When I started drinking alcohol, it wasn’t about chilling or having fun—it was about fitting in. I thought a drink in my hand would make me part of the crowd, hide my insecurities, and fill the void of feeling like I didn’t belong. Looking back, now sober and wiser, I see it wasn’t just about blending in. My low self-worth, lack of control over my life, and absence of a growth mindset made me lean into something destructive. In my journey into Cognitive neuroscience, it explains how addiction took advantage of that, turning me into a victim of my own brain.
Your brain’s reward system, especially the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (your brain’s “feel-good” highway) is built to make you feel good when you do things like eat or connect with others. Dopamine, the “happy chemical,” reinforces those behaviors. Alcohol, though, was like a fake shortcut. It flooded my brain with dopamine, making me feel accepted—at least for a while. But the more I drank to fit in, the more my brain rewired itself through neuroplasticity, craving alcohol over real connections. My prefrontal cortex, the part that helps make smart choices, got sidelined, so I kept chasing that false sense of belonging.
Back then, I didn’t see my worth or believe I could control my path. I had no growth mindset to push me toward better habits. Addiction preyed on that, making alcohol seem like my only way to cope. Science shows it messes with dopamine receptors, so you need more to feel okay, and your stress system goes wild without it. I felt stuck, like my brain was running the show without any monitoring.
Understanding this has helped me discover and rebuild my self-worth (as a child partly, and maybe entirely destroyed by an alcoholic father- still analyzing this). I wasn’t weak—my brain was hijacked.
Given the nature of how sobriety (arrival of The Hero) found me, recovery was not hard, but knowing my brain can rewire with new habits, like building confidence and embracing my agency, gives me hope.
If you’re struggling, you’re not alone. Addiction tricks your brain, but you can take back control.
