The first couple of days of sobriety were always so strange for me. I'd try to go to sleep (or more accurately stare at a fucking wall or tv for hours until I eventually succumbed to it) with an unfocused but overwhelming feeling of dread and anxiety, but the first few days waking up without being hungover were so awesome and energizing. I'd be tired as everloving shit because of the miserable sleep and chemical changes, but somehow still feel better and more capable than I did in years. That's all to say, I'm sorry I missed the boat to help you last night, but I hope you have an awesome fucking morning because you've earned it.
There will be good days and bad days and the nature of the beast changes as the days turn to weeks turn to months but every day gets a little bit easier. I started drinking for somewhat similar reasons to you, but I don't want to assume I know your struggles so I won't say anything more. Even so, it might be hard to see when times get tough, but life is still better in every way without the drink. Stay strong friend.
Yeah, that's not a valid notation I've come across in my music journey. I'd agree with you that it could be a placeholder symbol in that context, but I don't know why they wouldn't just restrict the pages instead. It could also be a unicode or file type issue like slatun mentions too, but overwhelmingly, unless you're working in a specific music softwares ecosystem and expect to be able to edit it, sheet music is just given as a pdf or image file and it shouldn't matter.