The dopamine hit from the successful lie, from “getting away with it”, becomes almost as powerful as the dopamine hit from the drug. Hiding away. Me and my bottle. My precious. Drinking at every event turned into drinking when I get home from work (it is an event kind of) to drinking myself to a coma to go to sleep without thinking. If you stop drinking and slowly make changes in your life that don’t make you ‘link’ with alcohol then your brain will have the chance to slowly change to that of a non-drinker.