Great post trish: I wrestle with that kind of **** all the time: just this morning I thought exactly the same thing you said: does the self-sabotage ever go away?
For me, there is no choice anymore. Everytime I relapse it sucks. I can't choose the drunk life again. If I choose that life, I will kill myself. That is no joke. I was always cutting, burning and breaking something in my body when I drank. Messed up knee? Drunk and dancing on a table. All by myself. Two broken toes? Drunk and dropped stuff on me. Major scar tissue on my left hand. Drunk and got tangled up in barbed wire. A signifigant portion of my life was spent with bandaids on my fingers.
Now that I am trying to stay sober, I am learning all this stuff about myself that isn't fun. But, it's better than stuffing it.
I have program stuff lined up every second day of the week because I'm apparently a fragile case and anything can make me drink again.
I think we are in a similar place right now. I thought my sobriety was SO solid for 8 months and then I relapsed.
I can't really give you any advice but what I am trying to do myself. I stumble and fall but I will stay on this path. I am not going back there. I've tried to visit addiction city a couple of times this last year and it was no vacation. It was a trip to hell. Ha, it was the ultimate Pinochio adventure.