person197

Anyone when drinking have issues that it is easy to pass out at bedtime after drinking a ton to only wake up in the early morning hours and be unable to go back to sleep and feel extremely anxious?

Anna

Yes, that happened to me all the time.

One of the reasons I started drinking was to help me sleep. I was quite desparate. Little did I realize what a can of worms that was! I'd be lucky to sleep a few hours and be wide awake and very upset. Oh, I don't miss that a bit.

Jules62

Yes-used to happen to me all the time.That horrible feeling of impending doom, and I'd stress about everything I couldn't deal with at the time.Horrible.One of the greatest blessings of my recovery so far is being able to sleep all night and not wake up feeling like crap.....It's worth it.

Jules xox

person197

I always think I am hearing noises in my house at night too when I wake up like that, it is just horrible.

Hevyn

Absolutely, me too, and so I would open up another beer at 3 or 4 am to "go back to sleep", only to wake up a couple hours later & repeat the process. Then by the time you're supposed to be getting up, there's no way to stop then because you're so loaded, therefore another day of round-the-clock drinking begins! (At least for me in the past few years.)

Cindys10

That happened to me all the time too. It was horrible and I don't want to go back there.

BaldHeadedJohn

Happened all the time. I'd wake up after about 4-5 hours of sleep to go to the potty, and not be able to get back to sleep. Especially bad when I had to get up for work and couldn't drink myself back to sleep.

LRH

ruch

Yep...I remember them nights/mornings. Most of the time they were Sunday into Monday after a three day binge. It was bad enough knowing I had to get ready for work in a few hours let alone laying in my bed scared stiff of nothing specific just impending doom.

CarolD

Well....the last 5 years before I quit....

I never went to bed until 3 or 4 a.m.
About 8
I usually awoke in tears ...had a drink...
threw up...had a drink ...took a Librium
and
went to work....

On weekends I did a triple header.
3 episodes of drunk.pass outs.

Nope...those were NOT the good old days!

person197

I started drinking immediately after work so i would be more "rested" when I got to work the next day instead of going out at night and being out late... the result, i crash earlier, then cant sleep in anymore... it is horrible... i was on vacation all last week and kept waking up 3-5am and couldnt go back to sleep... as if my body is recognizing that i am sobering up and wants more.

Jules62

Um-ok...so........I have to ask-you've posted about this several times now-but maybe you aren't doing anything to help yourself as yet.And I know it's hard and lonely and miserable.I've been there too.

I DO understand how horrible it is to be there-but this is a recovery board and it just sounds like you're not doing a thing to help yourself.I can have sympathy-empathy even-for anyone in this state-god knows I was once and I never want to go back there.

I just want to know-do you want to get better?Do you realise just how much this is hurting you?

It sounds like you don't-and if I'm really wrong here-forgive me.But coming to SR saved my life.It means so much to me.I really hope you're asking for help here-and you'll get it.

I'm just a bit confused

Jules xox

Pilgrim

Ahhhh. Yes. The Alcoholic Dawn.

Thank you for reminding me.

I thought that maybe if I started drinking early enough in the day, I would pass out early enough to be able to work the next day. Not that, after a few drinks, I would care less about the next day.

Waking up at 3am knowing that I desperately needed to sleep to overcome my hangover but tossing and turning. My legs wouldn't stop moving.

I would have painkillers in the drawer beside my bed - strong ones - in order to get back to sleep.

Mentally, that time was what I now think of as hell.

Thanks again for this thread.

GlassPrisoner

That's exactly what it is. It's actually an early form of withdraw. you think it's bad now ? Keep drinking, it gets worse.

And something I don't miss one bit !

person197

Jules I do want to quit, just what happens everytime is i finally am able to spend a few days sober but then finally start feeling better and think it is fine to have a beer, i can handle it, but it starts the process over again.

Jules62

Hey person,

Sorry.I was a bit hard on you really-and I went to change my post this morning and couldn't....I guess I was worried you weren't really serious but that was my assumption and I was wrong.

I really do understand what you're experiencing.My alkie voice kicks in like that too after a while of being sober but I'm learning to tell it to eff off more quickly these days.I have relapsed twice since admitting I am an alcoholic and some days are harder than others.But each time I've relapsed it's for that very reason 'I can handle it now-a few won't hurt' but I can never have just a few.I drink till I pass out.It is a miserable disease and I never want to go back there.I do understand the struggle.

I really do wish you well.I know how hard this can be.We're here for you.

Kind regards,

Jules.

L Ron Hoover

Don't want to sound blunt, but it seems somewhat obvious that you can't handle it.
You're not alone, though. I was the same way. I'd get a week or two or so, then figure Oh it's OK now.

Well, for me at least it wasn't OK. The sober time got shorter and the drinking got longer. You can stop drinking, but that's something that you have to convince yourself of. No one could do it for me, I had to accept the cold hard fact that I can not just have a drink or two. Not today. Not tomorrow.

Blessings to you.
LRH

Hevyn

And that's the hell of it - we keep trying, insisting that magically we can become social drinkers, even though the same results happen each time. In my case, increasingly dangerous and horrible things happened with each binge. I spun out of control worse than ever after my 3 years of sobriety ('97-'00). You just pick up where you left off, you haven't gotten better, or "healed", or learned a damn thing. We know these things, so why don't we just do what we know we have to? It must not have anything to do with intelligence, since there's obviously an abundance of it here!!!

GlassPrisoner

That is the insanity that step 2 of a 12 step program is talking about. "This time it will be different....."

GreenTea

...Cunning, baffling and powerful...

"...If feeling like physical crap doesn't get more alcohol into you, why then we'll just start cranking up the old mind-f#cks..."

Yeah, that certainly sounds familiar to me. For many years I was on a weekly binge cycle -- work hard all week, then get plastered on the weekend and put myself together again in time for the following work week.

As things continued, I'd kick the weekend off with a "little binge" on Fridays before the "main event" on Saturday. Then it started taking all Sunday to recover. After that, well why not start a little earlier on Thursday night since no one really gets anything done on Friday anyway. Then "recovering" meant sleeping until Sunday night and still feeling like crap on Monday, (but then, no one likes Mondays anyway so what's the difference, right?). Then Saturday daytime became a "recover" time too -- had to rest up for Saturday night. And looky here, its "hump day" Wednesday -- might as well grab a few on the way home from work to break up the week.

You get the idea. Its progressive in nature.

Then I kind of put on the brakes for a while. Later, I jumped back into it, resuming my weekly "Saturday night" cycle. It still took me until Monday or Tuesday to feel better again physically. By Thursday I'd be over most of the regret. By Friday, I was obviously "over-reacting" to the last weekend -- I "learned my lesson" and everything would be fine again -- no reason not to stop off on the way home, right?

It wasn't long before my drinking time started coinciding with my "recover" time. Feeling like crap? Have a beer... Feeling good? Have a beer... Feeling nothing? Have a beer... Feeling anything? Have a beer.

Before long, I was either going straight home to get some sleep because I was still hungover, or else hitting three pubs on the way home because I was "well-rested".

You are not alone.

Dee74

Thanks Green Tea. Couldna said it better.

D