Really "sobering" experience...
I have been really bored lately (it's almost *physically* painful) so today I finally decided to go looking for a hobby on the internet. I'd hoped to find some snazzy new program that I could play around with or perhaps a script I could install or at least something to occupy my time. Even a nice, new game would have been ok.
I looked around and saw pretty much the same old stuff on the software sites and other places and ended up getting distracted and going to some of the sites I used to visit before I went on my year-long alcohol nightmare. Things have REALLY changed!. Some of the sites I used to visit have now morphed into something entirely different and some are no longer even operating. Then, I went back to the software sites again and happened to notice a few of the HTML editors I used to use when I was cranking out scripts by the dozens and there were other tools I used to use (Flash, Blender 3D, game programming tools, etc). Also, games I used to play and many other things. It was like taking a trip down "memory lane" and looking at all of the things I used to be involved in when I was CLEAN and SOBER.
All of that ended over a year ago and although I have 20 days of sobriety under my belt and no desire to drink anymore, a lot of the motivation I had back then and a lot of the skills I posessed seem to have dissapeared. I was a very good artist, programmer, webmaster, etc (even ran my own web server and hosted for quite awhile) and I was always involved in something "big" that involved a group of other people. It makes me sad that those days seem to be gone and it's almost as if I was an alzhiemer's patient looking over an old family album but not being able to go "back there" and re-live the life I once lived.
Anyway, it was just kind of a strange and surreal experience for me and got me thinking a lot about how this disease can completely change you. Thank God I quit when I did. I'm just barely starting to try to get back to where I was before this cruel and insidious disease tried to rob me of my life and what I once was.
- Need4Change