Hi, Sleepie,
I'm sorry you're hurting.
Sometimes, it's hard to know what to say when a fellow journeyer is struggling so much. Many here have given you wise counsel, both in this thread and many that preceded it. I've tended to stay quiet as there wasn't much I could add to their insights. You said something in this post, though, that made me reflect on my early days of sobriety.
You mention "hope" and a "positive attitude." I'll go to the latter first. No one expects you to be Mary Sunshine at the moment. I cannot imagine any of us felt like that in the early days.
Hope is a different matter. Sometimes, it confers a sense of hedging, a desire that comes tinged with doubts and "buts."
What if you substituted the concept of hope with trust?
Trust that things not only can get better, but will get better. But you need to rack up some sober time before the light shines more brightly. MIR summed it up well: "When I am sober, things get better; when I drink, things get worse. Pretty simple equation."
Simple and very, very true. But you have let sobriety take hold. You have to give it a chance to deepen inside you.
I can only offer my own experience. Life didn't not miraculously improve when I put down the drink. In fact, it was one huge trade-off for two months. Yes, the hangovers were gone, but in their place came fatigue. I either wanted to eat everything in sight or nothing at all. My intestines pretty much went on strike. I couldn't think. I felt like no one on Earth was as alone as me. The only thing that kept me going was a sense that it couldn't last forever and -- somehow, and at some point -- I wouldn't feel so cruddy. That at some point, the depressants I'd been pouring down my throat would leave my system. I had to trust.
Two months after I stopped drinking, I came limping onto SR. And that's when others verified this simple but very true thing: It gets better. I trusted them and they were right. In fact, things started to improve soon thereafter -- physically, mentally and spiritually. You have to give it time but trust that it gets better.
Your way isn't working, Sleepie. Allowing yourself to succumb to alcohol has put you in a constant cycle of one step forward, two steps back. No wonder you're exhausted. And sad.
You're surrounded by support on SR. And wisdom. We were all in terrible shape at one point. Our names weren't on some secret registry written invisibly in the cosmos, listing who gets to be sober and who doesn't. The reason we're sober is that -- despite how we felt, perhaps even despite what felt like all available evidence at the moment -- is that we trusted it would get better.
You can, too, Sleepie. Trust in sobriety. It does get better.