"...please dont say things like AA dying!"
Why not? Is it an unpleasant reality? Fact of the matter is all that's missing is the tag on the toe. Fact of the matter is that it may have to die so that it can live. It is also a fact that the farther a movement gets from its founding the farther it gets away from its original primary aim and the more watered down it becomes until it only resembles what it was intended to be. It is a natural progression. Why get in the way of that? Let it die.
And this isn't about romanticizing the past, this is about the present reality. When I say AA is dying, I mean that AA as it is perceived by most is what is dying and probably needs to die. As long as there are people who are doing the deal, really doing the work, the true spirit of AA will never die.
"But I think if folks like you and I (and as you have pointed out to me, we are more alike than we may believe) stop going, it is sure to die or finish transforming into something altogether."
Steve, I think you & I are more alike than most would believe. But what I also believe is that it is really too late. It has already transformed into something else all together. In most places, it's not really AA, but it's not really NA either. Not sure what you'd call it, maybe BB, I don't know. When a movement loses it's single & primary purpose, it loses it's unity, and when that happens there can be no informed group conscience. And when there is no informed conscience, it ceases to be AA. It might continue to meet and might vaguely resemble AA, but as a group it has effectively died. When a movement fails to heed the voices of it's elders and fails to pay attention to past experience it is on its way out.
A lot of old-timers have left. Some have gone "underground," others find other avenues to be useful. Some just quietly wither away. Some, because they feel that have become useless, become bitter and cynical and blow their heads off. That's what people do when they feel they've lost their purpose in life. More than one old-timer has told me that they have no reason to go to places where they aren't wanted and the new guard isn't interested in hearing what they have to say. They get tired of being called everything from bleeding deacons to Big Book Nazis. The AA message has become passe' in many circles in AA.