A HABITUAL NEURAL PATHWAY FORMS ‘The more you drink to soothe social anxiety, the more that “drinking is the solution” gets encoded into the habit centre of the brain,’ explains Korb. ‘And the more appealing it becomes in future. Eventually becoming something that is no longer pleasurable, and is just a compulsion. It becomes a coping habit written into the brain. The brain then gets stressed when you don’t choose the drinking coping habit. So when you don’t drink, you feel stressed about the not-drinking. It’s a catch 22.’
