Many people, especially autistic people, or people with bipolar disorder, or ADHD, have a neurological baseline where glutamate (the brain's "go" signal) runs high and GABA (the "brake") runs low. Alcohol temporarily patches that imbalance, which is why vulnerable populations are drawn to it at disproportionate rates.

The catch: alcohol is a neurotoxin. When it wears off, GABA crashes even lower, glutamate spikes even higher, and every symptom gets worse. Repeat this enough and you're looking at hippocampal atrophy, suppressed neurogenesis, blunted reward circuits, and memories that simply never encode, which is why being around heavy drinkers can feel like being gaslit.

Addiction isn't a willpower problem. It's a nervous system trying to fill a real neurochemical void. Movement, nature, and other GABA-supporting habits can build new neural pathways over time, but the alternative has to come before the substance is taken away.