Interesting to see this thread pop up almost three years after I posted it originally! Sad to say I didn't remain sober and 'went back out' some time after the original exchanges.
However I have been going to AA again since last September (2013) and I seem to be getting far more from it than I used to. I am sober, which is the main point!
Given my own particular experience with alcohol I am finding the 'powerless over alcohol' theme very helpful. I simply have not found a way to quit on my own despite many attempts. And although I remain an atheist I have found a way of 'surrendering' to the universe at large - or am beginning to at any rate. All I know is AA has kept me sober longer than anything else and I am willing to go a long way to accommodate some of its ideas, short of accepting things that are simply nonsense to my intellect. (I can hear certain AAers telling me to ditch my intellect as I write that!).
I still feel a bit weirded out and almost embarrassed by the occasional evangelical AA member who bangs the table, literally or metaphorically, but given the generally reserved nature of us Brits over most things one does not come across this too often. We have one member in my home group who is very evangelical in her approach though and goes way over the top. I can understand it given she was at deaths door when she got sober and now has four years, but frankly her approach would scare of newcomers - it certainly would have made me run a mile if she had spoken at my first meeting. In fact she has been 'spoken to' and asked to tone down her shares a bit when newcomers are present.