Thursday, February 19, 2009

Insomnia.....

I was diagnosed insomniac in elementary school. I was on some form of sleep medication from the time I was in 4th grade. I stopped taking sleep medications regularly when I started getting loaded regularly. I never fell asleep when I was out there. I passed out, got knocked out, blacked out, nodded out, was put under by doctors, but never ever "fell asleep". Many nights I just stayed awake all night wondering how I had allowed myself to run out of heroin before cocaine. That probably would have been ok, except that then I would use the cocaine straight, which I never really liked by itself. Anyway my point is that I never had healthy sleep habits.
One time when I was detoxing under the supervision of my parents I went 11 days with no sleep. I started to see things and become delirious after day 7. Which for heroin withdrawls is semi-standard. On the morning of day 11 my dad brought me a fifth of bananna flavored rum. I drank the whole bottle sitting in the hot tub, not feeling drunk at all it was time for my father to go to work, I sat on his bed while he got ready and took 5 seroquel when he wasn't looking. I finally passed out and slept for 20 hours. During an opiate detox once you sleep, you know the worst is over.
When I really finally got sober sleep was the most difficult thing to deal with. I would walk my dog for miles between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m. my dog thought it was such an adventure but the aches and pains of sleepless nights made me miserable. At times in sobriety I have found ways to sleep well for periods of time, regular meals, regular sex, good books, fly fishing, if all these activitis were maintained I was able to sleep somewhat normally. In the last two years my sleep patterns have become increasingly unhealthy again. I am afraid I'll lose this job over it. I am up till 5 a.m. most weeknights tossing and turning eyes wide open. I get up for work at 8a.m. and work till 5p.m. I come home and eat dinner and then go to a meeting or play cards or whatever. Somewhere between 5 and 10 p.m. I get wired again. Saturday or Sunday I usually crash at like 3 or 4 a.m. and sleep till the late afternoon which starts the whole cycle over again for the next work week. I need help, I stopped drinking coffee after 3p.m. but no change. I have talked to my sponsor and I am going to see a dr. and discuss SAFE options for me. I can't take it anymore!!!!! I've tried almost everything, you name it, I've tried it. I've had a hard time being able to function at work. So now I'll be researching safe sleep aids for a couple weeks probably.




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well there are a lot of herbal remedies. I use Valerian (sp?) which stinks but works along with Melatonin. Also, you might think this is weird but it works at least for me... putting on classical "moonlight" CD's like Beethoven at Bedtime. I noticed that it calmed my kids down when they were young so now I do it. Anyways, I'm sure you'll get much more crappy advice like this... I hope something works for you. I was up for 4 days coming off of Xanax and alcohol one time, that SUCKED with a capital F*CKIT! So I know how you feel.

DM said...

Yeah, the sleep struggle is huge for us, isn't it? It was a major component of my alcoholism - I didn't care that the sleep that I was getting was shitty, I was only relieved that I could pass out. I still struggle with this every day - since I am commenting on this at 1 am, I think that pretty much says it all. Let me know if you find a good solution.

Anonymous said...

Massage therapy, focusing on mid to deep work along the erectors on the back (along the spine.) This will help regulate the central nervous system. My clients report sleeping like the dead after that.