Most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking about dopamine. I do. For me, dopamine isn’t just a buzzword thrown around in wellness blogs — it’s the invisible tide that shapes my moods, my focus, and my addictions. It’s the reason I can get locked into endless scrolling, chain-smoking in the past, or chasing one more drink. And it’s the reason recovery hasn’t just been about willpower — it’s been about rewiring my whole brain. What It Feels Like to Run Low on Dopamine Imagine starting every day with the volume knob on life turned down. Food tastes dull. Music doesn’t hit the same. Conversations feel muted. It’s not depression exactly — it’s more like existing in grayscale while everyone else seems to live in color. That’s what a chronically low dopamine baseline feels like. So when I found things that lit me up — alcohol, nicotine, kratom, marijuana […]
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Got my results of the brain scans. ❤️
The full report is a 16 pages long. TL:DR Abnormal brain scan. My brain isn’t very healthy. These images are based on blood flow and don’t show the actual shape of my brain. So the “holes” are really weak areas of circulation. But my physical brain doesn’t have holes. Also evidence of brain injury, possibly multiple. The big takeaway is that my current mental diagnoses are aligned with what they see and with the 600 questions and roughly a dozen other evaluations they performed. We are ordering labs and a sleep study now to dig deeper into some of the other physical conditions I may have that can cause deteriorating brain health. Bottom line, poor circulation in many parts of my brain caused by injuries, exposures to toxins (chemicals as a kid, burn pits in the Air Force, smoking tobacco/cannabis, alcohol, kratom), childhood and adult trauma, and years of poor […]
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