Captains Log - Mission Elapsed Time 5 Days, 18 Hours, 47 Minutes and 15 Seconds
WARNING - This YouTube clip is NSFW! In fact, you can pretty much assume that everything on this blog will be NSFW.
I know how he feels.
The first night of going to sleep sober was the toughest. My brain wasn't used to that. It was used to being pickled in about a fifth of bourbon and just going unconscious as soon as my head hit the pillow and staying that way until the alarm went off.
Guess what? That ain't sleeping! That's just being passed out. You don't dream, you don't recupurate and you don't really get any rest. It looks like sleep and it kinda seems like sleep, but it's not.
How do I know? Because for the last few nights I've been getting REAL SLEEP and it's fucking awesome!
Now, I haven't been doing it entirely on my own. But I'm not taking any sleeping pills either. Not going down that road, thank you very much.
I discovered early on that the first attempts to go to sleep sober I couldn't get past Stage 1.
"Stage 1 is light sleep where you drift in and out of sleep and can be awakened easily. In this stage, the eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows. During this stage, many people experience sudden muscle contractions preceded by a sensation of falling."
I have found that taking a single dose of melatonin just before going to bed helps to ease me past stage 1 into deeper sleep. I am sleeping deeper for longer periods each night as my brain slowly remembers what natural sleep is like.
And the dreams!! OMG the dreams are wonderful! It's like going to the most entertaining freak show in the world everynight! I look forward to going to bed sober each night. I swear to god there are times when I will wake up after an incredibly vivid and bizarre dream and I'll be smiling, saying "what the fuck was THAT?" and then I'll drift off back to sleep and have a completely different but equally bizarre dream. I think my brain is remembering how to dream, too.
I wake up rested and refreshed. It's awesome. I'm going to stop taking the melatonin in the next few days and see if I can get to sleep on just plain being tired.
Well, it's time to fix some supper and watch "Big Love". Those wacky Mormons and their crazy antics!
Until next time this is Rocky Jones, Sobernaut, signing off.
***** TRANSMISSION ENDED *****
you are lucky. i would wake up a couple of times at night, even when i was drinking. and since i stopped, it has actually gotten better. now all i need to do is train the dogs to sleep through too, hee hee.... and the dreams have been getting better and better. at least i don't dream about drinking anymore.
Shadow said...
August 7, 2007 at 1:10 AM
I was addicted to Oxycontin
I wouldn't get a true night's sleep
either. I would spend most of my
time nodding in and out of
consciousness.
Now...I sleep like a baby
with the exception of waking up to eat and needing my diaper changed in the middle of the night
erinsav said...
August 7, 2007 at 3:52 PM