Sleep and Addiction Recovery
Sleep is definitely an issue in early recovery for just about everyone. The only variable is how big of a problem it is for the person. But just about everyone will have at least some problems with sleep when they first get clean and sober. This may last for a week or a few years. For most people their sleep does not really straighten out for at least six months. This is especially true for alcoholics.
We were so used to passing out from alcohol that we sort of trained our bodies to forget how to actually go to sleep. This is difficult to overcome in recovery and it just takes time in most cases. And of course a lot of addicts are dealing with additional problems on top of this such as sleep apnea. You can experiment with sleeping medications but for the most part they will not help a whole lot. A popular one is Trazadone and you can ask your doctor about it and possibly get a prescription for it. But overall it will help less than you think in the long run and really you just have to slug it out for a while.
Now if you really want to know how to fall asleep faster, then you should start by getting some of the wreckage of your past life cleared away. Some people will do this through the 12 step program and others will do it through therapy. In some cases, you may just work things out verbally with friends and other people that you trust in recovery. You may work through a variety of potential issues in your early recovery, such as:
1) Forgiving others, especially anyone who hurt you in your childhood.
2) Dealing with resentments, especially those that seem to flare up on a regular basis.
3) Any common marriage problems that you may be experiencing.
4) Learning to communicate your emotions so that you do not blow up in anger or react constantly out of fear.
And so on. Really these are the kinds of issues that need to be dealt with eventually in long term recovery, or they will eventually lead you back to a relapse. It takes guts and courage to tackle these issues but if you value your recovery then you will follow through with it.
I HAVE TRUST ISSUES
Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.
– Isaac Watts
Funny how many people I have run into convey that they have “trust issues”. Can you relate? As Watts quote says, learning to trust can be very hard.
For me, I lost trust initially in my family, specifically my mother, at a fairly young age. As life progressed and I started acting out and find ways to escape reality, I lost trust in myself. In my first marriage, I was the betrayer and in return was betrayed. I can relate to those who have “trust issues”.
We marry for better or for worse, we expect some ups and downs, but once we feel we’ve been betrayed, we are lost.
If we’ve been lied to so many times we can no longer think straight, if we’ve been fooled into thinking we are at fault for an impossible financial situation because we don’t work, don’t earn enough, or because we spend too much, or if we’ve been manipulated into believing that by co-signing a loan all our problems would disappear, we’ve been betrayed. The person we thought we were supposed to trust and to turn to for emotional support is not being trustworthy or supportive.
Getting through betrayal is a long process, one that both parties must be willing to commit to in the most profound way. If one party is unwilling to be consistently trustworthy and the other is unwilling to forgive, the cracked foundation only crumbles further. Funny how that works.
There are many of us who state they have trust issues, but then claim to have a deep and abiding faith is a “Higher Power” with an active spiritual life. Can this be so if we don’t trust?
I had to work extremely hard at my low point to restore my self-respect. Over time, it returned. I had to find a “Higher Power” beyond my conscious self that I could trust and have faith in. It came almost through a series of small steps and these included learning to trust “me” again with the help of a “higher power”
By the time I started the process of life recovery just for me, I trusted people too little and had lost all trust in or sense of a higher power. As importantly, I had lost trust in myself and without self trust, external trust is impossible. To accept trust in self has been lost was an act that led to a dose of both reality and humility.
Today, with the help of a higher power, I trust again, and over time, have learned where to place trust with more accuracy. Today I trust myself to act with proper intentions.
Have you got trust issues?
My experiences with dealing with trust may be of benefit to you. Have a look at hopeserenity.ca.
I usually don’t commonly post on many another Blogs, yet I just has to say thank you… keep up the amazing work. Ok regrettably its time to get to school.