I knew for a while that alcohol affected my sleep. Yet it seemed like I thought I could somehow brilliantly figure out how to moderate alcohol and navigate this situation so it didn’t happen.
A surefire way to drive myself insane. How can I still drink and get good sleep? It must be possible, I thought.
A couple alcoholic drinks always meant tossing and turning, restless. It meant trying to get to sleep for hours. And then once I did fall asleep, I would usually wake up at 3 or 4am, unable to go back asleep again. I would lay there, promising myself, “ok I know this is because of the alcohol, it’s time I quit drinking.”
I don’t even know how many nights were spent like this, but it seemed like I thought every night was going to be different.
Xanax always helped, but then I had my ups and downs developing a habit with that. It was lovely being able to drink and not have to worry about the consequences of drinking because I had Xanax to knock me out. However, you can only imagine the road that goes down; uncontrollable anxiety and a pit of depression. Tylenol PM could help me here or there but was never reliable.
I resigned to the fact that I was just a bad sleeper and continued to lie to myself that those couple of drinks or that bottle of wine wasn’t the issue. And I needed those drinks to unwind and relax at night, that is just what I did.
I continued to drink, in the back of my mind knowing it was the alcohol affecting my sleep, but constantly arguing with the moderation monster. (This is what I’m calling the internal voice that tries to reason with me about alcohol). And the moderation monster always won the argument.
The most brilliant argument was, “well if you start drinking earlier, you can just stop earlier and then you’ll be able to sleep.”
I would never stop earlier because then I would just stop caring after a couple drinks. “Whatever. If I can’t sleep, it’s just because I’m a bad sleeper. Whatever, I’d rather have more wine and continue to get buzzed, who cares if I can’t sleep.” And then continue on with a drunken evening. Drunk texting people or drunk calling people and carrying on drinking while chatting. Or watching TV and carrying on drinking. Or going out to a bar on a Tuesday night and carrying on drinking. But always destroying my sleep patterns and carrying on drinking.
I’m sure by now you realize that all this was accomplishing was getting drunk earlier in the day and continuing to act like a drunk idiot during even more hours of my lifetime. This meant not moving forward with my goals. Forgotten conversations. Missed opportunities. Regret.
Drinking earlier didn’t help. Nor did any of the other tricks I tried to still be able to drink and get good sleep. I woke up feeling awful, foggy, and unrested every single morning.
The first morning I woke up after not drinking the day before was absolute bliss. Every morning after that I have woken up feeling happy, refreshed, and somewhat in a state of disbelief. What is this sleep? What is this clarity? I was deprived of that feeling for SO LONG. I deprived myself of one of the simplest and greatest pleasures. Good sleep. I wouldn’t trade that for anything now. Turns out I’m not a bad sleeper, I just needed to quit drinking.
