While at an open AA meeting with my son, years ago, I saw the most hopeless looking alcoholic, a ragged street person with long beard and shoes with holes in them and what I call "dead eyes" (no life in them at all), come into the meeting each Saturday and sit at the back. He never shared, disrupted only mildly, and didn't appear to be listening to a single word.
I thought he might be there for the free coffee and cookies,, which he drank and ate as he sat. An oldtimer, not the chair, walked over and sat by him each week and spoke to him outside after the meeting. The meeting was downtown Toronto and the man was obviously not driving, so that wasn't a concern.
I didn't see him for several weeks, then one meeting I was fixing a coffee before it started and this man, came up behind me and said "hello Ann"...I didn't know who he was. He said "It's me, Richard" and I almost dropped my coffee, he was clean shaven and dressed in clean and decent clothes...and he was sober, had been for a couple of monthss at that point. When I left Toronto, maybe 6 years later, Richard was still clean and still going to the Saturday afternoon meetings.
Richard became my beacon of hope. If Richard could get clean, anyone could. I still include him in my prayers each day.
My point is, the most important person at any meeting is perhaps the drunk who just walked in the door. I no longer judge, shame on me that I did the first time. Today I see it as another miracle waiting to happen.
Bless you all for welcoming the drunks to your meetings. Bless you all for staying sober and in doing so, for becoming their beacon of hope.
Hugs