Everything Is Happening For Me
Embracing life’s challenges and finding strength in sobriety
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When we choose sobriety, our problems don’t suddenly disappear. Like any deep and genuine healing, a sober life often feels more painful and problematic before it starts to get easier—or at least it can seem that way.
Since I let go of alcohol in 2020, I’ve faced more than a few pains and challenges: from separation and divorce, to sober dating and breakups, to serious illness and loss.
When I’ve been in the depths of pain and suffering, it’s been hard not only to stay sober but also to sustain faith in one of my grounding beliefs since getting sober: Everything is happening for me—even, or especially, when it feels like it’s not.1
At first, when I’m in physical pain, the depths of grief, or the grips of fear, I rail against this belief. I go through what I imagine is a typical stage of anger and denial, wondering: Why me? Why now? How can I make this pain and suffering go away? How do I not feel these uncomfortable feelings?
I think: This death, divorce, work stress, serious illness, breakup—whatever it is—cannot possibly be here to help me or make my life better. Nope, I don’t believe it.
When I went through my first sober breakup—that first one after my long-term marriage ended (the doozie I now know is a “thing”)—I railed against the belief that it was happening for me.
When, six months after that brutal breakup, I developed Bell’s Palsy, I railed against it.
When, four months after my Bell’s Palsy episode, two days after Christmas, my 36-year-old nephew was shot and killed, I truly railed against it.
When, only a week after we buried my nephew, my daughter underwent major surgery with a complicated, lengthy recovery, I railed against it.
When, merely nine months after my nephew died, my oldest sister—his mother—also died, I once again railed against the belief that any of this could possibly be happening for me.
And even when my older daughter got engaged and planned her wedding at the same time her dad and I were divorcing, I railed against it. In sobriety, joy can be just as difficult to hold as sorrow.
Me: “How, God/Universe, did you let this happen? How have I ended up in the depths of divorce with my ex, just as my firstborn is having her big, beautiful wedding?”
I kept railing. How could all this suffering be happening for me? How could sickness, strife, stress, death, grief, and loss be happening for me?
And now, approaching five years sober, I accept that while I may not know what strength and wisdom I’ll gain from wading through the thick goo of grief and pain, I do trust and believe that, indeed, everything is happening for me.
And I don’t mean “everything is happening for me” in a toxic positivity, “everything happens for a reason,” or “there’s a plan for me” kind of way.
I mean it in a “God/The Universe is going to show me things I haven’t previously been ready for” kind of way.
That brutal first sober breakup? It helped me feel grief I hadn’t fully felt from my marriage ending. It helped me feel, period. I was just over two years alcohol-free and in the early days of learning to surf the waves of hurt and heartache without drowning in alcohol.
My Bell’s Palsy? That bout with illness and temporary debilitation humbled me and brought me to my knees. It made me realize that I had no other option but to lean on sober friends and community. The hardest thing of all? It taught me to ask for help.
Asking for help is so hard, right? It’s often part of what got us in trouble with our drinking in the first place—feeling too ashamed or too proud to ask for help.
The death of my young nephew? It taught me so much. How short life can be, yes, and how unexpectedly we can lose a loved one. But it also taught me how to be strong in my sobriety in the face of shock, loss, and grief.
There was a wake at my ex’s house on New Year’s Eve. With a big Irish family, I knew there would be an old-fashioned celebration, with lots of drinking “in honor of my nephew.” I made the difficult decision not to attend the wake. Instead, I decided to stay home by myself and attend an online sobriety New Year’s Eve celebration.
I decided I would stay sober to honor my nephew, who had his own struggle with alcohol. On New Year’s Eve 2022, the eve of my third soberversary, I stood in my kitchen, laptop on the counter, in my little Zoom square, camera on, and cooked enough ziti and baked enough Irish soda bread (a meal I used to cook for my nephew) to feed fifty family members and friends at my house the next day. I didn’t know that I would be able to be alone, attend the funeral, host at my house afterward, visit with all my loved ones—and feel all my feelings, feel all my grief, cry—and still stay sober.
That decision to not drink in honor of my nephew felt good and right with my soul. That decision to honor my nephew also honored me—and it kept me sober.
The wedding of my daughter, when I was fighting with my ex through attorneys? It taught me that I could hold sorrow in one hand and joy in the other. It taught me that I could show up as my whole, sober, integrated self, bringing all the versions of me to the celebration: mother, former wife, sister, a former stay-at-home, homeschooling mom — now a working woman in a new career and in a new, healthy relationship. And not drink — or even want to.
Wondering where all this ease was that people spoke of in sobriety, I recently asked my therapist, “Now that I am sober, why does everything feel so hard?”
She sagely responded, “Everything feels hard for you now, Rosemary, because you’re actually feeling it all. You are 100 percent sober. You’re not numbing. You’re not escaping. You’re feeling it all.”
Ah, yes. Feeling those feelings without numbing them is the key to a mindful and sober life—and so, so hard. These days, I am feeling all my feelings, and I am learning so much. And staying sober through it all.
Indeed, it *is* all happening for me. How about you?
Now you.
We’d love for you to share in the comments:
Have you ever had a moment in sobriety where you realized everything was happening for you, even when it felt hard or impossible?
How do you stay sober or grounded when life gets overwhelming?
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Byron Katie: “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it... it’s just easier if you do.”
Thank you for such a beautiful share, Rosemary. The way you honored your nephew is so special, and your entire story highlights how much choice and agency we each have. ❤️
Thank you. Life is rich when we allow ourselves to feel.