Thought I'd blown it all
 

Last night I dreamed that I was at an amusement park with my sister, and an old drinking buddy and some other people. Someone offered me a beer and I drank it. The next thing I knew, I was waking up (in the dream) and my drinking buddy friend told me that we had been so drunk that a police officer had to bring us home, that we were lucky we weren't arrested. All I could think of was how I had blown my 5+ months of sobriety, and I was so upset and disappointed in myself.

Then I woke up in real life and had one of those confusing moments where I thought I was still in the dream and felt all the shame and disappointment of drinking. Then I realized it had to have been a dream, because I stayed in last night, read some of my latest novel I'm reading, and went to bed early! I was so relieved to find out it was just a dream and my sobriety was safe!! (I also dreamed of driving through a really bad car wreck where dead people were just laying on the road and cars were smashed everywhere and people, including me, were just driving through/over everything as if life was going on as normal-- I don't know what these dreams are trying to tell me-- I'm crusing by the wreckage that COULD be me, could be my life if I kept drinking?!)

I am so happy and grateful to be sober today. :)

Intense Pigtails! Dreams are so interesting... I remember when I was a kid my dreams were SO vivid and real that I often woke up thinking they had really happened. Definately became more and more rare when I started to go to bed drunk every night. Being sober now they are returning more and more frequently. That deep REM dream sleep is REALLY good for your body... alcohol most certainly disrupts it.

Isn't it a warm and fuzzy feeling when you wake up and realize it was JUST A DREAM? I've had several of those dreams since I quit where I thought I blew it. The last one I had I was at the store buying booze and chewing tobacco (which I've never used). At the checkout I got mad at myself and told the guy I only wanted the chew and he could keep the booze! Was a strange dream...

Hard to analyze dreams... maybe all those wrecks and people were ghosts of those that have succumbed? I have no clue. :)

Thanks for the post take care today!

Yes, my dreams are always very vivid and to top it all off I have adult night terrors, which aren't dreams due to the stage of REM sleep but it's like my brain actually thinks the dreams/nightmares are happening and so I scream or act them out etc. I think I have a very overly active imagination ha ha. I am trying to work on a plan to decrease my anxiety (they are anxiety-related... kind of like panic attacks that happen at night, I get all sweaty and my heart beats ridiculously fast and I'm all freaked out) and increase the quality of my sleep so that I don't have as many night terrors. The dreams are creepy but I guess they do remind me of the benefits of staying sober!! Kind of like a warning not to relapse and a taste of how it would feel.

Oh hun, how horrific. Must have been a relief when you realised it was a dream though. I've always had really intense dreams too so I'll look forward to/prepare myself for them coming back. I've only had 2 drinking related dreams so far, one where I stole some booze from a supermarket and another where I went to a music festival with two of my oldest/biggest drinking buddies plus the only friend of mine who ever confronted me about my drinking. I can't remember what happened in the end of either of them.

Regarding the dead people...I had a similar type dream once which terrified me and a friend who was into dream analysis told me it was actually a good sign, and that death in dreams meant a new beginning :)

Those drunk dreams are horrible! I've had a couple and, just like you, I wake up feeling shame, regret...ugh.

From what I've been told, and what I've read, they aren't trying to tell you anything. It's just our addicted, lizard-brain going back to its old habits. That doesn't help in the moment, though.

This is great to hear. :) I do feel like I am embarking on a lot of new beginnings, so, it makes sense. Thanks!

Ha ha, so my brain still gets to drink, even when it's asleep, through dreaming? It's funny that I have never experienced a dream where I actually feel drunk, or even experience the drunken parts of the dream... it's always me first taking a drink, or realizing I got drunk, never actually the drinking/drunk part. Strange!!

Those are my drunk dreams, exactly. Picking up the glass, tasting the burn. I wake up still tasting and smelling it. I've talked to some folks that wake up with hangover symptoms after a drunk dream. They're really common and they're one of the things I dislike the most. Shame issues.

All my drinking "dreams" feel like nightmares. I take that as a very good sign of where I stand. :)