wpainterw

I have shared with other alcoholics an obsession with sleep. At times I have thought that this was essentially a war between convention and nature. Convention, impressed upon me from an early age, was that everyone should have at least eight consecutive hours of sleep. Children were required to have naps of an hour or so in the early afternoon. Adults were not supposed to have naps. Alcoholism inteferes with all this. I came to use alcohol to get to sleep, self medicating. But usually I woke up after two or three hours feeling the need for more alcohol. My body chemistry had changed, eight hours sleep became an impossibility and I was lucky to have only four or five hours, and even then only with the aid of alcohol. Nature had declared war with convention and sleep became an obsession.
When I began to search for sobriety, the loss of my alcoholic sleeping aid resulted in insomnia, This went away only gradually and the insomnia returned with every relapse. Occasionally the doctors gave me pills and, though I never became addicted to them, I did at times develop a psychological dependency.
As the years went on I came to realize that, even with sobriety, I would never get back to the convention of eight hours sleep. Nature wanted to take its own way and let me sleep only when I was tired. And the pills merely interfered with this. It seemed better just to try to relax and let nature decide when and for how long I should sleep. I still have the old obsessions but I have to keep reminding myself that this is just a remnant of a convention which has become outmoded, the assumption that everyone should have at least eight hours of continuous sleep. If I remain sober, I believe that the best thing to do is to go with the flow and trust to nature. Nature is pretty good doing its job if I don’t let alcohol interfere.
How do you deal with sleep problems, insomnia?

W.

FenwayFaithful

I struggle with sleep as well.

I have since I was a baby, my poor mother, I was her first born and boy did she learn what it meant to be a Mom quick, lol.

But scientifically alcohol severely effects your quality of sleep. You don't go into a full deep sleep and you wake up feeling unrested. Not to mention hung over and probably regretful about whatever happened the night before.

I'm in graduate school and I think most students feel like there simply isn't enough hours in the day. There's a saying that is something like, in graduate school you can pick one thing: Good Grades (which I have thankfully), a social life (yeah right!) or enough sleep (which I CERTAINLY) don't get, haha. So I've gotten used to living off about 4-6 hours of sleep a night.

I find if I'm drunk when I got to sleep I don't spend any time tossing and turning and I think I sleep through the night, at least I don't remember waking up, but I wake up feeling horrible and like I got NO sleep at all.

And as someone who had several nights where I fell asleep with the aid of alcohol more recently then I'd like to admit, the past few nights of sober sleep have left me feeling more well rested.

Although, strangely I find it easier to wake up early after drinking and impossible to fall asleep and I have ZERO energy, no motivation and feel extremely sick the entire day.

Although I struggle to get up more after a sober night sleep once I'm out of bed and have a cup of coffee I feel MUCH more refreshed, energized and ready to start the day.

Comparing my productivity on days where I got a sober night sleep to days where I got drunk it's like opposite ends of the spectrum.

So better sleep is juts one of the many benefits to actually staying sober

LindaLou

I saw something on TV (Good Morning America maybe?) about sleep. They have gotten away from the 8 hours a night thinking. Everyone has different chemistry and thus will need different amounts of sleep. I know a fellow who only gets 3-4 hours a night and wakes up refreshed. Every night is different for me. Some nights I can sleep a straight 7 hours, others I may only get 4 or 5 very fitful, restless hours. I just chalk it up to gender and age (I'm female, 48) and go with the flow.

vegibean

I agree with LindaLou too with the age thing, I think getting older I don't always NEED 8 hours.

As for how I deal with it, if I'm not ready to sleep, I go ahead and flip through the channels on tv like I PLAN on staying up all night. When I stopped obsessing over what time the clock said and just went with it, I found I was more relaxed and before I knew it I was dozing off to sleep. Kind of the same thing, I just go with it. If I slept 8 hours the night before, I may only need 7-6 the next night, and if I work out?? Maybe it's back to 8 hours again.

I go with the flow, I agree w, a lot easier to just go with it, not fight it, less stressful that way too, which of course makes it easier to fall asleep... Zzzzzzzzzz....

kizzy40

Like you I used alcohol to get to sleep due to anxiety problems. But guess what? the alcohol made that worse, the quality of sleep was rubbish and I constantly felt rubbish too.
Needing a lot of sleep 8hrs+ but being a night owl, staying up far too late...chatting on here for instance, it is essential for my recovery to be here but why 2am?...why not 2pm? definatly no online scrabble past 1am lol

Insomnia is a problem when recovering but there is more I could be doing to relax my mind and my body. These are changes to make soon, my body has a hell of a lot of repairing to do and I guess it does most of that while i'm asleep? The least I could do after all the damage inflicted is to lend a hand....
make sure to do enough through the day to be physically tired, have a nice soak, relaxing tunes, herbal tea, nice comfy warm bed......

CharlieNoogan

wpainterw, I can totally relate to your sleep issues and obsession with sleep. It was a lack of sleep caused by anxiety that actually lured me into full-blown daily-drinking alcoholism. While I've always had issues with binging, I was able to keep my drinking to the weekends. Prior to the event that triggered my anxiety, I could sleep normally by laying down in bed, getting relaxed, and would just drift away within about 15 minutes.

After the anxiety started, I could not get the racing thoughts/worries out of my head. It would drive me insane to toss and turn in bed tired for 3-4 hours just to finally get maybe 2-3 hours of actual sleep and then have a horrible day at work. So what did dummy CharlieNoogan think was a good idea at the time? Taking a few drinks before bed, of course, because I always slept well on the weekends after drinking. Once I started the cycle, I couldn't get out of it. It only took me about 18 months to go from 2-3 drinks in the hour before bed, to 7-10 drinks starting the moment I walked in the door after work.

Lack of sleep is one of the more scary triggers for my addiction. In fact, it is the MAIN reason I relapsed so many times. Each time I would quit, I would have to figure out what I could replace alcohol with so I wouldn't lay awake for hours on end mulling over issues that didn't need to be dealt with from my bed. I tried Benadryl, melatonin, valerian root, and who knows what else. Nothing really worked without having nasty side effects like vivid nightmares, restless legs, or a hungover feeling in the morning. Marijuana worked well, but I didn't want to swap mood altering substances so I quit that pretty quick. Ultimately I kept going back to alcohol and its amazing sedative qualities.

The really sick and twisted thing about insomnia is that it perpetuates itself. You typically can't sleep due to anxiety, but because of the insomnia you now have terrible anxiety about going to sleep. And 'round and 'round it goes. I'm on day 49 myself and am still having issues. Last night I probably rolled around for 2.5 hours. It's actually a blessing that I do not have a job right now as that is limiting my anxiety about getting to sleep because who cares if I only get 3 hours?

So, I am at a loss. Until I get over my anxiety issues, I suppose I will have sleeping problems. I try to remember to do the easy things like read a book 30 minutes before bed, get some exercise, eat well, stay hydrated, and stay away from caffeine after mid-afternoon (however, this is tough as I am now attending AA meetings in the evenings - gotta have coffee there!).

On a side note: two good insomnia-related films are Fight Club and The Machinist. Let's just pray we don't end up like the main characters in those flicks!

Hope4Life

I finally tossed the clock that was next to my bed, so I would have no idea what time it is. Tossing and turning and looking at the clock would just add stress and keep me awake. I cannot sleep when the sun is up, so I go to bed pretty early.

I used to drink about 8 or 10 beers and smoke weed right up until bedtime but now that I'm clean and sober, I take a 3mg Melotonin about 9:30 or 10 and by 10:30 I'm yawning and ready for bed.

noanxtime

Ahh CharlieNoogan - I had such a similar pattern. The anxiety has gotten so much better since not drinking. Now almost 7 weeks. I hope yours improves soon!
When drinking, what I thought was 'sleep' - was some kind of night time stupor of not being awake. This went on for years.
While I agree that not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep or even 6 or 4. Our bodies need some kind of restorative rest hopefully without the aid of booze or pot or few OTC or perscription aids. I take a Unisom I admit, I'm sure as a crutch as I am usually sleepy when I take it which is dumb. This has been cut from 3 melatonins = 15mg and a benadryl.
My brain is clearer and I owe this to better sleep - I hope.
While my job sucks, it doesn't seem the black hole it once was when I was drinking.
I have hope to change my situation.

freshstart57

The learned ability to quiet the mind has become a game changer for me. Meditation, following the breath, mindfulness, it comes to the same thing for me. I can take a break from the yammer and chatter that used to keep me awake by becoming an observer rather than a participant.

I pay attention to my breath to the exclusion of other thoughts. When this focus is interrupted, and sooner or later it always is interrupted, I observe that intrusion without getting wrapped up in it, and return my attention back to my breath. Acceptance without judgement is what I strive for when those thoughts about the day passed or the day to come try to disturb me.

This technique of self awareness without judgement is similar to urge surfing, and shares a similarity with cognitive sobriety techniques like CBT, REBT and others too.

wpainterw

Charlie Noogan:
Thanks for that very vivid description you gave of the early stages of recovery. Hang in there and every good wish to you!
Thinking over this stuff I am reminded of an old advertisement for something which went something like this, "You better not fool with Mother Nature!" As for sleep, it's better to let Mother (or Father?) Nature take its course rather than letting alcohol screw up the fantastically sophisticated and complex neurology of the brain. Once you try to do that then to get things sorted out you have to reprogram the whole system and that's not always easy to do since you're essentially trying to reprogram yourself and there's part of yourself, there in the primitive midbrain, which is doing everything it can to keep you from doing that. So not everyone makes it back to square one and those who do find it takes time and is a very rough ride, particularly at the beginning.
I wonder whether, when sleep is hard to come by, whether some form of meditation might help, just lying there quietly and trying to vacate the mind, one step at a time. Like going through a big house and turning out the lights in the rooms one by one. Until sleep comes.
Oh by the way Charlie, do you really "have" to have coffee at those evening AA meetings? How about decaf?

W.

CharlieNoogan

Funny you mention decaf. Someone else asked at a meeting a few weeks ago and the meeting chair said something to the effect of, "Decaf? We are a bunch of addicts and alcoholics. There is nothing "decaf" about anything we do, including coffee. But the soda machine and drinking fountain are around the corner."

I usually drink about a half-pot of coffee in the mornings, so I can generally handle caffeine well. I've been nursing a cup during the meetings which usually gets cold and discarded. Its easy since they buy crappy coffee. I've been thinking about bringing in some proper beans and a grinder... On second thought, I do need the sleep.

quitforme79

My first month sober I couldn't sleep...not more than 4-5 hours anyway. (Typically I do best on 7-8 hours). The 2nd month all I wanted to do is sleep and was starting to get concerned because I had a hard time keeping my eyes open even after sleeping 12 hours. Now at 74 days I have started to level out a bit. I guess it just really takes time to adjust. The other night I was anxious and had a hard time falling asleep but that's happening a lot less. I did use benadryl a couple times in the first month but didn't want to get used to that...I agree that the natural way is the best way in the long run.