Oh honey ... look at the big picture, and see all you've done in the last three months. You quit drinking. You're not using anymore. You're not using anything to cope with life and your very-active mind. WOW!

I've been reading and reading and reading about the side effects of quitting drinking/using (cause I'm a dork). From what I've read, most people who get past the physical withdrawals (which I don't think you had ) go into a honeymoon or motivation period that is sometimes followed by depression with the reality setting in that the old crutch to deal with life is not there anymore. You've said it before in the past - alcohol was like your friend. It's gone, and your old ways of coping are gone. Everything I've read says that irritability and depression are side effects of quitting.

I mean, if you really think about your brain and the ways you used to feed it dopamine or yummy happy receptors (through using), wouldn't it make sense then that you'd be mighty tired - and depressed - with your brain doing all this work all by itself now?

Add to that the fact that you've put yourself back in school, you've been working hard, doing service work, and working working ... and voile! A very tired boy and a possibly depressed recovering addict. The key word there is recovering. You are recovering and you will recover, and I imagine that the tiredness and depression are all a part of that.