I do not drink, and it shapes this more than people expect

Nine years without a drink, and it shapes this more than anybody expects. Not because I am fragile about it, but because half of what gets suggested as a first meeting is built around a bar, and because what I want from a woman who leads sits uncomfortably close to something I already get in a church basement on Thursdays. I have had to think carefully about where the line is.

Thirty eight, the Bronx, building maintenance, nine years sober, one dynamic of a year that happened long after I got there rather than during.

The difference, as best I can put it, is that a programme is about not doing something and this is about doing things. Duties, standards, a woman whose opinion of how I live carries actual weight. When I got the two mixed up in my first year I quietly made it somebody's job to keep me well, which was unfair to her and did not work for either of us.

So what I want is an ordinary structured relationship in which a woman leads. Standing duties, a weekly conversation, correction that is plain rather than gentle. I am reliable in a way that took me a very long time to become.

Not looking for a woman who wants responsibility for my staying sober, which is mine and stays mine. Not looking for anything that has to happen where people are drinking, though I mind not at all if you do. Not looking to be admired for the nine years, which was a long time ago now and is simply how I live.