I just woke from the most realistic drinking dream I’ve had in a long time. I’d ordered and drunk most of a glass of an old favorite beer and then stressed and fretted about telling people I knew would be deeply disappointed in me, including you. This all went on for what felt like an hour but was probably only a nanosecond because dreams are weird like that.
The first clue it was only a dream should have been that I was eating chicken wings and muffins and getting ready to go to a high school party. Then there were the two sober bloggers helping me fix a bicycle that doesn’t really exist. (which is totally something Josie and Christy would do because they’re the best!)
Drinking dreams have been a completely normal, if occasionally terrifying, part of the sober experience for me. I haven’t had one in a good long while and this one was particularly vivid, but so was the immense relief upon waking. It’s the opposite feeling of waking from a dream where you’re rich or reunited with a lost loved one or, as was the case in a dream last week, of giant sea otters the size of King Kong, only more playful and less murderous.
Sleep has to be the single most curative remedy I still look forward to on a hard or disappointing day. I love the simple act of putting myself to bed once the kids are tucked in. I used to watch Gilligan’s Island, but I guess you can only watch a group of people unwittingly blow their rescue so many times before what should be a simple pleasure feels like the stress I’m trying to escape. Usually I settle in with a good book and read until I feel sleepy. Sweet, sweet sleep…the real nectar of the gods.
I recently read a fascinating post on Greenland which touched on its abnormally high rate of suicide and alcoholism. I have no idea if it’s all fact, but it makes sense that a country which is partly bathed in sunlight 24 hours a day from late May to July might battle serious insomnia and related mood issues. The dog-wolves and landscape sound lovely, but sleep deprivation is hell.
The morning after a night of insomnia reminds me so much of a hangover. I find myself fidgety and restless, stricken with a low grade, pervasive sense of fatigue and doom. All day long, I obsess over sleep and when I can have more without raising eyebrows. I don’t have to look far for reminders of what life used to be like when I drank.
In the drinking dream last night, I won’t lie and tell you I didn’t enjoy the beer. It’s odd how the brain can still conjure tastes it hasn’t had in more than three years, but I can also remember lima beans and it’s been much longer. Enjoying the dream beer doesn’t surprise me because it’s not like I stopped drinking because I didn’t like the way it tasted or how it felt. I stopped because of increasing tolerance and obsession, not only with drinking but also the fearful way of life I saw as inevitable, if not exactly normal.
In my dream, I had already decided to stop at just the one. I was fretting over how to admit my lapse in judgement and how to get people to trust me again. Sober blogging does help me stay sober, though I am pleased to reveal the real reason I still don’t drink is because my life feels so much fucking better now.
If you struggled or still struggle with alcohol issues, I wish a lifetime of periodic, terrifying drinking dreams so that you too will know the flood of relief upon waking. I didn’t give up my precious, beautiful sobriety. I’m celebrating with a trip back to bed.