Hey readysteady,
I've had trouble falling asleep my whole life, and drinking for me was hugely linked to that. I just couldn't fall asleep without drinking after a while.
I've said this to others on this forum, but I'll repeat it because at least for me, it was kind of a revelation... what's so bad about not falling asleep?
I used to totally panic about it. And the first few weeks of sobriety were really rough. I would be up all night on a fairly regular basis. I'm still up late sometimes (it's getting close to 1 here) but on other days I'm in bed at a nice time. But once I stopped drinking, I realized that the panic was totally irrational.
If I can't sleep, worst case scenario, I stay up all night reading a book and I'm tired the next day.
If I go the drinking route, it's guaranteed that the next day I'll be sluggish and somewhere between mildly and grossly hungover. But even worse, I continue the reward cycle in my brain that means that the next night I'll have to do it all over again. I waste time, and money, make myself feel awful, and trap myself on a treadmill of repetition.
Since breaking that cycle, I've been sleeping better than I have since I was a child. Even on nights when I'm up late, I feel better the next day, because the sleep I do get is actual restful sleep, not just a shutdown to process the alcohol.
It's so worth the initial difficulty! Anyone who can make it through work hungover day after day can make it through a couple of weeks of being sleepy.