HuskyPup, when I told a sober friend of mine how very down I was, that I was so down I didn't even feel sad about it, she said, "Well, yeah. Alcohol's a depressant."
We can't know if it will always look hopeless until we clean out the chemicals and see how it feels after awhile.
For me, I think that drinking both consumes and fuels the despondency. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be interrupted - short term discomfort be damned. Because, after all, I've been suffering short term discomfort every day, and that has only proven to increase the long term disappointment in myself. Trading the one for the other is at least a step in the right direction.