Seems to me there is a need to break free of certain chains.
When the feelings start to creep up, when 'the urge' wiggles it's way into the dark recesses of consciousness, initially there is a weak but desperate attempt to fight, to be good, then 'sweet surrender' and one is enslaved once more. It's really a masochistic relationship to ephemeral feelings.
A breakthrough is to be had when there is a moment of not I-making those feelings. They are not I, not mine, and not my self. They are fleeting. They arise, stay for some time, and eventually pass.
When one does not let the enslavement happen, but rather patiently waits for the urge to pass, the ingrained tendency to surrender starts to weaken to a point where one day it is no longer a struggle. IMO AA and a commitment to it provides a readily available and stable framework to let this play out.