This is a good question for me right now. I've been clean and sober for 90 days now, and honestly, the only good that has come out of my sobriety is meeting a girl at an AA meeting and not having to worry about a) nodding out behind the wheel and b) getting pulled over on drugs or with drugs. That and my family supports me financially again, sort of. Otherwise, I honestly feel like I am doing this for everyone else, to appease them, to get "them" off my back, to fulfill everyone else's hopes and dreams for "success".
I really don't give a shit about life anymore. I worked my ass off my first 19 years of life in hopes of achieving success, the financial success that would allow me to find a great wife and lover and generously support a family of my own. But the fact is I am a hopeless case, I lack empathy, I lack compassion, I could care less about other people and my personality is so fragmented I don't believe there is hope for me to ever become an integrated, loving, caring human being. I am a machine driven by a number of different brains, and the strongest voice says do whatever I want to do, whatever will avoid those feelings of shame and, do that, never again feel shame, never.
The place I am really at in my sobriety right now is the planning stages. I am being methodical in my approach to using. I am going to build enough trust in my family and a system that works for me so that I can one day use again, enjoyably. That is all I have left at this point, and it sucks. On one hand, staying sober does give me a shot at financial success and finding that perfect girl, but it won't matter anyway because I will be miserable and unable to connect with her on any deep level. On the other hand, using will allow me to at least believe I feel love and empathy, and that everything will be ok, but the fact will remain that things are going to be fucked over once again, so even if I did find the perfect girl, my lack of money and stability would prevent it from going anywhere.
The thing that pisses me off the most is how many times I hear "Oh, that's normal to be anxious, to feel ashamed, to be afraid of the world, everyone feels like shit". I don't give a fuck who feels like shit, because I DON'T want to feel like shit. Fuck everyone else, why waste time being miserable? I should re-enter my drug-induced haze of obliviousness and get life over with.
To end, I absolutely do not believe that the great happiness people talk of in sobriety exists, I do NOT believe it. I do hope I will be proven wrong.