When our kids were toddlers and co-sleeping with us, I’d sometimes wake up in one of my children’s piss puddles, and I would habitually check myself first. This was part of the overlap of new sobriety and new parenthood, when I was in a constant dream-like state and always worried that I’d open my eyes and find myself back in a dirty bed somewhere in Brooklyn, lost in some horrid multiverse, or worse, realizing my new beautiful life was never real.

​I became a chronic bedwetter in my last, most prolific year of drinking in 2015, but I’d had a serious bladder control problem whenever I got shit-housed for many years before that. I’ve pissed myself in elevators, on the sidewalk in broad daylight, and in taxi cabs. There was also that one truly wretched moment when I urinated on my roommate's laptop that was left on a coffee table next to the couch.

​The last time I remember pissing the bed, I couldn't believe how wet I was. I had fallen asleep in all my clothes. My right sock was soaked. My right shoe was soaked, too, because it was still on. There was so much liquid that it had seemed entirely plausible that an intruder had thrown a washtub full of water on me while I was asleep. I couldn't possibly leak this much and not wake up, could I?  

​Thinking back, I don’t even remember if that was the last time. It’s not like I dried myself and suddenly declared “No more!” before I ran to an AA meeting. I’m sure I made some excuse as to why pissing myself would never happen again, but I also knew I could no longer control that, even though I refused to admit it. There were endless 5 a.m. or 7 a.m. Wednesday, that always veered into someplace ugly, and I’d wake up and pretend that I was a level-headed person who simply loved a real, good time. There was no blood, so everything was fine.