From "Confessions of a Reluctant Newcomer"

After treatment, I became, for the second time, a newcomer to AA. A little more desperate than I had been during my first "visit," I made a little more effort to, as Eddie B. said, join the group. In time, I made the shocking discovery that I had little to offer anyone in AA. I knew a lot about books, philosophy, and politics, but nothing about staying or living sober. And until I acquired a degree of humility and became a student, not a teacher; a patient, not a doctor, I would remain ignorant. Intellectually astute (though not as astute as I thought), I was, and sometimes still am, an emotional basket case. I discovered that I was emotionally disturbed, my personality discolored by my reactions to the things that happened to me. I applied the ointment of the Twelve Steps to try to bring my emotions to maturity (and have made progress, but little perfection). No longer a newcomer, I now know through experience that with the help of the Fellowship, the Twelve Steps, and a Higher Power . . . I do not have to be a newcomer again.