Anotherlife, It sounds like you have been attending meetings for a long time and that this has limited utility. Meetings alone don't work for lots of people. It also sounds like you are giving quite allot of weight to the pronouncements of someone you gave a ride to.
I recommend asking a few simple questions of the individuals who tell you about AA. First, ask them where it is stated in the AA literature (the person you gave a ride to would likely have some difficulty with this question). Second, ask the individual if they are familiar with DOING the AA program. In this thread you can find several which pass along their 'wisdom' about an AA program they have only read about or heard about in meetings, but have never applied themselves. (Their distortions of the ideas from the program are glaring, but hardly more than a distraction.)
You state you have a head full of two different methods, so I am assuming you have never done the steps. The steps are not an intellectual exercise. Once you have done them you will have more a heart full of AA than a head full of it. At that point the chatter of an ill informed and opinionated passenger is unlikely to be much more than a minor annoyance.
If you have too much trouble doing the steps, I would strongly advise that you put your efforts into AVRT. Doing more of what you have been doing is unlikely to get you different results.