  By appealing to renewal theory we determine the equations that the mean exit
time of a continuous-time random walk with drift satisfies both when the
present coincides with a jump instant or when it does not. Particular attention
is paid to the corrections ensuing from the non-Markovian nature of the
process. We show that when drift and jumps have the same sign the relevant
integral equations can be solved in closed form. The case when holding times
have the classical Erlang distribution is considered in detail.
