When I stopped in 2009, I went tourign Europe with bands for four years, doing mainly roadie/driver/merch guy stuff.
It's been a relieving experience, I went back to thinking only about today, what we had to do for today's show and nothing more, eventually planning tomorrow's trip, but without much stress.
No planning, no meetings, no standups, no due dates, just load/unload the van, mount the stage, check check check one-two-one-two, waiting for people to show up at the merch stand, with a glass always filled with something.
I was in charge of checking that the venues were respecting our rider, so my job ended up being counting beers and having fun with friends while having party every night.
It has also been cheaper than living in my city, everything was already paid: meals, sleeping accommodations, booze, even drugs most of the times.
Then the band I was working the most stopped for a couple of years to write the new album and I went back into programming, learnt Elixir/Erlang, and now I am consulting for different kind of companies (including banks, video games and insurance companies) to eradicate Java from this planet :)
p.s.: during this awesome times I also had the pleasure to work at an EOTM concert with Nick, their merch guy who was brutally killed in Paris at the Bataclan.
He truly was a great guy, may he rest in peace.
p.p.s.: I think I should add that I left because I had been working home for too long, I was stressed, almost burnt out, plus I was having big problems getting paid on time (if paid at all).
It's been one of the economically lowest moments of my life, I barely had enough money to buy cigarettes, but absolutely one of my greatest and funniest achievements.
It gave me the boost to rethink my life in terms of working better and do less, not more.
I was absolutely no kid anymore (I was 30 already) and still doing it from time to time, when i need to take the steam out.