Thinking Drinking, Even When Asleep

When we are habitual drinkers, habitual being the operative word, whether we plan to drink daily, every other day or weekends only, the rest of the day is spent thinking about our drinking. This also can happen even in our sleep. We are all very aware of the 3ish wake up, parched, not consciously wanting a drink, but in fact are brains are craving it, especially when we are in a constant topping up mode, and stumbling to the bathroom dreading the morning light.

But we also have dreams, and these are full of anxiety situations, and often we dream about the fallout from our drinking. The ugly juice never leaves us alone. Even when we stop, in the early days there are vivid ones, of being drunk. I remember waking up crying convinced that I had hidden some bottles in my wellies, and did go downstairs to check. I can laugh now, but at the time I was terrified that the whole bloody cycle had started again.

Habitual drinking seems fairly harmless, it has been normalised to drink a bottle of wine a night, after all it’s ‘only’ 3 glasses of the bucket variety , the tolerance allows it at this plateau stage. The constant pecking of shall I or shan’t I, no I won’t yes I will, (but it will be only one) is exhausting, and we long to turn off this perpetual thought pattern. Not everyone wants to go sober, but I am sure that lots would like to not have this droning on and have some peace from the whole merry-go-round. Alcohol occupies us.