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The place where I now reside calls itself a sober living home, one of those three-quarter houses that promise structure and support in exchange for a monthly fee. It is, in truth, another institution, only less overt. There are rules: attendance at meetings is not merely encouraged but tallied, with consequences for absence. Accreditation—some bureaucratic seal from a disembodied association-demands compliance down to the smallest detail. Even over-the-counter remedies, aspirin or remedies for a cold, must be stored according to protocol, as though a bottle of ibuprofen posed the same threat as the substances that once ruled my life. Food supplements, too, fall under scrutiny, lest they conceal some hidden peril or temptation. The house hums with regulation, a constant reminder that freedom here is conditional, portioned out in measured doses.
I find myself tethered to this arrangement more tightly than I care to admit. At sixty-four, with medical bills arriving like unwelcome guests and no car, escape is not a simple matter of walking out the door. One of the housemates ferries me to work each day; without that small mercy, the job itself would vanish. The rent—nine hundred and forty-five dollars a month—devours what little remains after necessities. Savings accumulate with glacial slowness, a few dollars set aside here and there, while the prospect of independent housing recedes into the distance like a mirage. To leave would be to court homelessness or worse; to stay is to submit to a regime that chafes at every turn.
In this half-life, I have grown adept at evasion. Meetings I attend only when absence would draw notice; Sundays I dread with a particular weariness, for they bring mandatory church services and a community gathering from seven until eight in the evening. My natural hour for sleep arrives at six, and the interruption feels like an imposition on the few quiet hours I claim as my own. The thought of seeking out a sponsor—a stranger to whom I must confess my thoughts, telephone regularly, and defer in matters of my own life—fills me with something close to revulsion. A “home group,” community service, the endless round of obligations: all of it looms like another set of chains, like a joyless, leaden duty.
What troubles me most is the insistence that I cannot manage alone. The phrases repeat like a litany: “Your best thinking got you here.” No, I want to reply—it was my worst thinking, the muddled, desperate sort that seeks oblivion rather than clarity. “Meeting makers make it,” they say, as though the act of sitting in folding chairs, listening to the same stories retold in slightly varied forms, possesses some magical efficacy. The meetings themselves are often stultifying—predictable, repetitive, productive of little beyond communal endurance. If wisdom is the goal, I find more in half an hour with a thoughtful book—Jordan Peterson or another clear-eyed observer—than in hours spent absorbing clichés.
The drumbeat of selflessness, the constant exhortation to live for others, rings hollow. I hold to the Golden Rule, to courtesy and respect toward those who merit it, but to subordinate my existence entirely to the needs of strangers feels like a distortion. And then there is the dictum put so earnestly: give your life to Jesus. The words are spoken with conviction, yet they leave me searching for meaning. How precisely does one accomplish this? Is it through ritual, through obedience to rules laid down by others, through the surrender of autonomy? Or is it something quieter, more inward—a recognition of grace without the machinery of programs and sponsors?
I do not pretend to have answers. I only know that sobriety, for me, has arrived not as a triumph of the twelve steps but as a simple absence of desire, and the intense introspection I had the time to do when in rehab. The rest—the institutions, the slogans, the demands—seem increasingly like scaffolding erected around a structure that no longer requires it. Perhaps, in time, I will find a path that honors belief without demanding conformity, that allows solitude and personal agency. For now, I navigate the days as best I can, grateful for the clarity that remains, wary of those who would define it for me.
I find myself tethered to this arrangement more tightly than I care to admit. At sixty-four, with medical bills arriving like unwelcome guests and no car, escape is not a simple matter of walking out the door. One of the housemates ferries me to work each day; without that small mercy, the job itself would vanish. The rent—nine hundred and forty-five dollars a month—devours what little remains after necessities. Savings accumulate with glacial slowness, a few dollars set aside here and there, while the prospect of independent housing recedes into the distance like a mirage. To leave would be to court homelessness or worse; to stay is to submit to a regime that chafes at every turn.
In this half-life, I have grown adept at evasion. Meetings I attend only when absence would draw notice; Sundays I dread with a particular weariness, for they bring mandatory church services and a community gathering from seven until eight in the evening. My natural hour for sleep arrives at six, and the interruption feels like an imposition on the few quiet hours I claim as my own. The thought of seeking out a sponsor—a stranger to whom I must confess my thoughts, telephone regularly, and defer in matters of my own life—fills me with something close to revulsion. A “home group,” community service, the endless round of obligations: all of it looms like another set of chains, like a joyless, leaden duty.
Yet amid this quiet defiance, one truth stands out with stubborn clarity: the old cravings have never returned. The THC gummies that once softened the sharp edges of daily life, the mood-altering substances I relied on for years—these now hold no attraction whatever. Temptation does not confront me; the desire itself has simply vanished.
It is almost as though my mind, having accepted the diagnosis of addiction, has since set the label aside without ceremony. Perhaps I never truly was an addict in the conventional sense. Perhaps I adopted the role—and convinced myself of its necessity—not because of irresistible compulsion, but because I needed shelter: a roof overhead, a bed to sleep in, a temporary structure when every other door stood closed.
The label “addict” did its work at the time. It opened the way to rehab and, later, to this sober house. Now it hangs on me awkwardly, like a coat cut for someone else’s frame—useful once, but no longer fitting, and increasingly difficult to ignore.
I still believe in God, or at least in some presence beyond the material scramble of days. The Bible, however, I regard with detachment. Portions of it may hold truth, as fragments of ancient wisdom often do, but the whole remains elusive, a text mediated through centuries of interpretation and human hands. I cannot surrender to it as an infallible guide.It is almost as though my mind, having accepted the diagnosis of addiction, has since set the label aside without ceremony. Perhaps I never truly was an addict in the conventional sense. Perhaps I adopted the role—and convinced myself of its necessity—not because of irresistible compulsion, but because I needed shelter: a roof overhead, a bed to sleep in, a temporary structure when every other door stood closed.
The label “addict” did its work at the time. It opened the way to rehab and, later, to this sober house. Now it hangs on me awkwardly, like a coat cut for someone else’s frame—useful once, but no longer fitting, and increasingly difficult to ignore.
What troubles me most is the insistence that I cannot manage alone. The phrases repeat like a litany: “Your best thinking got you here.” No, I want to reply—it was my worst thinking, the muddled, desperate sort that seeks oblivion rather than clarity. “Meeting makers make it,” they say, as though the act of sitting in folding chairs, listening to the same stories retold in slightly varied forms, possesses some magical efficacy. The meetings themselves are often stultifying—predictable, repetitive, productive of little beyond communal endurance. If wisdom is the goal, I find more in half an hour with a thoughtful book—Jordan Peterson or another clear-eyed observer—than in hours spent absorbing clichés.
The drumbeat of selflessness, the constant exhortation to live for others, rings hollow. I hold to the Golden Rule, to courtesy and respect toward those who merit it, but to subordinate my existence entirely to the needs of strangers feels like a distortion. And then there is the dictum put so earnestly: give your life to Jesus. The words are spoken with conviction, yet they leave me searching for meaning. How precisely does one accomplish this? Is it through ritual, through obedience to rules laid down by others, through the surrender of autonomy? Or is it something quieter, more inward—a recognition of grace without the machinery of programs and sponsors?
I do not pretend to have answers. I only know that sobriety, for me, has arrived not as a triumph of the twelve steps but as a simple absence of desire, and the intense introspection I had the time to do when in rehab. The rest—the institutions, the slogans, the demands—seem increasingly like scaffolding erected around a structure that no longer requires it. Perhaps, in time, I will find a path that honors belief without demanding conformity, that allows solitude and personal agency. For now, I navigate the days as best I can, grateful for the clarity that remains, wary of those who would define it for me.
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