Alcohol/Dopamine After Covid

I’ve read multiple accounts of people indicating that they have a much lower tolerance for alcohol after recovering from covid, whether or not they end up with long covid. They mostly describe worsening hangovers the day after, however I haven’t found anyone describing a difference in how alcohol affects them while they’re consuming.

After getting covid in June of 22, I seemingly “recovered” after 6 days of rest and went back to work (from home at the time) the week after, feeling back to normal. July 4th weekend (8 days post recovery), I went over a friends house and made the poor decision to consume about 10 beers. Had an awesome night, but a horrid 2 days following. I wasn’t entirely surprised, just figured it would take longer to feel like myself.

Ever since that party, I have not gone back to normal. I abstained from alcohol for 6 months, thinking that I needed time to reset. I still felt mentally foggy and had this low grade anxiety that followed me everywhere.

Finally, by Christmas I decided it had been long enough and I felt willing to try a beer or two and see how I felt…instead of a happy buzz, I just felt more or less the same mood wise while physically feeling the effects of alcohol. Since then, I’ve drank one other time a month later…this time, I had about 8 drinks, and once again, felt physically drunk but no heightened mood/euphoria like I used to.

Has anyone else experienced this radical change? Has it improved with time? I’ll also note that within the past few months my anxiety has gone from a low grade unease to a full blown disorder which at times severely impacts my mood and ability to function…I’m guessing if dopamine is affected from the anxiety that alcohol will not affect me normally either.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.