Like Laurie6768, I too am a recovering drunk. I'm only a little over 3 months in and I just had a conversation with my girlfriend about how I didn't feel too much when drinking...it was a low level deadness really. I have actually referred to myself as "dead girl walking" when I was at the end of my drinking. Now at 3 months sober a lot of the pain I did not feel at the appropriate time is surfacing now. When I did feel emotion as an active drunk is was usually only anger..either overexpressed at the teeniest slight or directed inward as depression. I ocassionally cried in drunken stupors.
I'm telling you all this as explanation as to how completely detached from our emotion (and reality) we truly are whilst still active.
The nearer I got to bottom I was alternating between deadness and insanity. I wanted to die. Drunks are in a constant state of discontent and detachment from reality, emotions and normalacy. It is a surreal world without reason.
Believe me...trying to figure out a drunk is a useless exercise cuz drunks can't figure out themselves.