Sounds great in theory, but honestly, I don’t think I’d like it for the long haul. I did communal living in my 20’s for 4 years when I was first getting clean — didn’t plan it that way, but it kind of evolved. I could no longer afford my own apartment, and a friend in the program was in the same boat, so we rented a big old farm house together, and before we knew it, that place filled up with others in the program. It was really cool — for a while. We used to host literature conferences in our house, and had the final of 7 World Literature Conferences there, before publishing that program’s Basic Text for recovery.

Eventually, though, living with all those people really got on my nerves. Though I am an off-the-charts extrovert, I found I do still need my share of alone time, and that was hard to find in that place. Plus, the theory that 20 percent do 80 percent of the lifting held true, and I got tired of all that lifting.

It sounds ideal, but having lived the reality, I’ll decline. I’ll be a happy visitor, as long as I can retreat to my own place.