I found the whole bit of Riker doing this soul searching about the Pegasus ludicrous since we already saw him do precisely that in the actual episode, not to mention that there was ZERO TIME for him to zip off to the holodeck and play around in a holonovel during "The Pegasus", especially since they spent the majority of the episode playing cat-and-mouse with a Romulan warbird.
"Where are you going, Number One?"
"Oh, just down to Holodeck Three, Captain, to work through some personal demons."
"Need I remind you, Commander, that we're currently on Red Alert?"
Oops.