Great topic Alex
The 2 books, the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous and the AA 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book explain to us in detail some of our most common defects of character.
Those 2 books along with my first sponsor helped me take a good look at myself. A real honest look. One guy called it "Brutal Honesty". The fear I had at the last of my drinking and into the first several months of sobriety was as our book describes it, "Fear, Terror, and Bewilderment" and "Selfishness and Self Centeredness" and how "Every fiber of my being was shot thru with it".
But I am no mental giant and had no idea what to do about it or how to actually
live in sobriety. I needed instructions and still do.
That part needs to be told to explain the importance of going to meetings
My sponsor helped me go thru the 12 Steps and to apply them to my life and eventually he said that my taking actions would cause my thinking to change. It worked for me. He encouraged me to get a home group and get involved in it, so I did. the group I got sober in had requirements a member ought to have like being sober a certain amount of time before they took on group service positions such as becoming a GSR or Group Secretary or something like this. Individual groups can do this and that is why we have the tradition of "Group Autonomy" - I learned that in a Traditions Meeting.
But I needed to
take actions to get out of myself. So I volunteered to make the coffee even though I didn't want to make the coffee. There is an important change that came about slowly, little at a time to me as I
took actions that I really didn't want to take. Even going to meetings when I didn't really feel like going to meetings. Volunteering to read the Preamble or the 12 Traditions even when that was the last thing I wanted to do. Speaking when I didn't really want to speak. That thing that began melting away was my selfishness and self centeredness from taking actions that became a habit and a way of life.
I had a terror inside of me that I had to face that I could not just talk it out of me. It would
take action - sharing at meetings helped me face that terror. Eventually, by
taking those actions with the steps, I was able to start living in sobriety. The guys at work started looking better and not nearly as mean as they used to look when I drank.

Going into public became something I enjoyed rather than something that terrified me.
Facing women became something I could only once do if I was half in the bag but in meetings I learned to open up and start having normal relationships as friends with them. It was though I was thawing out. In fact 37 years ago I got so thawed out that I married one. We just had out 37 year anniversary a few days ago.
I still have my name on the list at Central Office for the suffering alcoholic to call and talk to. I got that from a meeting I used to go to when I sobered up, to volunteer with Central Office. Had I not been at that meeting that night when that man said he worked the phones, I may very well have never have started doing it myself. I take the midnight shift because those are the times when the alcoholics are the drunkest and they hurt the worst. See I never want to forget where I came from and how someone was there for me in the middle of the night when I needed them the most. It is in these telephone conversations at 2 in the morning with a suffering alcoholic when the time is right in the conversation that we get to talking about going to meetings. I ask them for their phone number and tell them I'm going to call them in the morning. I call them early and it's like:
Them - "Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring ... uhhhh hmmm halllo"
Me - "HEYYYYY! REMEMBER ME FROM LASTNIGHT????"
Them - "Oh my gawddd"
Me - Hey buddy, I'll be by your place in 30 minutes to pic you up for that meeting we talked about last night (click)"
I go pick them up and take them to a meeting out of the love in my heart for the suffering alcoholic because our book tells us the best time to reach a suffering alcoholic is at their worst. I have had great success in this area - success yes, I've stayed sober every time.

Then a month later that guy picks up his 30 day chip at a meeting and tells the story of his mean old sponsor who did that to him on a 12 Step call and everyone laughs real hard and he finally feels at home, at a meeting.
At my home group many years ago a guy got up and talked about never going on a 12 step call all by himself. So when I talk to a guy on the phone late at night if he wants to see another sober alcoholic face to face, I always call another dedicated member of my home group or a guy I sponsor to go with me. Not because of anything one of us might say though. the reason I always take another sober alcoholic with me to this day is something I heard in a meeting years ago - "none of us will ever be immune to alcohol" and that means anyone one of us could still to this day, set right down next to a drinking alcoholic and join right in with him or her. Oh I know, there's folks who don't believe that but I have seen it when a guy didn't think it'd happen to him. He went on enough 12 step calls until one night he sat down with a drinking alcoholic on a call and got drunk with him. I've heard stories in meetings about it and I've seen it happen. Alcoholism is still right outside my door doing pushups.
There's something about guys like me that to this day gain my true balance and keep it in check most of the time that I only get from going to meetings and
taking actions. To have that common bond as brothers an sisters, to be around folks who love and understand me in spite of myself are things I only get from meetings.
These are some of the very important things I get from going to meetings. Little at a time.
Now, one more thing I want to share here is my love for alcoholics and this program and a very important promise "We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves". There is no way I could have ever arrived at my station in life without God doing for me what I could not do for myself, AA, AA meetings, with folks just like you, all of you, especially the newcomer and the homeless out there who I love to give a little of my self to. For it is in giving it away that we are able to keep it. Without you, there wouldn't be any me.
Peace