I desperately wanted to have the SA/S-Anon marriage recovery story that one hears of from time to time in our rooms. I’ve probably read the “ending” (or better said, the “true beginning”) of the story in the White Book (SA 149-154) a dozen times or more. I would have done anything for that to be my story—but it has not been my story and it is not the experience, strength, and hope that I have to share.

After eight months of sobriety, my wife revealed to me that she had cheated on me multiples times with multiple partners over the previous year. She said she wasn’t attracted to me and didn’t love me anymore. She said she wanted out.

In a flash, my world exploded. I had not been a good husband to her surely, but this was not how our story was supposed to end. “But I’m sober!” I wanted to yell.

Fast forward eight more months, and I’m now 16 months sober. I find myself sitting in our couples therapist’s office hearing the words that I thought I would never hear, those words that just can’t be true: “I want a divorce.” All this work…All these risks taken…All this surrender… All this hope. This is not the story I wanted. This is not how our story was supposed to end. I wanted to yell, “But I’m sober!”

Today as I write this, it has been eight more months since my soon-to-not-be wife asked me for a divorce. I’m coming up on 24 months of sobriety. Yesterday, we signed the paper work to finalize our divorce. I’m overwhelmed with the feeling that this just cannot be my story. It’s not the story I wanted for my life. I do not want this divorce. “But I’m sober!” I want to yell.

The truth of the matter though is that sobriety and recovery do not equal a magical path to getting what I want in life. Progressive victory over lust and conscious contact with God do not mean that I am insulated from the pain of living life on life’s terms. Members of SA still get cancer, lose jobs, have family members pass away, and in my case, sometimes go through heart-wrenching divorces.

Based on some of the shares I sometimes hear in meetings, one would think that every person who gets sober and walks the path of recovery ends up with a million dollars in the bank, a beautiful, happy family, and a full head of hair. That just hasn’t been my experience; in fact, my experience has been rather the opposite. I’ve had to come to accept that recovery is not a ticket to the land of impossible dreams. That’s what lust always offered but never provided. Recovery does not make my fantasies real. Recovery makes reality real. In recovery, I’m able to accept reality for what it is, even if I wish it were not.

For me, recovery means letting go of my resentments and praying for my wife every morning, praying for her partners, praying that God will do for me what I can’t do for myself, and that He will enable me to forgive them and truly wish them well. Recovery means choosing truth over the false comfort of fantasy. It means I don’t have to run from reality but am able to accept reality despite how much I’d like to change it. Recovery means being able to live life on life’s terms even when those terms feel unbearable.

No, I did not get the marriage recovery story I wanted, but I did get a Solution that works on good days and bad. I got a Solution that has allowed me to continue to grow in recovery despite the hell that this year has been. I got a Solution that made it possible for me in the midst of the painful ending of my marriage to be able to gratefully yell, “But I’m sober!!”

If anyone had told me all that would come to pass in my life at my first meeting two years ago, I would not have believed for one second that I could walk through such pain, depression, and fear and remain sober. But through SA, not only have I remained sober, but my sobriety has thrived.

When I first came into these rooms, I could not string two sober days together—and that was when everything seemed idyllic. I did not and still do not have the capacity within me to keep myself sober. That’s true even on sunny days when all the lights are green and they’re handing out free samples at the grocery store.

But walking through a divorce in recovery? Remaining sober despite being rejected and left by my wife? Forget it. Not a chance in the world. There’s just no way I could have made it through all of this sober… and yet I have.

As I look back on this deeply painful year and a half, all I can say is that I know God has done and continues to do for me what I cannot do for myself. At the end of the day, while the details may differ, this is the story of all recovering addicts, a story I am so very grateful for today. The dawn to this night I’ve been living has not yet come, but I have faith that it will if I continue to take right actions. And until it does, I am content to patiently wait and simply be grateful to God and this fellowship for giving me a Solution that works.