I see it this way now: My job - the Job that Hashem has for me - is to try to stay sober first - before anything else. For without it, the entire binyan is useless. To keep the halocha, at least at the bottom line halacha - without chumras; to try to work these steps in order to avoid some of the obstacles to sobriety, so that I maintain sanity and a connection with Him this day. Maybe then I will let Him in and actually not trash all the other gifts He gives me, like sobriety, ability to be mekayem mitzvos, my job, and loving other people, just for this day.
I need to learn how to live a sober lifestyle. My awareness of Hashem needs to be one that is real, that has an emotional effect on me. I do not at all refer to davening with tears or not. I am talking about the rest of my life - out of the shul: at work, at the table, in the train - and in the bedroom. It's gotta make a real difference to me that there "is a G-d in the world!" as a great chassidishe yid (the Bardichiver Rebbe) put it. I cannot tolerate too much crazy living - cannot be burning the candle at both ends any more. If Halacha requires that I be at every minyan, on time, and daven with kavonoh, and do everything l'Shem Shomayim.... which it does, then I ask you: who has such expectations? (Do you, of your own children? I hope not!) Did He expect perfection from humans? Well, that's not happening, so what was He expecting? I guess living as a 'Torah yid' must be a process - perfection is not expected of us. "Yehudi hu tamid baderech, ein hu yachol lavo l'shum tachlis - a Jew is always 'on-the-way', he can never reach a goal". We are expected to try. Learning to live with this reality is part of growing up.
And the funny thing is that the rules change as we grow up! More good stuff becomes available to us over time, not less. You can call that stuff 'madreigos', but I think that makes it a game or 'contest' rather than real life. We become more given-over to Hashem and ever more willing to do for Him. For example, not only can I do some good things now that I couldn't do before, but now they flow naturally... they are just part of the way I need to live as the kind of yid I am. No madreigos, just realities. I need to do right, in order to remain honest and (at least somewhat) given-over to Hashem today. Living honestly with Hashem, my very Best, Eternal Friend, even though I am still a work in progress.
I say take it one day at a time, right this minute, and do the best you can to be honest and open with Hashem. Make sobriety your first priority, and do it to open yourself to Him, cuz you can't be open to Him at all if you are wrapped up in lust. It takes us over. Be devoted to the ones you love and that means to be useful to them and to enjoy them. Ask Hashem to help you do as good a job as you can keeping His Torah, and specifically, to help you attend one minyan more on time than you did last week. To do one less stupid thing today than you did yesterday. He knows you are not perfect yet. Don't put him in the same condemming place you might put your own conscience. He only loves you and only wants you to succeed.
I believe that if you do this, you have the very best chance of eventually coming to the state that you are learning without wasting time, always at minyan early and prepared and davening with kavonoh, etc....
I believe that if you do not do this, but stay wrapped up in self-judgement and perfectionism, you will get the exact same results you have been getting for the past few years: a sweet yid who is trying to be perfect, isn't, and hates himself for it. Or, a yid who lives as though Hashem thinks he should be perfect, and hates Hashem for it. In the meantime, we are acting out with lust and screwing our lives up slowly.
Not a nachas ruach, for sure.
I am tired now, and need to go to bed... part of not burning the candle at both ends that I used to do so much, and still often do. G-d help me shut the computer and the lights, brush my teeth, and go to bed like a good yiddeleh right now. Thanks.