It takes a long time

It takes a long time to become young. - Picasso
That is a good summary of my experience in AA.  As I mentioned in my reply to Maggie Lamond Simone, while it is possible to use AA as a sort of post-detox, a way to learn how to 'just don't drink', if a person limits their AA practice to that they are cheating themselves.  Basically, that makes being a dry drunk the goal and, while that's better than being a wet drunk, it still sucks.

The AA program offers us the opportunity to come out of hiding and experience life.  It offers us the joy of humility.  Bernard of Clarvaux, the founder of what is now the Trappist order, distinguishes four degrees of love, which I find apply to the AA path:

1. At first, a person loves himself for his own sake. The universe revolves completely around him.  This is the life of the active alcoholic and the dry drunk.  Been there, done that.
2. Next, he perceives that he cannot exist by himself and grows to see how he needs others and the whole of reality in order to have a shot at happiness.  This was where I was on entering AA.
3. After working the steps for a while he begins to see the beauty of others and the world around him and grows to love them for their own sakes.  This is where working Steps 11 and 12 help us move beyond the 'spiritual kindergarten'.
4. Finally, a person experiences the joy of true humility and learns to love himself because he is a part of this glorious whole of humanity and the universe as a whole.  That is when we really become young.

I'm not really young yet, but I'm a lot less old than I used to be.