TerpGal, I've seen it said here that sometimes when you take away the alcohol from a drunken A**hole, you end up w/just an A**hole. And that could be the case.
Sometimes A's drink to self-medicate a psychiatric or personality disorder, which then stands forth in all its glory once the A is sober.
Sometimes it's just the way it is in early recovery. It's said that the A's growth stops, for all intents and purposes, at the age at which they began drinking; many A's are, in effect, oversized teenagers. All the experience they
should have gotten by dealing with problems, all the lessons they
should have learned along the way, all the joy and sorrow they
should have felt, all the uncomfortable things they
should have been thru and grown from--none of that happened b/c they numbed every slightest discomfort w/alcohol.
My A is a year sober and I am constantly seeing just how little he understands how other people feel and how they see things. His emotional maturity is nowhere near what I'd expect from someone who's going to be 60 in December. Here's a good example of what I'm talking about
:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...t-insight.html
It's tough--I keep expecting him to be "normal", just b/c he's sober now, but these are just the first steps on what will be a long, long road (and that's provided he continues his recovery and doesn't relapse or outright give up, which is certainly not guaranteed). I wish I had my crystal ball to know the future...