LaLauren

So after consideration and feeling crappy in the morning I decided to quit cold turkey. It's been 48 hours and I can feel the anxiety creeping up due to lack of sleep. Luckily I have no alcohol around nor could I buy any at this time of night. I am very content with my decision of quitting yet my new found insomnia is horrible. Does anybody have any tips or experience with this. I just want to sleep!!! I also have a 2-10 job which is exhausting but I guess not tiring enough. Blah.

pinkdog

Hi Lauren, great decision on quitting. Insomnia is common in early recovery. Alot of people drink sleepy-time tea or warm milk. It will get better. Keep going. It is well worth it.

DayTrader

I eventually quit fighting it and accepted it. It wasn't uncommon to pull a couple all-nighters per week in my first year. Instead of fighting it though, which I found just made it worse, I tried to make that time productive instead. Heck, I painted 4 bedrooms in my house, the family room and tore my office down to the studs and remodeled the whole room and I think most of that work was done after 8pm.

Reading in bed helped put me to sleep......rarely could I get through a chapter in any book but sometimes I just read all night. The night after an all-nighter.......I usually went riiiiiiight to sleep.

Amajorityofone

I wake up in the middle of the night all of the time. Its normal. My solution? I clean and read until I'm tired again. Its a great way to kill two birds with one stone. You'll wake up more refreshed with less things to do.

llastchance8

Just go through it.. Eventually, it may get better or may not.. But the fact is, whatever amount of sleep, we are able to get naturally, is much better than alcohol induced passing out.. And if withdrawal symptoms get worst, it is always advisable to see a Doc.

wpainterw

Insomnia is very common during the first few days after quitting. Mine usually lasted about three or four days but I've heard some folks say that theirs sometimes lasted longer. My way to deal with it was to hang in and try to divert myself in the wee hours. Television was helpful. Reading was also helpful but sometimes it was hard to read because I felt hyperactive. Hard to focus. This too goes away. It also helps when in two or three days you start eating properly. I also got injections of Vitamin B-1, which no doubt helped. Drinking orange juice helped with that and with dehydration. When insomnia starts to go away I often fell into a deep sleep, my brain probably trying to make up for REM sleep deprivation. Soon in a week or so I started feeling a lot better and entered the most dangerous time of all, the so called "pink cloud" where the addicted part of my brain (the "midbrain"?) would be telling me, "You're O.K. now. Just had trouble controlling your drinking. Now you can be O.K. if you have just one glass of wine." Yes, that's how it starts- all over again! Make no mistake about it, the "dark territory" comes one or two weeks after quitting and goes on for months, maybe years, diminishing gradually if you get into some kind of program and stick with it. Easier said than done. It took me forty years to learn this. I had a first class education but, when it came to booze, despite reading all the books about it, I was stupid.

W.