When I got sober following a three-year relapse, I didn't believe that I could never again enjoy life because I was intent on achieving sobriety, but because I felt so broken when I finally put down the drink. I was probably in a much different place than you are in that I was older than you, had lived a generally exciting, meaningful and sober life for the twenty five years I was sober (and for parts of some of the years before that), before I picked up the drink again in 2011. I didn't feel as though I was missing something by not doing things where alcohol was prominent. I wasn't at all interested in how exciting my life could or could not be. I was only interested in getting sober, and those who know me know that I did everything I could to get there.
There were flashes and streaks of excitement during my first year or two post-relapse, such as the prospect of coordinating a major research study in my field that had, at that point, produced breakthrough findings. I did not get the job. I was sober for about eight months at the time, eminently qualified, but I'm certain that the outward expression of my enthusiasm was not would it might have been under different circumstances. I was also still more than a little foggy, and was unable to express myself as well as I usually do. I took the rejection hard, and it affected me for more time than I would have liked, in part because it was an opportunity to catapult myself back to a level that was close to my professional standing when I destroyed all that with my drinking. A few months later, I was offered a similar position at another university hospital, but the commute would have been brutal. I wasn't fully aware of this until I completed the roundtrip to and from the interview.
Though I was, in both cases, extremely discouraged, I also needed to face facts. There was no shortcut for me to get back to where I was, personally and professionally, before I once again destroyed all that was good in my life. For better or worse, I was a much different person than I'd ever been when I put down the drink the second time, and I needed to build a life that supported my sobriety.
There's a big gap between having fun during sobriety, whether it's doing things in new or familiar places where drinking is taking place, and being a hermit. Framing life in such a bipolar fashion doesn't do justice to what we can actually do in real life. If we have a desire to have fun, to live an exciting life that stimulates us, then that's what we need to do. Living an exciting life and staying sober are not mutually exclusive. The very opposite has been true for me.
I can't or won't tell you what to do. Again, I'm older than you, and I no longer seek the kinds of thrills or excitement that someone thirty years old might be interested in. I was sober when I was thirty, and I was all over the map with activity in virtually every part of my life, and I'm happy for that. That doesn't mean I'm no longer active, or that I no longer experience excitement. The party is far from over, but it's certainly changed locations. I'm interested in newer, different things in my life than I was when I was thirty years old, and I think that's a good thing.