It's a good question. It's tough to own up to the dark parts of one's life, but self-destructive tendencies were a part of my pre-sobriety life. From the outside I had a life many may see as a dream life, but left to my own devices the outcome would have been one or all of the following: death by drug overdose or alcoholism, unemployment, divorce, HIV, jail, physical harm.
Especially when I did drugs, all bets were off. I would lose all sense of decency and end up literally roaming the streets at all hours of the night making incredibly unwise decisions and ending up in dangerous situations. The final straw was a night that could have ended my life, and what happened was extreme enough that it shook me to my senses and made me realize unless I changed things I was on the fast track to death.
My sobriety journey has led me to choose life. I don't think the dark parts of me are gone, but I no longer feel them actively present in my life. One of the biggest ways I realize this is that I now enjoy making long term plans like planning a big holiday up to 3 years in advance. It's reassuring to me because it tells me my subconscious believes I'll still be around. :-)