Happy to say I'm in a much better place now. Recovery was/is hard, but therapy, meditation, sleep, and exercise -- plus boring old antidepressants -- keep me on much more stable ground. Also family: I have kids now, and being there for them and my wife is a bigger source of motivation than taking care of myself a good portion of the time.

With regards to focus: I've struggled with that for my entire life, starting long before I ever took a drink or anything harder. Perhaps unsurprisingly, bipolar (which I 100% am) and ADHD (~95% sure; just not medicating for it b/c, y'know, "fun" drugs are a problem) are very common dual-diagnoses with substance disorders.

So it's not so much that the substance abuse made me less able to focus; it's more that I've _always_ struggled with slowing down and staying put. Alcohol and other downers were always a form of self-medication.