The way I see it, Kava doesn't actually improve your behavior, it just makes you passive and less prone to acting on your impulses. If alcohol made people go on rage attacks to absolutely anything and everyone in their path I would start to think that the alcohol was fully responsible, but because it's a selective thing it is obviously just increased impulsiveness. Happiness even without alcohol or kava requires the parts of the brain that plan and are rational to decrease in function, so adults are miserable because they're smart. I don't care about being smart, personally.
It's all about what you care about more, do you have a needy ego? Alcohol won't be for you because you're too afraid of saying the "wrong" thing to people. My own ego has lately ruined a lot of things for me. I'd become overly rational when I first got depressed "because" of Kava and am now working on lessening my dependence on logic and rationality. I'm introducing Kava again too to see whether or not I can stay relaxed on it and therefore prevent myself from becoming depressed. For what it's worth, I was more psychologically dependent on Kava than alcohol even though I enjoyed Alcohol far more. (I stressed out more about whether or not I would have enough money to buy Kava but this was because I believed that my anxiety would be unmanageable without the kava for specific reasons at the time). My dependence on social validation has also lessened, which is why I have been able to deduce certain social trends that actually make it seem as if society itself is a drug that everyone is a slave to (Not saying I'm right, but that the fact that I can think that with any amount of conviction should shed doubt on everyone else's convictions). In the end, who cares what you're dependent on to live or use in a recreational sense, just make sure you like it and that you do what you can to lessen the dangers (taking strong antioxidants, staying positive and rejecting self defeating statements like "this is the only thing that makes me happy" and whatnot, I won't go into what antioxidants actually work and all that).
I think that the moment you believe that the substance you are taking should do absolutely everything for you to make you happy is when you've gotten dependent. A recreational substance should be a supplement to life, whereas a psychologically medicinal substance might change it completely. Because of this, self medicating is more prone to negative side effects than simple recreational/supplemental usage. Even antidepressants have significantly more negative effects than the simple recreational usage of most drugs excluding the "Big Three" because antidepressants are a medication, not to be taken to supplement life but taken in hopes of changing it completely.