My experiences have been similar. What I gained from AA is a sense of personal responsibility for my problems, that I am the only one responsible for my actions, my life and my happiness. When the notion of being diseased becomes the focus of a particular AA group, this message of personal responsibility is often lost. I also learned that the differences between me and a "real" alcoholic were minimal, and that I related more to people in those meetings than I did to people at the bar. They were honest and real in a way that most people aren't.
What bothered me about AA was the insistence that once you stop going to meetings, you will end up dead or in prison because you'll get back to drinking and there's only one way it all ends. It's just not true for everyone. There was also the insistence that any amount of alcohol was a form of spiritual failure, which is just inconsistent with reality. What worked for me was taking what personal growth I could from AA, quitting completely for several years, finding a good therapist to deal with the underlying issues, and eventually returning to drinking in moderation (a glass or two once every few months for the past several years...very occasional). I have no more risk of ending up dead or in prison than anyone else, and feel quite comfortable about obligatory drinking at social and work events, and nothing more.
Most of what I got from AA is summed up well in the following big book passage, read and re-read many times, and is applicable to really anyone who is dissatisfied with their life or feels out of control:
"Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.
What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Our actor is self-centered - ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt."