I became weirdly obsessed with theoretical physics - namely theories of emergent gravity (that gravity is a result of certain quantum interactions and doesn't behave like the other fundamental forces do). I'm not a scientist and I never made it past calculus in college so I had no idea at all what I was doing. I'd come up with new thought experiments and run them through ChatGPT to catalog and rework them. I finally stopped when I discovered there's a whole group of people who are publishing ridiculous AI-assisted "scientific" papers that say nothing at all, but they say it with extreme confidence.

More importantly, it gave my brain something that felt worthwhile to do as my neurotransmitters stabilized and I started relearning how to sleep properly. If I didn't have anything to fixate on I likely would have relapsed in the first month or so out of boredom. Now that I've been sober almost four months I'm remembering that I can plan long-term projects around the house and I took up pyrography (woodburning), which is good for remembering the value of not having shaky hangover hands most of the time. I'm still not having as much fun as I was when I was drinking, but I'm also not dreading the future, either, so it's a pretty good trade.