For me "recovery skills" are really just the skills that I need to deal with life as it comes. It means developing the "life coping skills" that will allow me to not feel that pull of alcohol as my escape from life.
As many others have said, alcohol wasn't our problem, it was our solution to other deeper problems.
So, the recovery skills are the tools you need to work on your own fear, resentment, anger, shame, stress, or whatever it is that you feel makes you less than a happy and complete person.
For example, I am studying for a test next week and don't feel like I have spent enough time on it. I started to feel the anxiety well up in me when I stopped myself and said "Hey, I'm starting to feel anxious -- but why? I still have multiple days left to study and plenty of time to learn what I need to learn. So, stop worrying." And this helped the anxiety lessen. For me, that is a recovery skill.
The key is that you can't develop recovery skills while you are drinking.
But, just abstaining from drinking doesn't automatically make you develop the skills ...
so, it just means that you have to (a) not drink, and (b) work at building your recovery skills. Hope that helps.