Points are well taken, Music.
Perhaps our are experiences are different, or maybe they are the same, just viewed through different lenses.
All I know is the conscioussness of the Presence of God is the most important fact of my life. I didn't know that until I knew it.
In the beginning, it was about staying sober. It stayed that way for a long time. Of course I don't want to return to drinking. But what I have found out is that my sobriety is a blessed by-product of an experience with God. Now the deal is to grow that experience and keep it alive.
In Chapter Eleven, both Bill and Bob realized that must keep spiritually active if they were to stay sober. Then that motive became transcended by a higher motive, the true happiness that they had found in giving themselves in service to another. That is my experience. If I attend to that, staying away from the first drink is not an issue. Of course, I'm not saying anything that you don't already know.
One last thing, I believe we sell the newcomer short by offering him sobriety, in the sense of not drinking. Sobriety all by itself is an untolerable condition for an alcoholic. That is why I drank- couldn't stand sobriety. What I was offered was more than one-liners, more than a meeting. I was offered away of living that has proven to be at the worst tolerable and at its best, joyous and it has provided me with a deep sense of meaning.
Jim