The Cocoon of AA

It happened in about year four of my sobriety: I got stuck. I thought I had followed the directions. After several false starts in AA, I had joined a home group and gotten active in the meetings. I had made a bunch of AA friends (including a very special AA and Al-Anon couple who, I later realized, had become my sponsors), and I earnestly tried to work the Steps. Eventually, though, I hit a point where it seemed that I just quit growing, so I asked for help of a different kind--professional help.