I suffered a lot from this sort of thing in the early days. It lead me back to drink a few times.
Just stopping drinking didn't fix my alcoholism, it brought it to the surface.
When I got really serious about stopping, even though I was attending AA, every few days I would get this awful feeling of dread and not know where it came from. I learned, with the help of my sponsor, that it came from me.
Though I had stopped drinking, my reaction to life was still abnormal. I still lived in the old self centred way, though completely unaware of it, as living like this was the normal thing for me. And that set me up to fail time and again.
I had tried it your way and it didn't work. When I got around to taking action, especially around the fourth step, I began to understand the cause of these feelings (me) and through the rest of the program found a lasting solution.