Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

[mardan]

Hi there,

It's nearly 1.30am on Monday morning and I just know I won't sleep tonight. I messed up at the weekend and got totally plastered on Friday and Saturday night. I did well all week staying away from the vodka. Now I've got to start all over again with the sleeplessness.

I can't bear the thought of never having another drink so I promised myself I would limit my drinking to Friday and Saturday nights and then try to cut it out completely.

I never used to touch alcohol until I got into my mid twenties and met my other half. At first I would be content with a glass of wine then I noticed it made me feel calmer and more relaxed when in company. I am painfully shy and hate socialising so when my other half had a works party or outing I started to have a few drinks in order to give my self some courage to talk to people. Soon I was drinking on a regular basis at home and even at work. I began to use alcohol for everything, boredom, anxiety, stress etc.

Within about a year of drinking my first glass of wine, I was getting through a bottle a day.
This went on until I discovered I was pregnant with my first son. I was feeling so sick all the time that luckily I didn't want to drink at all. When he was born, I was so besotted with him that I never gave alcohol a thought. He was only three months old when I found I was pregnant again. I had a very bad pregnancy with my second son. At three months I had a threatened miscarriage and when I went to the hospital they said that a large part of the placenta had come away from the womb and it was very likely that I could lose the baby at any time during the pregnancy. I bled through the rest of the pregnancy but luckily he was born fine.

Looking after a baby and toddler was very tiring and stressful but I was kept so busy that I never thought of drinking plus I was dieting all the time so I never thought about alcohol.
The alcohol problem came back again when my sons were about 3 and 4 and were at pre-school about 3 afternoons a week. That was 3 years ago and my drinking has crept up to the worst it's ever been. My tolerance to alcohol has got more and more so that I switched to vodka every night instead of wine and can drink up to a whole 75cl bottle of vodka at the weekend when I know I can sleep in the next day.

My drinking has changed these days. I now drink secretly at night time in order to alleviate the boredom and stress of the day and to get to sleep. There has been so many times in the past when I have been out socially and drunk far too much and ended up making a total ass of myself in front of the very people I started drinking for in the first place in order to not feel such an ass. I've ruined nearly every holiday with my other half by getting totally plastered all the time and I know he's really fed up with me. I've even been plastered in front of my sons on a few occasions and upset them. God, I'm so ashamed of myself when I think about all these times that I no longer drink in company and I make sure my sons are in bed and out the way when I start. My other half makes me promise I won't drink if we go to his works do. I managed this at the xmas dinner dance but felt bored and fed up all night and as soon as I got back I had over half a bottle of vodka in secret.

Sometimes I feel positive that I will be able to stop drinking like when I've been AF for a few days and feel great without it and then other times I'm craving the alcohol so much that I feel there's no hope for me. If I'm not drinking then my other old vice resurfaces which is bulimia and I spend the night binging and throwing up. I've had the bulimia since my early twenties which came after anorexia which I suffered for a few years. It all seems such a vicious circle. I flit from alcholism to bulimia and anorexia. At the moment I'm the heaviest I've ever been at a size 16 and I hardly eat. I had a spell of anorexia after my second son was born so I know I could easily slip down that path again. Is there anyone else here who has an eating disorder as well as alcoholism?

It seems I'm on a path of self distruction. Will I ever be free of these things or am I doomed to suffer one or the other for the rest of my life?

If you're reading this, I apologise for being such a miserable old fart, it's just that I'm feeling down tonight and can't sleep. Getting what's on my mind out onto the page makes me feel better.

[dexterhead]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

Dear Mardan, you are no miserable old fart, I relate to so much of your story. There is someone here who recently posted about having an eating disorder also .. I think it was under "My Story." I've never had an eating disorder but have just become bloody fat from drinking .. and I can't stand it anymore .. well that's only the least of my reasons for needing to quit. There are lots of other moms of little ones here too who are struggling. I don't have many words of wisdom as I am still struggling too, but stay close and keep posting, as will I!!

[Determinator]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

hi Mardan and welcome to a great community. I'm no doc but have heard that the pleasure response the brain gets from alcohol is similar to eating and other basic survival mechanisms that get mixed up with some of us. You are probably not getting much nourishment as you say you don't eat much. I'd definitely be taking lots of vitamins/minerals. have you tried the 'all one' powder?
as to getting out of this cycle I'd recommend doing everything you can...a multi faceted approach. come here often and learn/post/ask questions, download the MWO book when you can, gear up on the vitamins etc, hypno CD's if you like (I enjoy them a lot) it's all great and when you put them together it works even better. I've found that I don't get into trouble at home anymore because I simply don't keep alcohol here anymore.
you'll be sleeping good in a couple days so in the meantime just distract yourself and know that it will get better.

[Winefree]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

Mardan,
I too used AL for many yrs to help me get to sleep. Did late shift and couldn't settle down to get some sleep before having to start a new day with the getting the kids to school.
Started out innocently enough, since it wasn't that much back then.

Still using AL to help me get to sleep at night, but it take soooo much more to get the same results, which just causes more problems.

Do you have the MWO book? Did you get the supps?The book 7 Weeks to Sobriety talks about different body chemistries for types of alcohol abusers. You might want to get a copy.

With your history of anorexia, bulimia and alcohol too, you might want to speak with a physician about all of this, before you get started.

Winefree

[Mags]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

Welcome to MWO Mardan

I'm glad you found us because it sounds like you are really in need of some help. I hope we can give some to you. This site is an excellent place that has helped many many people with serious drinking problems.

Your story sounds so familiar to me - the vodka at home behind everyone else's back - the guilt - all of that. I never had an eating disorder but some people on here have had them and hopefully can help you there.

Please stay with us - do lots of reading on this site, post whenever you feel like it - we are always here for you. You should download RJ's book and read it and it definitely sounds like you desperately need some nutritional support. If you can afford it, you should go to the Health Store on this site and get the starter pack. You would be amazed at how much the nutritional support really helps us overcome the drinking problems and helps our bodies heal from the alcohol abuse.

At the very least, just keep reading and posting. Good luck.

:welcome:

[mardan]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

still awake

Hi there,

Thanks to everyone for your helpful advice. It's so nice to know there are people out there who are going through the same thing and understand without judging me to be a terrible person. It's great to hear from you all as I have no one to talk to about my drink problem. I don't know anybody who has a drink problem except for my brother and he refuses to admit he has a problem even though his marriage is breaking up because of it. He drinks most nights and can get through up to 3 bottles of wine and still seems sober, I couldn't get through 2 bottles without passing out. He associates an alcoholic with someone who drinks from morning to night and sits on a park bench. As he holds down a high powered job and manages to take his sons out everywhere he doesn't think he has a problem. He started drinking when he was about 13 and he's now 43 so that's 30 years of hard drinking. Unlike me, he's a social drinker and all his friends are hard drinkers. I do worry about him a lot as he goes out and gets so plastered that he lands himself in trouble such as being beaten up. He lives a long way away from me so I only see him at holiday times.

I am really thinking of buying the' My Way Out' book and will probably order it today. Before I discovered this site I ordered an Allen Carr book -' The Easy Way To Control Alcohol'. It seems to have very good reviews on amazon.uk. I havn't started to read it yet but feel very sceptical about the claims of the book. It claims after reading the book you will no longer feel the urge to drink and will not feel deprived. Has anyone else on here read this book? I also ordered the ' Easy Way To Stop Smoking' by the same author which lots of people swear by. I havn't read that one yet either. I can't believe it could possibly be that easy though, how can you spend years of drinking and smoking and then simply read a book and stop happily without cravings and feelings of deprivation. Well I suppose the only way to find out is to read the books. I will read these and then read the 'My Way Out book'.

[Mags]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

You will find lots of understanding and support here, I promise you. Please read the MWO book. You can download it from this website and it is very inexpensive. The one thing the book and this website does not promise is that this will be easy. It is a difficult struggle - we all know that - and you really can't do it on your own. You need the support of others who have been through it or who are going through it. That's what we are here for. You won't get sober just by reading a book. You will struggle and triumph and you will have ups and downs. We are here to pull you through the difficult times and the cheer you on through the good times.

[derrygirl1]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

I too, have used AL to sleep at night. I am now in day 3 AF. My problem is I got up yesterday morning at 7:00 a.m. and didn't go to bed until 12:30 a.m. this morning hoping I would be so exhausted I would pass out. Well I tossed and turned for a good hour before dozing off and then I was up at 4:30a.m. so three hours of sleep last night. However I lay down after my son went to school at 7:30 a.m. and fell fast asleep until 12:00 noon. How am I going to sleep tonight? I don't understand how come I don't have a problem sleeping during the day but can't sleep at night without thinking of a beer? Any suggestions, I hate to start taking sleeping pills.

[jupiter]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

mardan,
i sympathize. i was a heavy binge drinker in h.s. and college. i stopped for a while but when i met my husband (who likes to drink but can control his drinking.)i started right up again. i stopped when i was pregnant and started again when my son was almost a yr old. i slowed down then i had my 2nd. and then i got plastered on wine and had to stop nursing her. she cried and cried. she was 7 mo old. now that we live in an area where there is a country club, its even worse. i don't go out and get obliterated i stay home and drink myself insensible. my husband likes to go to the cc. he drinks and hangs out with friends. he'll come home and go to sleep. I would come home and drink more. IF i stay home i drink. If i go out i'll drink.

[BELIEVE]

Can't sleep tonight without alcohol

The Kudzu Rescue they have on this site worked for me. It killed my cravings and enebled me to go AF my first try (today is day 16, the longest I've gone in the last 10 years). If that dosen't work I beleive there are scripts you can talk to your doctor about to help with the cravings.

My experience was that once the cravings are dealt with, there were about a week or so of insomnia (2 or 3 hours sleep a night were pretty common), nightmares, anxiety, depression, etc. I didn't know what to do about these things except just to deal with them and accept them as part of what I was doing. I resigned myself to being a little (well, a LOT) tired everyday for work or whatever, for how ever long it would take. The pills may take away the cravings, but you'll have to do your part as well, it ain't easy!

But eventually, if you can just hang in there, you'll be rewarded with things like truly blissful sleep, and hangover free mornings. Oh and the weight will come off so easy if you decide to diet (definatley should try the 40/40/20 split for your macronutrients).

What I'm saying is its tough at first, but it gets easier, it does! Best of luck.