​​This study traces the shift in the relationship between the Assad regime and the Alawite community during the Syrian war from one structured around protection and loyalty to one marked by exhaustion, disillusionment, and internal fragmentation. It argues that the Alawite community was never a homogeneous social bloc, and that the early alignment of broad Alawite segments with the regime can be attributed to the intersection between the regime's instrumentalization of existential fear and anxieties produced by escalating violence and sectarian rhetoric. The study adopts an interpretive qualitative approach based on interviews with participants from Syria's coastal region, alongside a critical reading of relevant literature. It argues that the prolonged war, increased human losses, the decline in living conditions, and the emergence of war-economy networks gradually eroded the implicit authoritarian bargain between the regime and its Alawite base. It concludes that while this erosion alone does not explain the fall of the regime, it reveals an important internal dimension of the collapse, as sectarianism transformed from a tool of mobilization and control into a political and social burden increasingly unable to reproduce loyalty.​​