Alcohol broke my brain
Hey there, SoberRecovery. This is my first post. I'm not in a good place right now, but I suppose most people aren't when they first come here. Anyway, I'll tell you my story....if anyone cares.
I'm currently about 30 years old, and was drinking heavily for around 6 years. I quit drinking about a month and a half ago, and also got off of low doses of two potentially addictive medications. The problem is....there's no light at the end of the tunnel for me. The longer I remain sober, the more I see what alcohol has taken from me, and the less hope I have about ever getting it back.
Considering the short length of time (relative to some alcoholics) I was drinking, the mental toll is absolutely staggering. The doctors have performed all sorts of brain and blood tests, and there's apparently nothing detectable to medical science that should be wrong with me. Nonetheless, my mental state is absolutely TERRIBLE. My ability to speak and write is completely crippled; it's almost as if my brain skips over words. I cannot type a complete sentence without reading it afterward and finding at least two words completely missing. Apparently the same thing happens with my speech, only it's other people that have to notice that for me. I also have a very difficult time finding the right words in any given situation, and my new inability to solve math problems (I used to be a teacher) has left me unable to perform the job I once loved. Worst of all, though, is the impact it had on my memory. I had a hard enough time remembering things before, but now there are days when I wake up unable to remember a single thing about what I did the previous day. It's like a blackout...but WITHOUT ANY ALCOHOL. Without the ability to remember things, it feels like I've fallen prey to stupidly-early-onset Alzheimer's, and there's no hope for bettering myself if the progress in doing so is wiped away every night when I go to sleep.
I've been trying to improve my life one step at a time....getting more exercise, getting out more and being social....but my mental state shows no form of improvement even after this long. The way words disappear makes me seem like I have a speech impediment to the rest of the world, and my relative inability to express myself makes finding new friends an impossibility. I also have extreme jealousy of everyone else in the world, especially when it comes to speaking or writing. If this post ends up being comprehendible, it's only because it took over two hours to painstakingly correct and meticulously edit.
I just...feel like a dead husk of a man roaming this world aimlessly. Enlightenment, peace, happiness...these things elude me at every turn. People seem to actively avoid me once I open my mouth. I won't be surprised if this post gets no replies, which is just as well since there's probably even odds on me forgetting I ever posted here in the first place (due to the aforementioned memory issues). But anyway, assuming I do remember I posted this, what can I expect here? Have any of you heard of cognition and memory being so irreparably damaged from alcohol abuse over such a short period of time? And given that nothing was detectable by any of the doctors and specialists I've seen, what else can I even do?