Originally Posted by
Notimetoloose 
That is where my thoughts align as well.
Having said that, for a wide eyed fragile newcomer to an AA meeting, I can not imagine anything more of a turn off than a self righteous, opinionated individual heralding their brand of AA.
This is an important point. The people with longer sober time are supposed to help (serve) the alcoholics who are still suffering, including the newbies. Certain attitudes, comments and behaviors are certainly off-putting to new people especially - just like in real life.
That being said......what we learn in AA is that we have to focus on our program, not on others as far as any "blame" or "off-putting" goes, as to why our own program doesn't "work." That's why things like "Take what you want and leave the rest" are said and particularly apply to others' behavior; it doesn't mean to pick and choose parts of the program, rather of the people in it.
There are so many reasons that most of us now committed to AA avoided it in the first place- tons of excuses. I certainly disdained everything about it (mostly without knowing exactly what I was disdaining- I just didn't want to stop drinking; other people have specific reasons).
Each of us does have a responsibility to serve others; each of us ultimately has the responsibility to serve
ourselves by taking ownership of our sobriety.