I eventually gave up on it and switched back to PHP even though every part of me wanted to use it.

I think the problem is that you wanted to use it without asking if it was the proper tool for whatever task you had. PHP and Lisp have very different purposes.

The problem I have is that I am a self taught programmer with a keen interest in computer science but find that living in "computer science land" takes away from my ability to get real work done and pay the bills. I wish it wasn't the case. To my credit though, my PHP code has become a lot more elegant as I am able to take the CS concepts I have learned and apply them to my day to day work.

I find it interesting that you admit to no formal training but are making blanket statements about an entire field. With all arrogance available to me, I claim that I am a good "computer scientist" and "programmer" under your definitions. As far as I can tell, they go hand in hand. When I get better at one I get better at the other.

If I had to make a semantic distinction, programmers are a subset of computer scientists.