I had arrived twenty-four hours earlier to check in, the retreat center already swarming with new fellow travelers in recovery both from suburbia and the shelter. Conscious of my single measly year without alcohol, I strung my sober days like pony beads on a fishing line. After dropping my bags on the twin bed in my room, I gathered with the others in the main meeting space for our first sessions, and I asked the woman beside me, “How long do you have?”

“One day,” she answered.

Here, I learned, we would count other things too: stints in rehab, days in jail, DUIs, lost jobs, lost children.