I found myself very agitated and wanting to use again at "milestones" 30, 60, 90. I hated going up for my key tags (in NA that's what we used instead of chips)
I hated no longer being a newbie and the center of attention and the one everyone reached out to. I got hooked on the drama of relapse...so people would be interested in helping me etc because at 90 days I STILL had no idea what I was doing or how to stay sober.
And honestly, I got tired of the drama in the main meeting I went to. People vying for attention, flirting and having affairs, gossiping and back stabbing, and the politics etc. I felt like I had better things to do than participate in that.
I found other meetings that focused more on recovery, step study, and literature and simply didn't put up with the other BS. I found those by talking to others who had the sort of recovery I was looking for for myself, and they referred to them as meetings where real recovery is taking place.
I also took more ownership of my own recovery and began to search resources that could help me beyond meetings. I finally realized that my recovery truly was a life or death situation and that I couldn't hand it over to a group, or allow it to be dependent on a group. I had to own it, work it, want it, live it.
I relapsed three times before I said "enough of this BS, do you want to recover or not?" Then I truly did what I need to do for my own recovery, and that included setting aside magical thinking.
90 in 90 is a great way to get introduced to the program, meet people, find a sponsor, and learn what AA/NA has to offer, but I did 130 in 90 and it didn't keep me clean.
I heard about riding other people's coat tails, and thought that somehow, magically, following them around, writing down the aphorisms they used, and attending the meetings they attended would keep me clean. But recovery doesn't magically rub off. Me trying to impress them with my sincerity and how much time I spent at meetings and reading the literature...didn't keep me clean.
It wasn't until I began to work my recovery like no one was watching me, doing it for me, finding levels of honesty I couldn't imagine existed before that I found lasting recovery.
In my experience all meetings, and all home groups are not created equal. I found out there were certain meetings that I was better off NOT attending. I realized that I was using attendng meetings as a distraction from the actual work of recovery.
I am not advocating that people stop going to their meetings, or that meetings are not important to recovery. I am sharing my own personal experience, and it may not apply to anyone else.