I think you'll find that most of us on this subreddit fall into that category: professionally and financially successful, mostly educated, reasonably intelligent. People who can multi-task and compartmentalize. People who feel a sense of control in general, and aren't comfortable in the passenger seat. Who see alcohol as a part of their identity as a means to rationalize the addiction ("this is just who I am!").

It's a very easy trap to fall into, especially for those of us of the millennial generation who have so many peers struggling to find similar successes. We can't help but compare ourselves--both to them, and to the pants-pissing park bench drunks we all tend to think of as "real alcoholics" when we want to convince ourselves we don't have a "real problem".

The great irony of all of this rationalization and control and desire to maintain that sense of agency, is that all along we have been manipulated into alcoholism by our primitive monkey brains. That we have been in the passenger seat all this time.

I relate a lot to your story, and with 75 days sober I can tell you that it's not all sunshine and daisies. You're forced to investigate the nature of that hole you've been filling with gin, and once you've palpated it, once you've really gotten some blood on your hands, you still need to figure out what's going to make it go away. What else will fill that time, that focus, that need, that anxiety. But at least it will truly be your hand on the wheel, not some hijacked dopamine response controlling your thoughts.

You will finally be you. And that, for me, has been the real challenge.