This is just my thoughts, but here is what I think is happening. While drinking or drugging, we are anesthetized from life. It's one of the reasons/excuses we abuse our substances, to numb ourselves from the world.
Whatever problems you were anesthetizing yourself from will still be there when you are no longer anesthetized. In other words, by not drinking, you have removed the buffer system you set up to block the world.
Many of the things you describe in your post are signs of depression. This by no means is a diagnosis on my part, just a thought. Many people in recovery experience depression, whether it was pre-existing or not.
I went through this, too, but then got misdiagnosed and placed on all the wrong drugs for me. When I recognized I was being made sicker by psych drugs, I quit them all just like I quit alcohol. This was a long time ago, but I remember it well. I wound up later on healing myself in a manner similar to AVRT, but I didn't know about it then. I did go back to a different doc, got a very simple medication to help my own depression and anxiety. But I think the thing that helped me the most was a book called "Worry" by Hallowell. You can Google it if you want to know more about it.
FT