gms

I have been drinking for around 8-10 years. It started with one or two large beers in the evening. Around 2016 I think, it advanced to 6 pack every evening, sometimes more. Since the pandemic started, I lost all control and drunk every evening until falling asleep on the bathroom floor, sometimes so drunk that I peed while sleeping.

My physical health has been okay. I was diagnosed with fatty liver. My liver enzymes are in normal range (albeit high normal), but I have mild pain or discomfort on the right side of my abdomen.

I recently started thinking of the damage to my brain. I work as a software engineer in a very good company and in the past two year I had some problems due to my performance. I'm not as sharp as I used to be and my more junior colleagues outperform me. I'm almost 40yo and I wonder if I permanently lost my skills due to alcoholism. I know there is lots of optimism and support here, but I'm wondering if you also know examples of those who quit, but never regained their sharp minds?

I read PubMed articles about alcoholism and cognitive functions and they seem to agree that people do lose IQ due to alcohol - some brain functions recover with abstinence, but not all of it.

I quit drinking around 6 or 7 weeks ago and no much changed in my physical or mental health. I might have had very mild withdrawal symptoms: vivid dreams and strange hand movements in the first few nights when I was falling asleep. The mild pain / discomfort on the right side is much less frequent. I do not see any cognitive changes. The only thing that changed is my libido - it went down considerably.