Pete, I don't think I like my last response, because I got excited when I recognized the quiet vs gregarious thing. My drinking was associated with those topics very early on. And I wanted to strike out the possibility of you drinking to compensate for being quiet or under pressure.
I think there is probably more to discuss when it comes to the loneliness and the complication of bad thoughts in layers. There is some room for simplicity there. You wanted to stop drinking for a reason and you had gone back to it for a reason. When we use, it's maintaining what we think is "normality." We reach a point where we understand that is false.
Then what? We accept it and then the struggle is there afterward, with the real normality. Do you feel self-pity even though you have stopped, while working in a technical program? You're also in meetings. Try tooting your horn about that here for a few seconds instead. (That sounds scary to me, but I am different, and I have my own sense of achievement as we go through this.) Everyone experiences an exertion of their own. Perhaps you need to highlight the positive.