Dreams?

[madmag]

Does anyone here have dreams about drinking? ALL my dreams lately have been about me drinking again. I wake up in cold sweats and then am so relieved when I realize its not real. I have been sober from alcohol for 17 months and sober from xanax addiction for 3 months. Just curious. Thank you.

:elephant

[bubblze30]

Yes these dreams do tend to creep up in recovery. I had some pretty real ones myself. I must say that the more I am in recovery the less they seem to happen. They come and go now but where very strong early in recovery. Just remind yourself its only a dream and the best thing is you did not use...

[Ann25]

Those dreams can seen so real cant they? I havent had any lately but I would wake up and could taste and smell it!!!!!! My heart would be pounding and I would be crying so hard that I really thought it was real. Hang in there----AND PRAY!!!!!!!! Thats what worked for me.

[weeblow]

My using dreams like yours left me in cold sweats crying and thinking I had to change to clean date, until I realized it was just a dream. When I first got clean it was suggested to me that when I said my prayers at night to invite my HP to dream with me, and it worked for me.
They tell me that my using dreams are my disease doing push ups while I sleep. It is also part of my recovery, post acute withdrawl is what my counsilor tells me. I am right where I am supposed to be, and I am greatful to be here!!!!

Love,
weeblow

[lulu70]

I have had a lot of using dreams as well, leaving me in a panic. I am a pot addict as well as an alcoholic, so that stuff is included in there as well. I liked what you said, weeblow, that the dreams are our disease doing push-ups. That makes sense to me. The disease can sneak up on us when we are asleep because we are so vulnerable then. Luckily, though, we are typically not in a bar, liquor store, or dealers house when we are sleeping, so the disease is still kept at bay.

I will try asking my HP to dream with me tonight and see if it helps!

[Iceberg]

I have been sober for 25 days so maybe I don't have as much experience as the other women but, I certainly know what you mean by "using" dreams and just plain weird dreams. I generally lean toward the explanation of dreams as a way our subconscious deals with everyday stress. Because I am obsessed with NOT drinking, as a major stress in my life, my subconscious (while I am sleeping) puts me into situations where I can, have or will drink. The fact, however, remains that I wake up sober even if for a while I don't believe it. Also, after 4 years of waking up hung over in some degree it probably will take at least 2 years for my body to be really rid of that pattern (kind of like they say it takes 1/2 the time the love lasted to get over a failed romance...I find it very similar.)

Hang in there, for me at least it's no longer EVERY night like during detox.

-Iceberg

[namommy]

Using dreams. I still have them at times. I wasn't taught that it was my disease doing push-ups, I was told that it was my minds way of cleaning out the crap. As we fill our heads with good thoughts and ideas of recovery, our brains need to find room to keep them in, so it pushes the crappy thoughts out through our dreams.

I have also learned how to let them entertain me and keep me grateful. It's a good reminder of how bad things were when I was using. I also sometimes look at it as a way to party and get high without losing my clean time.lol

Gooch recently posted a link to a song "Gimme 12 steps" it deals with this exact subject I think it is in recovery follies, if not, PM gooch and ask him about it.

[wastedtime4me]

I also had dreams where i could smell it and taste it...too weird but it happens

[j-la]

sometimes i get the taste and smell. i pray, call my sponsor and then i pray again.

[twoboys]

I have drinking dreams when I'm trying to be sober and when I'm feeling guilty about not being sober. Just last night, my second night sober, I had drinking dreams and powerlessness dreams. I was in a variety of bad situations, eg, stuck in the attic and noone could find me or stuck under a heavy piece of furniture when no one was there to get me out, and I couldn't scream, or if I screamed nothing came out. Not too hard to analyze that one!

I was sober for many weeks (July to November) last year, and those kinds of dreams came fast and furious at the beginning, but slacked off as I got more comfortable in my sobriety. Of course, it was that "comfort" that made me think it was okay to have "just one". Here we go again ...