Brain injury a recovery issue?

A sobriety friend of mine mentioned that brain injuries can play a part in using and addiction.

Now, I never had any that bad, but, I got to wondering if they could play a role in personality development, and so factor a bit into intensifying some of my PTSD and related issues.

I had one concussion when I was, I believe, 8 years old. School playground bullies were chasing me. I tripped, or was tripped, rather, and hit my head on hard-packed desert dirt at the foot of the playground slide. I never went to the nurse’s office; I sat through the final two-thirds of the school day that way.

I had another when I was 12. My middle school had just intramural football, divided into over-100 and under-100 pound divisions. Well, covering a kickoff, I tackled the returner, a kid who I have no idea how he qualified to be in the under-100 class. Next thing I know, I’m being pulled off the ground and congratulated for causing a fumble. This concussion was lighter than the first, but, it was a concussion, not just a “bell ringing.”

Then, I had an accidentally caused skull fracture when I was 14. Surprisingly, I didn’t have a concussion of any sort, that I can say. But, given the location of the contact, right on the frontal lobe, it may have caused a bit of mental “ding” also.

The three head injuries together, then, may be a few more of the “soul death of a thousand cuts” of my development.