Dreaming about alcohol/drinking...?
 

Hello all, I quit a week ago, it's been so wonderful, but tonight in the middle of the night I had a dream about wanting to drink. This has upset me because I haven't felt the desire to drink at all since I've quit and now this dream makes me feel like I want to.

I was on a train going somewhere and there was a kitchen on the train. I was pouring myself some orange juice ( actually did drink orange juice right before bed) when I suddenly realized no one was around and I grabbed a bottle of vodka and put a little in - thinking in my dream it was wrong but doing it anyway! But right as I was doing that several people walked in but none of them seemed to notice what I was doing so I slid the vodka away and put a cap on the orange juice/vodka mixture and tried to slip away so I could drink it. The people were all happy and talking to me but all I could think about is how I wanted to drink the orange juice/vodka then I woke up..

The weird part is I rarely drank vodka and I never mixed it with orange juice. I'm kind of angry that I've had this stupid dream and now suddenly I have leftover feelings of wanting to drink.

I'm not going to drink but does anyone experience this kind of thing??? How do you cope???

It's very very common.

I treated it like any other dream. I drank a lot - it's natural I should dream about it.

But some repressed desire? Not necessarily.
I still sometimes dream of High School and , at nearly 50, I have no desire to go back there.

as long as you're fine when you're awake, personally I wouldn't worry overly much :)

D

I have certainly had my fair share of drink dreams - I recently dreamt about being in a restaurant, ordering a glass of red wine and then sending it back, since I remembered I couldn't have it. I have also dreamt about breaking my sobriety.

My rehab after-care therapist said that drink dreams are extremely common in early sobriety. The important thing is that you're still not drinking in reality. The subconscious can do some weird things - I certainly have some dreams about my past that I don't want to revisit, as Dee has said. You will be fine.

Getting over the first few days is one of the toughest hurdles, and you have managed it. You should be congratulating yourself :). Don't beat yourself up about something that isn't even real.

Hang in there and best wishes.

Wow good to know...After going back to sleep and waking up this morning the whole 'I-wanted-to-drink-that' feeling has gone away.

Yep, they are very common and IMO nothing to be concerned about. Thank goodness they are ONLY dreams:)

I catch my brain wandering off and day-dreaming about the "good old days" of drinking on the warm balmy patio and playing video games drunk a couple times a week, nothing unusual.

I'm not that far into this, but im guessing these occasional thoughts eventually go away?

Perhaps someone who is farther into their sobriety can answer that one.

I've had two dreams since I quit and both were relapse dreams where I was horrified that I had drank. Then I woke up and was relieve, it was a true nightmare.

I've heard people who quit smoking say that they periodically have dreams that they still smoke.

Goes to show just how far reaching addiction gets into our minds.

its funny whenever i have a drinking dream i wake up paniced and disgusted with myself and then i'm happy it was only a dream but the guilt i go through picking up just that one drink in the dream is awful.

but a smoking dream how ever I welcome those smoking a cigarette in a dream is bliss for me its so real its so wonderful and it never happened so its totally ok.

Its wierd I've quit both but drinking I hate dreaming about it. Smoking I cant wait its like flying in a dream.

CheeseQ,
i've had very few of those over the years, but yeah, i've had them. and found them very disorienting, usually not being able to tell for a few seconds after waking if that really happened, because even in the dreams i'm panic-struck and horrified and don't know what to do now that i drank again and i wasn't going to and how can i hide this but no, i wasn't going to hide any more and...BAH!

always a relief to become conscious that it was just a dream.

but sounds like that didn't happen to you, and instead you were left with and now suddenly I have leftover feelings of wanting to drink.

feelings of wanting to drink will likely come up, dream or no dream, and it's a good idea, i found, to give some thought to what you'll do when those feelings come up. so that you have options of distraction, or sitting with the feelings, or ...
what did you do with them today?