The sudden quiet in their voices catches my ear.

The group has been chattering for about an hour.  My husband and I are sharing sushi with our son and his friends at a favorite Thai restaurant.  The talk is mostly about food, weekend plans and the next retreat.

Then, their voices drop.  I hear, so that’s why Chris (not his real name) didn’t show up tonight.  He “went out.”  He used again.

They fall silent.  Chris has relapsed.  He might be with his girlfriend but they’re not sure where he is.  No one says it, but these friends are praying Chris has enough sobriety “in him” to return.  And soon.

Meanwhile, somewhere a mother is counting the minutes, hours and days until he does.

So much of addiction is about time.  Time using.  Time in treatment. Time at meetings   Time clean.

There are celebrations for 24 hours clean, 30 days, three months, six, nine, a year.  Hundreds and hundreds of addicts give up one hour a day attending meetings to help keep them clean and sober for the next 23.

There isn’t a person in long-term recovery who doesn’t know his or her clean date.  Months and years stack up from that miracle of a milestone.

But for Chris that date falls to zero, again.  The clock rewinds. For him, it will be one hour at a time.

And somewhere, for his mom, too.