One of the posters on here used to say:
You wring the alcohol out of an asshat but then all you have left is a sober asshat.
That being said we all have character defects and the alcoholism and true recovery is connecting with our HP (psychic change) and staying on the path of eliminating those character defects.
Sadly, it is hard, hard work and difficult and most... the vast majority... of alcoholics prefer just to add alcohol and forget about the problems, issues and solutions.