Happy Solstice! Thanks for reading during your scant daylight or long night, and if you’re looking for more of my writing, I’m over here. —Ben Gaffaney

AA thrives on regimentation. You get up, make your bed, do no harm, shave, go to your home group, drop to your knees at night and text your sponsor before bed. “Thirty days, a thousand nights.” For chaotic addicts, following a tight plan is a logical a way to wrest control of your life, the way counting the rosary can bring personal stillness within a storm.

But for me, that regimentation brought a new flavor of anxiety. Instead of daily fears I’d be caught drinking or saying something I couldn’t take back, I became very aware of the passage of time. The more regimented I became, the more anxious I got because the time started to move too fast. The unchanging daily schedule was my biggest challenge at rehab, where I’d grind my teeth during the daily walk to the facility’s pharmacy to swallow B-12 and escitalopram, then hide the Naltrexone under my tongue. (It made me very sick, and I was afraid if I reported that to my doctor, they’d offer something worse.) I didn’t want to go to the same noon meeting or be fifth in line for dinner or do the same guided meditation every night.

Time was leaving me.