All these things are true to my experience too. When I was drunk all the time, I thought I understood why my brain was mush. I was drunk, right? After being sober for a week or two, I was getting impatient to get my intellectual mojo back.
The good news? After almost two years, I am at full speed, but I continued to notice reassuring improvements in recall, word choice and general smarts well into the beginning of the second year.
Hang in, be gentle with yourself, and work on that whole acceptance concept. Best to you. As John Cleese said, he gets confused sometimes and ends sentences with the wrong fusebox.