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“If you are a young alcoholic, older members will see you as being different. It doesn’t matter. Don’t let them stop you. It’s your life, not theirs,” writes the author of a letter to Dear Grapevine.

The younger AAs in these pages want you to know they are members of AA—not AA junior, AA lite or Alateen (a valid but different Twelve Step program). And they’ve earned their seats. Their drunkalogs, such as those featured in the previous Chapter, may be slightly different. The drinking careers may be shorter—at least one member here only drank for three years. Many of the younger crew never took a legal drink. But all of this means nothing except that they were hurting bad enough to stop.

“Alcohol destroyed our lives and we came to AA for help,” the author of “All in the Same Boat” writes. “I have had many older members tell me they are proud of me for being so young and getting into the program. I am just as proud of them. Some say, ‘You’re lucky you’re young,’ and it’s true, I am lucky—not because I am young, but because I have this program to share in fellowship.”

That is the prevailing mood throughout this Chapter. These AAs who started young are proud to be in AA (perhaps that’s a given because they’ve chosen to write their stories), and are serious about staying sober. “I am an alcoholic and I am also seventeen—not surprising, because there are many teenage alcoholics,” the YPAA author of “Seventeen and Sober” says.

If they happened to “drink less than you spilled”— as the old cliché goes—they may tell you that perhaps if you hadn’t spilled so much, you might have gotten here sooner—as the newer cliché goes. The author of “Haven’t You Had Enough?” writes: “Today, I know who I am. Very proudly in my meetings I announce that I am an alcoholic.”