You are NOT stupid and you are NOT a failure. I just read your post. A young woman who grew up under extremely difficult circumstances, and managed to go to college and raise children lovingly and provide them with important things. That is not failure.
The only reason you should be sad is because you are sabotaging your chances at the happy life you deserve because of alcohol. We are all unique and special. Those of us who endured difficult childhoods have to learn to love ourselves. I am guilty too of getting uncomfortable when things are good, in my childhood that usually preceded something bad.
I think there is also a shift when our children grow up and begin to live independently, our roles shift and that is an adjustment.
No sober alcoholic has had the luxury to skate through life blithely. All of us who get and remain sober do so because we had to face our demons, take ourselves apart, and put ourselves back together again. Strangely, I think that is why we hear the term "grateful alcoholic". I think that it enhances our humanness, I know I feel like a much richer person because of what I have been through.
I have read your posts in the past, you have a lot to say. I think the tragedy would be in not giving yourself the chance to say it. I believe sobriety is a series of small personal choices all of us make every day. People with long term sobriety have simply been making those choices longer. It gets so much easier I promise!