Milkman's Reflections in Recovery

[Chy]

I am very pleased to share with you all and with permission Milkman's Reflections from Milkman's Sober Living. Thank you Mike for sharing.

Milkman's Reflections in Recovery - July 27 - Sleep in Sobreity

Milkman's Reflections in Recovery - July 27 - Sleep in Sobreity
Milkman Mike's picture
Submitted by Milkman Mike on July 26, 2011 - 5:24pm

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I got clean and sober I had one heck of a time falling asleep. I got sober while I was in jail and prison. It took about 13 or 14 months before I finally got more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep at a time. I’m sure the stress of being locked up had a lot to do with it, but I’m told that it can take many months before all the alcohol and drugs leave our system.

For over 35 years I would sedate myself (knock myself out) with drugs and alcohol. According to some studies, I wasn’t really getting the kind of sleep that is required. Sleep, so they say, is one of the last things to get restored in our new life of sobriety. I’m sure that a lot of people can relapse due to this problem as it is part of the HALT that we hear so much about. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, TIRED)

My sleep has been great up to about three months ago, and I’ve started experiencing problems falling asleep and of staying asleep. There’s been a lot going on in my life lately so I’m sure some of this is due to some unnecessary stress. I say “unnecessary” because I don’t have control how a situation is going to turn out. I’ve decided to look into how to remove this stress and attack the problem of sleep at this point first. I don’t want to take any type of sedatives, over counter or otherwise, so I’ve got to counter, using tools that I’ve acquired in the program and the years of recovery that I have.

I’ve also slacked off on exercise the last few months and plan on resuming my exercise program.

Any other suggestions will also be welcomed.

Do any of you have this problem? If so, how long did it take you to start getting proper sleep, or how long were you clean/sober before you started having this problem?

Heres a link on this subject: Sleep and Sobriety « Early Recovery From Addiction Blog

This here is an article by Keven T. McCauley, M.D., http://www.instituteforaddictionstud...20Recovery.pdf

I hope this helps anyone that is experiencing this problem.

Mike

Granted with permission by: Milkman Mike