Hi water
Such a good question you pose - I drank for about 20 years, from the age of 12 onwards, and could not imagine a life without alcohol. It seemed just intrinsic, all the things you flag, the cost, shame, regret etc just inevitable and getting drunk again the only way of dealing with them. Maybe like you, I had to give up, I had problems at work but it was more of a last chance before losing my family.
I have now been sober for about 20 years and am certain I will never a drink again. I don't miss it, don't want to drink, would no more consider it than taking crack - less so because of all the harm it did me and my family. Some years ago we hit a run of problems - victims of violent crime, redundancy, sudden death of a parent - all in a a few months and even though I felt sick with anxiety for a time, especially about paying the mortgage, it never crossed my mind to drink. Possibly the fact that I had beaten alcohol - and dealt with other really difficult things to do with our kids health - made me a bit stronger, But tbh I had just realised I was going through a sh*t time, it would get better but alcohol could only make it much worse. When drinking I just could not have envisaged that I would not turn to alcohol in those circumstances. But even though things were tough, I was by this stage maybe 12-13 years sober: not drinking was part of coping with things in a way that the reverse used to be true.
I used to see alcohol as a friend, albeit a sort of manipulative oone. Now I guess it evokes the same gut reaction as someone bullying my child/hurting my dog/being cruel to my mother would do. My instinctive reaction to it has just changed from confused yearning to visceral dislike. Many people can drink without problems, I'm fine with that. But I'm even more fine with the fact that I,m part of the sizeable minority that can't.
Looking back in the shame and embarrassment etc, I really regret how I behaved at the time of my drinking with my wife. She had some terrible things to deal with and I am sorry that due to drinking I behaved badly, To be honest, apart from that, I'm no longer embarasssed about the things I did back then with work, friends etc. I behaved like people with drink problems do, sure I would have been more productive/a better friend etc, but with the passage of time hey've all got over it. Fortunately I stopped before it imaocted my (then young) kids, so, apart from my wife, I mostly hurt myself. And that's done, over, long in the past now.
Sorry for the long and rather empassioned reply, sounds like you have enough on your plate, Your post really resonated - what you are hoping for I guess is what I was too, but to be honest at the start didn't really imagine it to be possible, I had to stop, no option, but at the outset didn't really believe I could be free of alcohol, But free I am, and you can be too...
All the very best