I brought this up as a similar topic in a SMART Recovery meeting a few weeks back. I posed the question of how do we know when we are ready to move on from meetings. SMART doesn't believe that life long attendance of meetings is necessary, that one can successfully defeat their addictive behavior and move on with life. My point was that I was growing tired of talking about my destructive alcohol abuse (and listening about others) and that outside of meetings I just don't think about it anymore. I did conclude that I should continue to attend at least once a week for a full year.
The reason I posted the "This is your Life" inspirational is because if you feel you are ready to move on and that hanging with recovering people is holding you back from you becoming recovered then you shouldn't feel guilty about moving on. There is no requirement that you have to stick around to hear the next story. I know that may sound selfish, and I'm probably going to catch flack for it, but shouldn't that be what we all should be wishing for one another? The ability to mend our broken wings and be free to fly (OMG-I think I just quoted some lyrics from an 80's song). And I do realize that many, myself included, get great joy out of helping others in recovery but sometimes you have to step back and realize there really is more to life than just recovery.