Haven't played seriously (if at all) in over 7 years-ish.

Back then it was 5NL FR 9-max and I was stepping up to 10NL when I quit.
I played poker full time for a little over a year and I earned about $550 that year. I was living off my dad post-college graduation. It was sad AF. I put that poor guy through the ringer. Love him so much.

Anyway.

That was $550 profit playing for nickles. I could have pushed that into a living wage if playing 25/50, but the time to get there was overwhelming. And I had a mental breakdown being in my 30's and living off my dad, and telling myself to use a physics degree as a stepping stone to spend another many years training myself in a totally different field.

I had anxiety attacks every time I opened poker tables for about a month, and eventually just had to admit I couldn't talk myself out of them. I was making a bad life decision and I didn't fully and deeply believe in myself to do it. There was another path that I needed to take and I spent years preparing for it. I needed to stop the poker thing and do physics.

And I did.

And I'm so happy for the decision. I love my job. I love the people I work with. It pays well enough to take vacations all over the world.

Sometimes I miss poker. I loved it for a long time. But the sting of how my relationship with poker ended is hard to get over.