Originally Posted by
Gottalife 
When I first joined AA, the chair of discussion groups used to give a little feed back to each speaker. Perhaps a word of appreciation or encouragement. It seemed a nice thing to do and it felt like someone had actually been listening to what was said.
Then they put me in the chair, and I found another benefit was I had to listen intently to try and come up with some kind of constructive comment after each share. I am sure I said many daft things, as I did not know much at the time, but it all seemed to work ok. There was a lot of love and understanding in the group.
I miss that feature of the old meetings. I left town for a few years and came back to what you were talking about Zen. Like speaking into a vacuum. And if somoene said something really helpful and I mentioned the sharer by name, boy the dirty looks I got. I think that is why in recent years I have come to prefer litterature study groups where we seem to be able to share experience and knowledge much more freely.
Mike, the more I think about my meeting experiences and our recent discussions, plus your above post - I think the meetings have changed format and perhaps, are not as beneficial. I've said recently to both you and Lady Blue, had I experienced what you both did in meetings, then I may have benefited.
I resently read an article by a psychologist who specialised in alcoholism, written in 1963. His opinion was that the, then, current meetings had altered format and were more dogmatic, he referred to the original meetings, which he said involved back and forth discussions, much as you wrote above. Maybe some grass roots thinking could help some folks more?
Edited to add: Mike, have you heard about the "Back to Basics" AA meetings and if so, do they involve more interaction?