Bad drinking dreams
 

I've been having much more frequent dreams where I am drinking in the dream. It's funny that when I was drinking I never drank in dreams. Of course in the end I didn't dream and if I did it wasn't dreams persay but just anxious thoughts while not actually asleep. Ugh. ***shudder***

Anyway I'm at 12 weeks today and I'm damn happy about it. The dreams aren't a problem, but they are weird and sometimes I wake up thinking I actually drank scotch out of a cup made of cordwood covered in pine pitch (that was the night before last, yup). More often it's wine, and I can taste the smell of my breath in my dream and in the dream I get a headachey poisoned feeling, fill with despair, try to run, and I'm paralyzed. Then I wake up, sometimes screaming, realize I'm sober, and go back to sleep right away.

Does anyone else have this? Does it end? Is it normal? It's only really been happening for the last month and it's weird because in the last month I really have started to see sobriety as the new normal.

Congratulations!!!

Also - yes. It is totally normal. Our mind's nocturnal activity is a reflection of things we're processing in our lives. Taking away drinking from the brain's lineup of normal expectation will certainly trigger some night-time adventures of the things that makes us feel and think and desire. As uncomfortable as it can be.... don't sweat it. This fades over time. I found it helpful to journal about it a bit. To really consciously look at what I'd dreamed and to reason out what was going on for me and to remind myself why this was another reason choosing sobriety was a healthier, much-improved path of life for me.

I'm nearly three years sober and the other night I had a dream in which I was surreptitiously drinking a beer and had scored some cocaine. I've been pretty stressed out lately without a lot of time for self-care or attention to my active sobriety. That dream serves as a little reminder to me that I need to tend my garden a bit more. I don't feel the dream means I'm at risk, I don't fear the dream, but I look to it as a little opportunity for practicing wisdom and asking myself; "What's going on in my waking life that may be bringing up this sort of dreamworld".

In my waking life, work has been overwhelming, my overcommitment to community and volunteer work is taking a toll, several court issues with my ex-wife have come up as per the usual Fall cycle, I am struggling with sleep and caffeine and seasonal emotional / mental / physical issues and I"ve not been getting any exercise or tending actively to sobriety.

Huh. Go figure. And I'm dreaming about drinking and drugs. There could be some correlation. :)

So today I'll work in some exercise. I'll spend a little time here. I sat quietly reading this morning for an hour.

Anyway - it'll be ok. Keep up the great work and keep working actively to tweak and tune and deepen your sobriety.

:grouphug:

Totally normal. I never get them anymore, haven't for years. Not sure why that is. But when I first began this 'journey' I got them quite a lot.

I remember dreams where I knew I was blowing my recovery. had a few where I woke up and I wasn't sure where I was only to realize I was in my own bed.
they subsided over time. I still get one now and then, but now theyre reminders that drinking in real life would be a nightmare.

:You_Rock_ Wow. Than was an awesome, thoughtful response free owl! :You_Rock_

Thanks :grouphug:

7 years clean and I get them every now and again. Sometimes they are drinking. Sometimes they are drugging. (my current white chip -->fentanyl)

I had one last night. In the dream I was a hemophiliac who needed cocaine to snort, or my nose hemorrhaged and I died. (um, okay, whatever lol) So I am looking for coke all over the place so that I am ready for when my nose bleeds. But it was so matter-of-fact, like my son who needs insulin for his diabetes. Weird.

I don't think too much of it. I have some wild and crazy dreams that don' have anything to do with reality. I did get them more often in early sobriety.

mfanch

Such great replies already!

I have drinking dreams multiple times a week. I woke up on Monday morning convinced I'd downed a bottle of red wine before bed. I got up at 5am to go through the bin to make sure nothing was in there. It scares the heck out of me.

I know, the crowd that responded to this are great, so much knowledge here!

Just had to lol. I haven't checked my bin but I have laid there doing a physical assessment: headache? Are you sure? Stomach? Sweats? Ok. It was just a dream.

yes! I am 20 days today and had one last week that was so real that I really really thought I had drank the night before. I woke very scared.

Thankfully it was all a dream.