How do you do maintain your sobriety through the tough parts? She asked me pointedly, with a drunken slur that cut quick and dirty; sharp, rusty razors rife with reminders of what I once succumbed to in similarly desperate moments.

I’m not totally sure, I answered. However, I believe I’ve transposed my desire to drink in what was a futile effort at maintaining a semblance of control into a fervid need to NOT drink, in an effort to preserve that very same control.

I’m not sure that’s the whole truth but it’s certainly part of it. I prefer to have control over myself, over my behavior, and over what is ultimately my life. When I discovered that drinking was simply a reflection of the contrary, it became clear to me that it had no place in the clutter.

But still, I struggle. Day by day sometimes. And at others the time stretches between the struggles are longer, depending on what is going on in my life.

These days it’s minute by minute.

I sat and listened to her after I’d answered the question, listened to the sadness and the questioning punctuated by genuinely heartfelt sentiments, all highlighted by the haze of booze. And I understood.

Being in our bodies can be challening, can’t it? Existing inside ourselves, sensing every single drop of blood as it runs screaming through our veins, threatening, it can seem, to stop abruptly before it decides willfully to carry on. I feel as if I am floating. Blood is my mode of transport, frothy bubbles that wash me to my next destination, toward all the places I am supposed to be present for, but can’t help but approach through myopic lenses – waking up in the morning, showering, making breakfast for my daughter, taking her to school, doing work, contending with school assignments I can’t concentrate on and and a cat who has decided that a litter box is superfluous.

But such is life inside our bodies.

I want to control my body when in fact what I need to do is listen to it. Listen to the wave of sensation it sends through the stream, listen when it tells me that drinking is a bad idea even though goddam it sure would take the fucking edge off, and most importantly, listen when it says, You’re okay.

Which is exactly what happened this afternoon. The conversation I participated in, with this sweet woman I’ve known since my birth, and for whom drinking has also been a struggle, reminds me that, really? I am okay. We are all okay, after all.

We just don’t always know it, do we?