Originally Posted by
shortstop81 
....In my experience they don't come off as bragging or attention-seeking, because every speaker spends equal amounts of time talking about their SOLUTION. How they have been able to utilize AA in their recovery, and what their life is like NOW.
When I am asked to do the honors at a speaker meeting my speech is basically written out. Not that I simply read it but glance down to be sure I stay on track. I spend a fourth of the time on what it was like and the rest split between how I utilized the AA program in early sobriety and how I utilized it when I ran into major difficulties later on.
With regards to discussion meetings I'm not interested in hearing about someone's bad week anymore than I want someone hear a member parrot AA platitudes/BB.
However, in my experience a majority of such meetings fall somewhere in the middle.
And as long as members are respectful of others in the room (read: keep your shares to under five minutes) it's all good.