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‘Alcohol helps me sleep; if I don’t drink I’ll be awake all night.’
I firmly used to believe that I needed alcohol in order to help me sleep. I was convinced that if I didn’t have a drink before bedtime, I wouldn’t be relaxed and calm, and my mind would be racing as soon as I shut my eyes. This was a daily habit, which created yet another excuse to justify my drinking. If I didn’t drink I wouldn’t sleep, so of course, I needed more wine!
I find it hard to switch my buzzing brain off even in the most relaxing of situations, so I was incredibly worried about what would happen to my sleeping patterns when I quit alcohol. I know sleep is something you may be concerned about too, so this chapter is designed to help.
The truth about alcohol and sleep
What I didn’t understand when I was drinking was that I was never getting a refreshing night’s sleep in any case. With alcohol in my system, my entire sleep cycle had become disrupted. I was spending more time awake than if I hadn’t drunk and was having fewer dreams. I also had an elevated heart rate.
This is because without alcohol in our bloodstream we move in cycles between deep sleep (when our bodies are in ‘healing’ mode) and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep (when our brains reset and refresh themselves, ready for the next day). Dreamy REM sleep is important because it stimulates the areas of the brain that we use to learn and develop. It’s also associated with the production of proteins in our bodies. Without REM sleep we can feel sluggish, and over time our mental sharpness can be impacted negatively.
This explains why, after drinking, I used to feel unmotivated and would struggle to get going each day. Even though I thought I was enjoying a proper night of refreshing sleep, it was not the case because I was never having the REM sleep that my body and mind so desperately needed. I didn’t realise any of this was going on; I just carried on in blissful unawareness, assuming that the sluggish feelings were part of the daily hangover I had to endure from drinking wine the night before. But it was so much more than that – no wonder I had huge, dark shadows underneath my eyes.
I remember the first day I didn’t drink. That evening I went to bed as normal without a drop of alcohol in my body. I tossed and turned in bed for hours, my mind racing, and had a rough night of broken sleep. In the morning, I felt more tired than when I’d gone to bed, which brought back memories of how exhausted I had been when my daughter was a baby and she would wake in the night wanting a feed or her nappy changed. Of course, this terrible night convinced me I needed alcohol in order to sleep, so I went straight back to drinking and woke up believing that my sleep problem was resolved. It may have been resolved in my mind, but that was far from the truth and I also still had a serious drinking problem to contend with.
I wanted to succeed in sobriety, but the struggle with sleep was tough. I decided to go back to the drawing board and research everything I could about the facts relating to alcohol and sleeping. I knew this was going to be an obstacle I had to overcome if I wanted to move forward in a positive direction. Once I had the knowledge, I had the power and now knew what I was doing to my body and mind.
It was clear to me that I was never going to recover if I wasn’t allowing myself proper sleep and the opportunity to heal, which would entail riding out a few difficult nights. I saw it as short-term pain for long-term gain. So after a few more failed attempts to get past more than one day without drinking, I tried again with a new feeling of strength, hope, and determination to succeed.
The daytime felt fairly easy as I was never a big daytime drinker. It was the evenings that were harder as that was when wine o’clock would always come around. Then it came to bedtime. I want to be totally honest with you here so that you know what to expect: for the first few nights I was constantly tossing and turning, my sleep was broken, and I found it almost impossible to silence my buzzing brain so that I could fall asleep.
I’m not alone in this. Members of my groups have told me they’ve experienced sweating and hot flushes in the night, and I think almost every ex-drinker experiences vivid dreams as their brains recalibrate to normal sleep patterns. The worst dreams are the ones from which you wake up convinced you’ve just had an alcoholic drink. This has happened to me on more than one occasion.
The rough period of broken sleep lasted just over a week. Then, one day I woke up and realised I’d just experienced the best night of sleep I could remember in years. It felt amazing. I felt refreshed, energised, motivated, and truly alive. If this was what one night of proper, refreshing sleep felt like, I wondered what I would experience after a month or more. After that first night, I was actually excited about going to bed the next day and couldn’t wait to experience it again. My mind was no longer racing when I lay down, and a few minutes after my head hit the pillow I was heading off to a land of sweet slumber. It’s been that way ever since.
After a few weeks of this beautiful new pattern of sleep, I took a photo of myself and compared it to one from when I’d been drinking. I was amazed to see that the darkness under my eyes that I’d carried around with me for years had almost totally vanished. I took this as a sign that my body was healing and I was moving in the right direction.
So don’t expect instant wonderful sleep on the first day you stop drinking – you need to give it time. However, you can use some of my tactics below to set you up for success when it comes to achieving relaxing and refreshing sleep.
Be comfortable. It sounds obvious but make sure your mattress, pillow, and bedding are all as comfortable as they can be. It can be easy to hold on to the same bed long after it’s past its life expectancy, but that’s not going to help you achieve the level of comfort and sleep you deserve.
Unwind. Your mind and body need to move into sleep mode before you go to bed. Try to avoid using electronic devices in the hour before you retire, as the light they emit has been proven to stimulate your brain and make it hard for you to switch off. Reading or practising relaxation techniques, such as meditation, are great ways to prepare for bedtime.
Avoid naps. It makes sense that you want to be tired when you go to bed at night. If you’ve been napping during the day there’s a much higher chance that you’ll struggle to get to sleep.
Exercise. I know from personal experience that when I exercise I always get off to sleep quickly. The more vigorous the exercise, the more tired I am and the better I seem to sleep. Try to ensure that you take regular exercise to help your own sleep.
Keep to a schedule. Try to stick to roughly the same schedule each day. I go to bed between 10:00pm and 11:00pm each night, which keeps my body and mind in the same routine, and the more I’ve stuck to this the easier sleeping has become.
Most people find it only takes around a week or two to start experiencing deep and refreshing sleep, so stick with your non-drinking routine and you’ll get there before long. Plus, you can use these tactics to help. Once you experience that first night of incredible sleep, you’ll never look back.
‘I dreamed last night that I had 200 days sober, but didn't think about it until AFTER I'd shared a bottle of red wine with an ex?! Nooooo – It was horrible! I was so relieved when I woke up in the middle of the night to realise that it was a bad dream.’
Facebook group post by EO, Switzerland