I have no idea how many meetings I have been to and you're right. An overwhelming percentage of meetings do have a condescending tone to them. They seem to ooze with self righteousness at best. They are full of people sitting around and filling each other full of BS. They tend to say things that the group wants to hear instead of the truth. I hear stories of life being a bed of roses since stopping drinking and working the program. I call them on it and I am the scourge of my Saturday Group for that reason. I love it. I've even told a couple of them that if this what sobriety is all about, I'm not interested.
On my Monday/Thursday group it is the exact opposite. We talk to each other like humans on the same level. In fact a lot of times Alcohol and the steps don't even come up. We say things like, "how was your day"? "How's work?" "What's going on in your life", "Did you get your kids back?" "How's your ingrown toenail"? "Good God, who made this coffee?"
We talk about real life and real life issues! I've never seen a group of people who care about each other as much as this one. I have never seen more combined sobriety in one group either.
The moral is a lot of groups suck. I had to weed through a lot of groups before I found this one. They are out there.