My sleep has changed, with two to three waking periods in the middle of the night. Part of this may be due to going to bed early, or at least falling asleep earlier than I used to while using. Still, in the morning I feel refreshed but am having some problems late in the afternoon with getting sleepy. All told, I would say I am getting about six hours of sleep a night. On weekends I tend to catch up with rest by napping. I have Crohn's Disease that could be impacting how tired I feel right now, but that doesn't explain why I would wake up the way I do in the middle of the night. Because I'm experiencing other brain related issue issues, like brain fog, my body may just still be in a rebuilding mode from coming off the alcohol. Feeling tired in the afternoon may be temporal for me, or at least I hope so.
If you are getting 5.5 hours of good sleep and are not having any other difficulties with that new normal, bravo! Maybe you can try shifting your hour of retiring to bed to be gradually later until you are waking up at an hour that is more suitable to your rhythms. Don't watch TV in bed or read until you are ready to sleep, and best of all just go to the bedroom with the idea of doing nothing more than sleep (or something that's associated to that space) while you are adjusting to a new pattern. I bet this will sort itself out for you.
