When I came to AA, everyone looked old. Now they all look young! I started my sobriety when I was 22. I wasn't exactly the clean cut young man that you would expect older folks to take to. I was more like the wild man of Borneo, hair, beard, all skin and bone and a head full of scrambled eggs. Yet the older members really made me welcome, and I related very much to what they had to say. I had always liked older folks anyway.
Amongst the young coming through AA from our big rehab, I was rather the odd one out. Many of them didn't like older members, felt they were different and didn't relate. And I didn't relate to them ( the young people) as I thought I should have, which worried me a bit at the time. One by one they left/relapsed. I am still here.
I was terrified in my first meetings. The only reason I got there at all was due to a kind man who 12 stepped me (explained about AA) before I went to a meeting, and then he took me to a number of meetings and stuck with me until I found my feet.
If that terrible fear, fear of people, fear of being found out, fear of everyone looking at me, fear of being made to commit to something, fear of what people would think, fear of speaking, is anything like anxiety, then the answer for me was to find one friend, my twelve stepper, who held my hand, so to speak, during the early days.
Today we have this habit of sending the newcomer directly to meetings without the benefit of a 12 step visit. I feel I might not have survived had they done that to me. It is very hard to learn about AA in meetings, because meetings are such random affairs.
I suggest to new folks that they try and spend an hour or two with a recovered member who can explain it all and answer their questions. A couple of hours doing that can teach you more than you would discover in 50 meetings.