The jargon of authenticity

I've been going to more AA meetings recently. I've recently heard this young woman tell exactly the same anecdote, exactly, in meetings a couple of weeks apart, about how she saw a tender scene that made her value life.

AA has the great virtue of being a place where people can speak in semi-public about their problems and fears, as if directly from the heart. But when you hear people repeating themselves like this, really performing their respective personae over and over again, it's clear that there's a fine line between direct authenticity and a mask of the same.