I get your point Fred except that my experience is that there are many alcoholics who really want stop but have been unable. It is in the big book, something like unable to stop "no matter how great the wish". That was my experience.
What Bill suggested was that perhaps the people that AA "failed" did not get the kind of sponsorship they should have. Maybe we let them down.
How would that look? Well I guess each newcomer ought to receive the full facts on the AA program and then make his own mind up about what he wants to do. An informed decision.
Instead, he may turn up at a meeting under his own steam, could be any kind of meeting from AA oriented to drama oriented, it may or may not even have a big book, and it may be very difficult to find a recovered alcoholic to explain the deal, it may even be difficult to get any attention at all.
Never mind, he will be told to look for a sponsor, and when he finds one, he will likely be told to go away and write a fourth - if he is very lucky, or he may be told don't drink and go to meetings and don't worry about the steps etc.
There are an awful lot of groups/meetings/members that do not follow the suggestions on the book about working with newcomers. I think we would be pretty arrogant to say that the newcomer is at fault. There is so much suggested that we could be doing, but we don't. Perhaps Bill had a point, how does our side of the street look?