Day 3, Part 1 — Sober Sleeping

You sleep so much better when you’re sober

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Sober Journey Day 3, Part 1

Alcoholic slumber

Yes, there’s that initial crash after a dose of booze. That hard, deep sleep a bear couldn’t wake you out of. Then that wears off, and you’re left tossing and turning the rest of the night. Parched, nasty-tasting mouth, restless.

Miserable.

An article in Men’s Health confirmed this progression through a rough night’s sleep:

While alcohol depresses your nervous system, helping you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly at the start of the night, it revs your body in the second half of the night.

How many nights of bad sleep is too many?

I can’t begin to count the number of bad nights I’ve had.

I’ve never been a good sleeper anyway. Always light and easy to wake. So at first I thought alcohol was doing me a favor. That glorious crash into oblivion seemed awesome.

But then the tossing and turning, waking up the next morning with a 24-hour headache that nothing beat, tired the whole day no matter how much caffeine I drank…only to start the cycle again at night with another dose of booze because I was so stressed from having slept poorly the night before.

If you google whether one night of bad sleep is harmful, you’ll find all sorts of articles telling you not to panic and suggesting how to handle the next day after that bad rest. (You’ll note that consuming alcohol isn’t anywhere on any of the lists.)

But what if you have years of bad nights?

One study showed that your metabolism changes after just one bad night of sleep.

Yeesh!

How to sleep better instead

I’m not a doctor and am not offering medical advice. Everyone is different and needs to listen to their body.

First, cut out alcohol.

For me, not drinking at all was the first step to better sleep.

It takes several days…sometimes even weeks for your body to readjust after cutting out booze. Just think, if it only takes one night of bad sleep to change your body clock and metabolism, think how long it might take for your body to adjust and detox after cutting out a drug substance that lingers in your body.

And that detoxing may include some really restless nights of sleep if your body is used to having that initial crash.

Alcohol withdrawal is different for everyone depending on age, gender, and how much you’ve been consuming. This article explains alcohol withdrawal in detail and says:

Alcohol withdrawal is thought to arise as a function of various changes in brain activity caused by prolonged and excessive alcohol use.

Next, cut back the caffeine.

I was basically on a liquid diet before I quit drinking this last time around. I would start the day with coffee and keep drinking that until I could switch to alcohol in the afternoon.

So after I quit the booze, I had to cut back on caffeine. First I started not having any after 12pm. Then I started drinking half caf to cut out even more.

All of this helped tremendously in improving my sleep. However, there was one other factor that now allows me to enjoy a solid sleep without a groggy morning almost every single night.

Sleep aids

Again, not a doctor here. This is what I did, and you would need to check with your doctor first before doing the same.

A couple of years ago my hormones were so out of whack I thought I was losing my mind. Drinking contributed to this as well as some other life events. Eventually I went to see a natural doctor who did all the tests and discovered my progesterone levels were super low…along with a whole slew of other issues. I was a hot mess!

I won’t go into all the details here, but I am now taking 100mg of Progesterone every night along with 500mg of Magnesium (which has lots of other health benefits). I gently fall asleep and usually sleep through the whole night (unless I’ve had too much caffeine that day). And I wake up refreshed.

Honestly, I never thought I’d sleep well. It only took me 43 years to figure it out: no booze, less caffeine, and a couple of natural sleep aids!

I realize I’m making this sound easy peasy. There’s nothing easy peasy about quitting alcohol. If you need help, there are so many resources available. Alcohol addiction is serious. Get help. I can best help you in way of coaching. Send me an email.