Loathe, nothing you said is all that shocking to me. I hear stuff like that all the time from friends in AA/NA, from people I've sponsored, and from doing similar things myself.
Therapy/counseling helped a little in that it allowed me to identify my actions and see "why" so much of it was happening and why a lot of it was beyond my ability to control. So, from the standpoint that it helped open my eyes, it therapy was good. It wasn't, unfortunately, enough. Just knowing that I did this stuff and why I did it didn't also supply me with enough power to stop doing all of it. For that, I needed the 12-Step process.
Therapy helped me find hidden problem areas, the 12-Steps solved them. Honest identification was part of the equation, the solution was the other (perhaps more important) part.
If you're really sick and tired of "you," like I was of "me," sooner or later you'll hit that point where you'll be willing to do just about anything to be free. Until I hit that point, I was constantly focused on quick-fixes, half-measures, and only the solutions that seemed to "make sense" to me - which is comical since I was using the same distorted thinking that got me into the shape I was in to determine what would get me out. One I finally hit bottom with "me," my will, my desire for control.......I finally surrendered, gained some willingness and started doing what those who had gone before me did to recover.
As a recovered alcoholic, I can tell you that alllll that crap in your life now can end TODAY. You don't need years, or months, or even weeks to get "recovered." Many ppl (myself included) CHOSE to take is slow and dragged the pain out........but you don't have to do it that way.....if you don't want to.
You can have a wonderfully fulfilling life TODAY.....if you're willing to surrender and to work for it. Far too many recovering addicts / alcoholics are so full of ideas, beliefs, and notions that they just sit and spin their wheels.....continually looking for the logical solution but never finding real sobriety or real recovery.
The self-loathing, self hatred, depression and so forth.....that's probably the #1 symptom of just about every addict.....and it doesn't have to continue to dominate you any longer.