in our area.”
Some died, some thrived
B.L., Grapevine, September 1961
For a closer look
How the Big Book’s young men got younger; whether the young people’s groups were really AA; and how many young members AA has had since.
In the 1939 Big Book, the young members who were as helpless as the old hands were “men of thirty-five or less.” By the fourth edition they are “men of thirty or less.”
By the 1940s, Bill W. wrote, “younger folks began to appear,” along with people who still had jobs and homes. AA began “to develop a conscious technique of ‘raising the bottom’ and hitting them with it.”
The Big Book’s third edition, in 1976, reported that seven percent of the members AA had surveyed were under 30, “among them, many in their teens.”
Older members had their doubts. Bob P.’s history for AA’s office records one remark: “I’ve spilled more booze than that young punk has drunk.” Young people’s groups were “often regarded with suspicion by older groups,” it says, and some were kept out of the local service structure.
The young members had their reasons. The New York group’s writer valued “the lack of any taint of ‘Preaching,’ ‘Parental-Counselling,’ or ‘Scholastic Pedanticism.’” In 1961 one young woman said that in her group she didn’t have to compare her drinking with members who reminisced “about bathtub gin or speakeasies.”
The first conference fared no better at first. It “was immediately accused of being some kind of non-affiliated splinter group,” the 1985 history says. The Third Tradition, that the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, has its own history of who was kept out (A mile long, in Rule 62).
AA has surveyed its members in the U.S. and Canada every few years since 1968. Members 30 or younger made up 7.1 percent in 1968 and 7.6 percent in 1974. In 1977 they were 11.3 percent, “an increase of over 50%.”
By 1986 the share was 21 percent, and AA’s newsletter judged it “almost stationary.” Since then it has fallen. In the 2022 survey, 0.2 percent of members were under 21 and 9 percent were 21 to 30; the average member was 52.
The surveys don’t say why. AA’s pamphlet Young People and A.A. and a pamphlet for teenagers drawn like a graphic novel, Too Young?, are still in print.