I didn't say any of that. My observation is much narrower and only a response to what you presented. Calling someone a masochist for being sober is undermining. That's not what friends do. And I'm not sober and don't think its necessarily better. Balance is good, but it depends. The wisdom that I have learned, having been a self-conscious person myself when I was young, is that focusing on myself was not the way to go. That's what worked for me. Ymmv. We are very much trained to focus on ourselves. It makes us neurotic. Therapy, social and emothional learning. Don't be "toxic masculine". Get in touch with your feelings. Self-esteem. Self-expression. How do you identify? Self self self. It's a big neurotic mind F. All this psychologizing and emotionality is terrible for our mental health, ironically. Especially for men. Being hard on yourself really isn't that much better than gasing yourself up. Maybe worse. The best thing is to take yourself out of your own spotlight and focus on something so big that it makes you not matter in comparison. Ideally God, or whatever you want to call the biggest big of all, and whatever you think your mission is in that context. Not you as the star of the mission, but the mission itself. We're just people, after all, and none of us is worth obsessing over. None of us is really special. I mean, everybody is special and that means nobody is, right? Just forget about yourself and serve something bigger. I don't know you and none of this is directed at you personally. How could it be? These are just general truths I have learned about life. I have no idea if it applies to you at all. But I have seen some patterns and this is what I've noticed. Hope it helps in some way. If not, please just ignore me. I wish you well.