aazh

Hi everyone,
I just copy/pasted my first post from another thread. Should have posted it here instead to make proper introduction, but overlooked this part of forum.

Let me introduce my self so to speak. I am 33, been abused when I was 4 and I've been using alcohol pretty heavily for about 10 years (once it was >= 0.5L of cognac per night for about 8 months) or so and a pot with it for about 6 years. To be honest I had 11 months of therapy and managed to stay sober all that time, but the only useful thing I learned back then is how my denial may manifest and what the denial actually is. I quit therapy and relapsed for four years taking a pause for one or three months.
Long story short I managed to stay sober for year now. Unless glass of wine (literally one) counts as a relapse of course, and in this case it is just six months. No program, no therapy. Only mindfulness meditations, self analysis and some CBT related exercises.
Once I quit drinking/smoking I noticed that after pink cloud phase I started feeling really odd. I even thought that I am bipolar or something - periods of energy/joy were followed by depression. And those mood swings... OMG. So I started journal to log what happens with me and noticed that periods of feeling normal become longer and mood swings were not that severe. Then I googled and found about PAWS. Well, it is nice to know what to expect. I shared it with my wife and warned her that I may be depressed or just being a dick for no apparent reason sometimes and I might not be able to spot it right away.
So everything was more or less okay up until last week.
I have not been that depressed since early days of my not so long sobriety. It's not as bad as it was back then or when I was drinking, but anyway frustrating.
Now I wonder, is it just PAWS? Or I was expecting more after these 12 months of not being drunk/high?

P.S.: I moved to Germany last year and now learning new stuff to get a job I want + I need to learn German, since here it is a must.