I've learned that how other people recover is none of my business and deserves none of my judgment. For the first decade or so of my recovery from substance use, I was adamant that recovery could only be called recovery if a person was completely abstinent from all substances.
I mean, I really, really insisted that was the case. Then, as now, I fully support abstinence-based recovery.
I choose it for myself. I respect that committed members of Twelve Step programs choose it for themselves too.
But I no longer believe that everyone must be abstinent to recover. Recovery from a substance use disorder is about so much more than the substances we ingest, and abstinence as the basis of a universal definition of recovery fails to account or allow for individual contexts and experiences.
A rigid commitment to the ideal that only abstinence equals recovery leaves out too many people—people who may not be abstinent but are still working hard at doing better and becoming healthier. Not respecting other people's pathways is problematic at best, and potentially fatal at worst.