It was usually a second (and sometimes third) job for me. Except when it wasn't. The hardest times for me were when restaurant work was the first and only thing I had going on. Learned to always try to have some credible other thing going on (even if just a couple hours a week) that I could say was taking me to something more interesting down the road: creative work, a credit or three at some school or other, freelance design, volunteering. Eventually some of those bits and pieces started amounting to something I could live off of, but it took a good 12 years or so.
unslanted