Hey there and welcome!
Your story is fairly similar to mine....I gave up at 27 after 10 years of pretty hard drinking - and justified my drinking because everyone else was doing it. I drank most of the time because I couldnt see a good reason not to. It was never a question of why, more why not! Life doesnt always seem better, sober....but its certainly more manageable....there are times I miss drinking but like someone else wisely said on another thread....ive never woken up in the morning wishing I got drunk the night before.
I would safely assume 90% of us on here have done horrible stuff we wouldnt like to mention to anyone.....youre certainly not alone.
A book called "getting sober" really helped me through the first 30 days.