The folks in my example were absolutely not complacent. They had been following the advice they had been given in good faith for a good period of time and nothing had changed. In their experience as they shared it with me, AA was not working and faced with that fact they were about to make a conscious decision to leave.
They were not fading away, slacking off about their recovery. Sobriety was still their number one objective, it was just that they had no evidence to suggest that AA, as they were experiencing it, was going to I’m prove their lives.
Bill raised this exact concern years ago. Roughly quoting him about AA failures, he suggested that perhaps these newcomers were not getting the same kind of sponsorship that the earlier members got. They did nor fail at AA, AA failed them .