My friend, I assume you are taking actions to put the steps into practice in some way in your daily life. You wrote that "something's gotta change". For some folks (like me), I believe it's this:
Are these steps just ideas that you accept in your heart?
Or...
Are they actions that you actually take in order to make them real?
Take Lust, for example. We all eventually needed some kind of action/behavior to fulfill our lust... Fantasy was never really enough for us in the end, right?... Given that simple fact, why did we all - to a man - expect to get all better just by wanting to (really badly)? "Not acting out" isn't an action at all, so why should it do anything positive to change us?
If really, really accepting Hashem's Mitzvos in our hearts was "enough" to Hashem, then Avraham would not have actually had to schlep Yitchok up that mountain and reach for the knife, right? After all, Hashem knew he'd do it anyway. And our religion would look a lot more like Christianity, where resting on the Sabbath is a profound idea, Love and "service of their g-d concept" is a sincere feeling, and where keeping kosher, sukkah and circumcision are not actually necessary.
That is not our way.
Sure, "recovery is an inside job", as they say. But "this is a program of action", where simple spiritual principles are made accessible even to absolute idiots - because they are put into simple action. And anyone can do actions! That's why it can work for anyone, even for thick-headed lust-drunks like me, b"H.
By the same token, length of sobriety is not really "proof" of anything. I'd say that the closest thing to "proof" that a person has really accepted these ideas fully in their hearts, is that they are grateful for sobriety today. And the only way to get there is by working the steps. ("... Here are the steps we took:", AA ch 5.)