I was looking forward to the evening out to dinner with friends. It had been a busy and at times stressful week. I had seen a lot of clients and it was a week of crisis management: a break up, a relapse and and an angry couple’s session where everything I tried turned into bitterness and vitriol as they tore at each other and at times, me. Thankfully, I was very much at ease with our dinner group having known everyone a long time, but one of my friends brought along a buddy from out of town.

This guy was about a decade younger than me, with medium height and build and kind of an angular face and glasses. He sat next to our mutual friend and across the table from me. We all fell into easy banter as good friends do and I felt the stress of the week ease away. My friend’s friend focused his eyes on me and when there was a pause he said, “I hear you’re in recovery. I am too.”

“That’s awesome,” I replied, “Congrats.”

I have always been open about my recovery but I’ve learned over the years to consider whom I’m speaking with before supplying all the nitty-gritty details. Some people are just curious, others may have an agenda and want to debate the merits of drinking or have some bitterness toward people with substance use disorders. I tell some of the details, a little or a lot once I’ve felt people out a bit.

“How many meetings do you hit?” he pried.

“Well, I went a ton early on, for the first few years, I went almost every day. I don’t go now.”

“Yeah, that’s no good, he answered.

Here we go, I thought. Judgment time. The truth is that I owe a huge debt of gratitude for both the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs. It was there I learned that recovery was possible. It was there I was given a sober and clean community where I felt understood and appreciated. I was an active participant, did the Steps, spoke when asked and tried my best to help my peers. In AA I found a sponsor who saw things in me that I couldn’t see in myself. Now, I refer people to self-help from my practice knowing that it’s probable they will feel helped there.

My friend’s friend leaned forward in his chair, fixed me with his eyes and said forcefully, “You’re going to drink again. You’re not working your program. It’s only a matter of time.”

The stress of the previous week surged back on a wave of irritation. I sighed, gave him a kind of a pinched smile, excused myself and headed for the friendlier end of the table. I’d heard this type of rap before, the gist of which is judgment about the quality of one’s recovery solely based on the number of meetings one attends. What I should have said is something I was told by an AA old timer years ago: “Take your own inventory!” In other words, keep the focus on yourself and your recovery, let others focus on their recovery. If someone asks for your opinion, then give it if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, “live and let live.”

I could have told him I hadn’t been to a meeting in 30 years and have been sober and clean the entire time. Did my thirty-five years (then, over 40 now) get eclipsed by his ten? This was someone who didn’t know me at all, yet felt qualified to judge something integral to my life and happiness. I am in recovery to my core, and it means everything to me. If I felt I needed a meeting I would happily go. To be clear, I am not anti-meeting. Far from it. AA, NA, Refuge Recovery, and SMART Recovery all help people recover.

I feel there is too much judgment and self-aggrandizement in our world, today. We globalize our experience because it works for us, but does that mean it will work for everybody else? You see it with politics, religion et al. We tell others how to live without compassion, understanding or knowledge of the person we’re speaking with. How can one really know what someone they hardly know needs? This particular type of recovery-judgment drives people away from meetings and defocuses people off of what they should be putting most of their attention on: their own recovery.

If you’ve somehow managed to get into recovery from your addictions, no matter how you’re doing it, great. Stay with it!

And, to you inventory takers out there, I say stop puffing yourself up and putting others down. If something works for you, great. But, take your own inventory! You, and others will be better off for it.