After reading your question, I wondered when was the last time you looked in the mirror and liked what you see? That is the true essence of recovery, changing to the extent that we actually like who we are and where we are in life. When it is said that success is an inside job, it is true.
Changing your life to save your marriage doesn't work, for I know how d*mned hard I tried. Trying to salvage a job that you've destroyed doesn't work either, nor does changing to save friendships. Okay, it does help to change for health reasons, but then again how many alcoholics, like me, gave a hoot about my health when I wanted a drink? Not many.
So the conclusion is that we can only recover to save ourselves, and by doing so, we have a chance to change our life and the lives of those we love and care for. By becoming a new person, from the inside out, life takes on new meaning. Many of us think of fantasies and try to make our lives meet the fantasy, while the real answer is to face reality and make that reality into the best reality we can. That's what sobriety allows us to do.