Welcome back AlericB, I too looked into the science of our disease to help understand. Not sure it helped me to understand it more but it did help me put some science to explaining it to normies. For me it gave me factual data that I confirmed by running 30 years of trial and error experiments. Mostly error.
Once I surrendered and accepted that I was a true alcoholic, sobriety has been easy. I have memories of drinking and most of them were bad ones.