Hi TCD. Loved the post!
I think you're right about not only the "STFU" principle, but many others in AA - they're for the alcoholic in crisis. I'm much more recently in the fellowship than you and I still benefit from all the cursing, adamant, brook no nonsense attitude, and the "BB way or highway" unequivocality. And I can very much sympathise with you that there comes a point when one thinks - hey, I don't need to fake anything, I've made it! BUt at the moment, today and for this alcoholic, I continue to benefit from the fellowship and from trying to work the steps - simply because, as you no doubt understand, I'm trying to "re-train" myself to live differently, and the new stuff is kind of ill-fitting just now. And I like the fact that the emphasis is on recovery from alcoholism, which blighted my life - so it's the whole of my life that is under scrutiny. So it's still all to the good, for me, but I can see how it can come about that it's no longer in the slightest bit nourishing - and becomes in fact an impediment to your own development. But it's probably about, as you so accurately say - crisis. It's about getting us out of crisis, and for those of us who remain so inclined - keeping us out of crisis!
And here again I'm speaking about myself, so please don't misinterpret what I say - but when I look back on my philosophical period, I see someone who was trying to avoid life, someone who was having opinions on what a good life might look like, rather than actually trying to do it myself.
I'm not a Christian. In fact in many regards I'm vehemently anti-Christian. I find it hard to differentiate the mindset of the Islamo-fascist from the Christo-fascist. BUt I find much that is beuatiful throughout the Abramic philosophies - firstly of course becuase I'm like a guitar string tuned to those particular scales, but also I like to think because I am rationally able to respond to certain insights or perspectives, regardless of my own baggage. I studied existentialism pretty hard. For a long time in the eighties I was very heavily inlfuenced by Marx. Now I'm in recovery, and I think I just had to bite the bullet and join the wide stream of people who try and live a little better. When I was an active alcoholic I didn't do that. I'm enjoying a different life, and I very much feel like AA "gave" me that. And at least partially by teaching me the value of STFU (&L).