Long term recovery is not the pink cloud for sure. I suppose it's all relative, probably influenced by lots of issues not all of which are related to alcohol. My pink cloud hit me early and then dwindled over a period of maybe 6 months, which is far longer than it is for most.
I'm probably more of a Pollyanna about recovery than many, and sometimes I worry that I might be creating the expectation of a rose garden. I still have to deal with problems. At the risk of sounding like I'm exaggerating, I love my sobriety, and I'm every bit as grateful for it now as I was 24 years ago. I'm not grateful for everything that happens in my life. Somethings really suck, but when it comes to sobriety by itself, I will never ever stop being grateful for that.
Three years into sobriety, I had the worst year of my career, so not everything gets better, but I can't imagine how ugly that third year would have been had I still been drinking.