How much (sober) sleep do you average per night?
 

My wife and I were talking today about how much my sleep patterns have changed, for the better, since I am sober. One blessing is actually being responsible for a reasonable bedtime instead of blacking out or passing out whenever!

I'd say my sleep is still all over the place a bit, but my sleep is more quality sleep than when I was drinking. Since I am a hardcore bicycle commuter, I really need 8 hours most nights, but can get away with the occasional 6 hours every once and again.

So, on average, how many hours/night (or day if you work nights) do you get? Expound as needed.

6 hours of disrupted sleep.
TV off and on throughout the night.
A couple of trips to SoberRecovery.com.
Wake up feeling good most the time.
M-Bob

I picked 8-9 because that is how much time I spend in bed.

During my 27 years of passing out every night from alcohol abuse I also developed sleep apnea so my sleeping pattern was awful. In the last several years I rarely sleep more than an hour without waking up.

I got treatment for the sleep apnea 6 months ago so things got a little better but I was still drinking and very overweight.

I quit drinking 63 days ago and due to anxiety and depression I still wasn't sleeping well. My doctor gave me medication to help me sleep and a few weeks ago I actually slept 9 hours straight without getting up for the first time in over 20 years.

I still wake up several times a night but I do get better rest - I used to walk around in a hungover exhausted daze all the time and only felt good when I was drinking - until I passed out.

If I have to work in the morning, I get 4-6, if I don't I oversleep and get 10. I tend to be in bed a lot longer, tossing and turning these days.

For the record, passing out and staying asleep for a solid 8 hours doesn't count as quality sleep.

Usually about 6 works for me.

D

I'm all over the place where I get on these cycles that last for weeks that are a huge pain to change. My current one is going to bed around 4-6 AM, getting about 4-5 hours of sleep, then staying up until about 3, waking up again around 7 and so on. I was doing well for quite a while, going to try a sleep aid tonight to track and get back on track.

OMG have I ever learned to love love love my sleeps. It didn't seem to take long after I stopped drinking to start sleeping thru the night. The first several weeks (I forget how many) I could do 12 hours easy. I would get home from work and sometimes go right to bed without supper.

Now I prefer minimally 8 hours, 9 if possible, during work weeks. I'm starting to sleep in on the weekends now. No more waking up at 3am every night and stumbling to the bathroom....

If I had to vote on what I like best about being sober, sleeping would be high up on the list....

Usually somewhere between 6 and 7. If I don't get at least 6 I feel like a zombie.

Anywhere from 4 hours to 14 hours but ideally 7-8. I work late and I'm up early for my home group 5 days a week so I nap a lot and I work a 16 hour shift Saturdays so sleep until I gotta go to work at 4 on Sundays lol. I sleep a hell of a lot better than I ever did when I was drinking and using

4 interrupted, 11 months sober

Well, I wish it were uninterrupted sleep ....but 2 cats have different ideas. 2:30am every day Lucky wants t be fed. He crawls all over me till I get up. Then again at 5:30am when my husband leaves for work. I wish I could sleep through all the meows and stuff...oh well better than pass out drunk every night!

I get up way too early. The cats get me up, too, BarbieKen. I have 4 but, 3 sleep with me. The maternal instinct knows when they are active. Are they hungry? Need something else? Do they just want my attention and affection? I feel bad if I ignore them so I do my best to keep them happy. My sleep is deep but, my dreams are so vivid that I am not sure if my mind gets any rest. I have arthritis so my body gets worn out from the stiffness and pain. I use to drink that away. Now I am dealing with it sober. I take a nap when I am exhausted and lay down when I have done too much. I try not to beat myself up or push too hard because that is unproductive. I usually fall asleep by 8 or 9 and get up around 2 am. The house is up at 4 am. I must have been a farmer in my previous life. "Time to milk the cows!" lol Or a baker. "Time to make the donuts!"lol So about 5-6 hours of nightime sleep and an hour nap during the day. :)

6 to 7 hours of pretty consistent sleep. Wasn't always like that though, slept on and off throughout the day when I was drinking, and could hardly sleep at all the first week of recovery.

I had horrible sleep until I was sober for well over a year.. now it's much better after 3+ years. Here in the tropics we go to bed really early - about 9pm, and I usually wake up by 6am, as it's getting light. That's 8-9 hours, but I get up once or twice at night so it's not without interruption. No TV in our house but we all use internet or read.

Nothing better than a good workout during the day and reading before bed for good sleep.

My sober sleep is so good. :) I get at least 8 hours and wake up feeling good. :)

Regular sleeping patterns are one of my favorite things in sobriety. For about the last 10 years of my drinking career, I'd pass out for a few hours, then toss and turn the rest of the night. No wonder I was so tired all the time! Now I get 8 hours every night and I love it:)

Most typically between 6-8. It is usually not uninterrupted sleep though even if I can go back to sleep quite easily after short waking (I know this, if from nothing else, from the fact that I typically remember multiple dreams per night). It took me a lot of effort in sobriety to achieve this, I had horrible sleep habits as a drunk. Not only simply due to the effects of alcohol on disrupting sleep but I would often sleep with my electronic devices (laptop, iPad) next to me in bed and get on them in the middle of the night, then bye-bye sleep... Now I make sure the devices lie in a reasonable distance from my bed. I also have two cats that I love to snuggle with but do not allow them in my bed/bedroom when I have an important event the day after or otherwise need to be especially well rested. It wasn't particularly hard to train them that they get attention and fed during the day. Also, I am married but my husband and I have separate bedrooms so we can decide when we want to sleep together, when to get to sleep, how to spend the night, when to get up etc (he often likes working at night, for example, I gave that up several years ago).

It really depends, anywhere from 4 to 9 depending on what day it is and what's going on. The main thing for me is, it's restful sober sleep, and I almost never have trouble falling asleep when it's bedtime.

Normally about 7 hours. However, I've been going through a rough patch with a lot of anxiety and nightmares which wake me up in the middle of the night (and keep me from falling back to sleep) so last night I only got 4 1/2 hours.

Sleep is one of the biggest blessings for me. Fought for years to get to sleep at night and often overslept after falling asleep around 4am.

Now I mostly get 7 hours or so and get to sleep pretty quickly. Booze was NOT helping my sleeping problems.

P

Just remembering what my sleep patterns were like when I drank. Falling asleep at night was fairly easy as I usually passed out. Then I would wake up after only a few hours feeling anxious, shaky, heart racing like I just ran 5 miles. So, I'd drink more, hoping to pass out again. When that wouldn't work, which was most of the time, I'd get on the computer (stimulate the brain even more). Usually, I wouldn't fall back to sleep until less than an hour before it was time to get up and go to work. Frequently, I would disappear from work to go steal a nap somewhere. I lived in such a constant state of fatigue, coupled with being drunk, I felt like I was either going insane or dying. Or both. And those were the better days, when I wasn't feeling sick as a dog on top of it. I wouldn't trade a month of sober insomnia for one day of that misery.

Still in the early stages of sobriety since my relapse. But in my 4 years of sobriety I averaged 6-8 easy

My sleep right now would rate about a 7/10 since I'm sober. I aim to be lying down by 8pm. Granted, I may read for 30 minutes to an hour, but I'm winding down by that time. Usually fall asleep within 10 minutes. I may get up about 3am to use the bathroom and then I sleep for another hour until I need to get up. If I start later, I seem to just lay there anyway.

Weekends I will stay up until 10 -11pm watching a movie. Even then, I am still up at 5 am or so.

I picked 8 to 9 as I am usually asleep by 11pm and up at 7am. However, this week The Vanishing Women is showing on the Investigation Discovery channel at 11pm so it will be less sleep for me this week :)

When I was drinking I slept much less. I love my sleep now. I have never been someone that can stay in bed and even when drinking I rarely slept in beyond 10am.

What's funny about watching stuff late in the evening: when I drank, I'd watch an entire movie, but could never remember the end. Now that I am sober, I get too tired about halfway and shut it off and hit the sack.

My alarm is permanently shut off unless I have some appointment to make.
Whenever my dog wakes me up to go to the bathroom

Crap. The past few nights I have not been able to fall asleep til 1am-ish. And then I wake up at 2 or 3 and am awake (kinda drifting in and out) til 5 and awake til I get out of bed at 6.

So sick of this.

I'm 19 months in. I think my nervous system is still recovering.

For some reason, if I have to get up early, I won't fall asleep until 4 in the morning, but if I don't have to get up early, I can fall asleep at 11 easily. However, I'm still new to the sobriety thing, so I wake up ALOT. Hoping that will change soon! :-)

I'm all over the place. In early sobriety it was 2-3 hours twice a day. Some days i'd go 48 hours with no sleep, then sleep for 14 straight.

After about 6 months, i started sleeping 4-5 straight with a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day and another hour in the evening.

Now, it's usually 5+ in a stretch and 1-2 naps during the day and evening.

I don't let myself think or obsess about it too much.

I did learn that sugar had a HUGE effect on my sleep. I was a diabetic for the first 9 months i was sober. If my blood sugar was off and it was too high or low, i'd twitch and jerk multiple times a night.

Now that i know how closely related they were, i got rid of my type 2 and make sure my numbers are solid through out the day.

Netflix is always on. :)

If I'm working a lot usually only 4-7 hours per night, but when I'm off work for a bit (I travel so I do a few months then a month off, etc.) I do about 12 hours a night. I'm definitely happiest if I can get between 10 and 12 haha