One thing to think about, since you say you've used alcohol to cope in the past... I also worried about what kind of coping mechanism I'd use instead. It wasn't until after I quit that I realized I actually didn't even understand what coping meant.
My fear of bad feelings was much worse than the feelings themselves. Both sides of my family are stoic, keep-it-all-in types, so that was the only kind of feeling management that I ever saw modeled. Feelings were past tense things people had learned from; I didn't understand what to do with them in real time other than kill them with alcohol or otherwise melt down from the strain of trying to suffocate them. And so I was constantly terrified of being overwhelmed by my own reactions to things.
When I take away the alcohol and I can't run from it, then I'm forced to feel the bad things. And then I'm able to let them go. I'm learning how anyway. They come back, too, but I'm learning that that's OK.
You mention how strong of a front you're putting on. It's ok to keep your grief mostly private, although I personally do better when I find people I can talk to about big emotional events. But above all else it's important not to keep it buried even from yourself. No matter what, alcohol is a temporary tool. Nothing that it makes disappear stays gone.
(I'm doing OK, thanks for asking... been doing a lot of thinking recently about all the old things that I'm having to reprocess now that I'm sober!)