Reverence for Sleep in Sobriety
How many of us considered booze as part of our sleep routine? (raise hand)
When I quit drinking, I had a big fear around getting to sleep. How would I relax at night without alcohol?
Ironically, for years, I’ve known the value of a good night’s sleep. That’s why I lived by the slogan Start early, end early.
What that meant to me, was that I liked to get up early, so I could take care of my responsibilities, including exercise. Then I could start drinking early enough to have a few hours feeling buzzed (drunk) and still go to bed early. I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to manage my alcohol that way.
I didn’t realize, is that Start early, end early was still depriving me of a good night’s sleep. I wrote down a quote from sleep scientist Matt Walker in an interview I listened to a few months ago: “Alcohol is the enemy of sleep”. Dr. Walker expanded on that in a different interview with Terry Gross on NPR in 2017:
Alcohol ... is a sedative drug, and what you're doing there is simply knocking yourself out.
You are removing consciousness quickly from the brain by way of having alcohol, but you're not putting yourself into naturalistic sleep.
The other issue is that alcohol will fragment your sleep — it will litter it and punctuate it with many more awakenings throughout the night, so short ... that you tend not to remember them. So, once again, you're not quite aware of how bad your sleep was when you had alcohol in the system.
The final aspect of alcohol is that it is very good at blocking your REM sleep, or your dream sleep, which is critical for aspects of mental health within the brain and emotional restitution too.
So alcohol [is a] very misunderstood drug when it comes to sleep — not helpful.
Unfortunately, many of us came to rely on that sedative to knock us out at night. Our brains came to associate sleep with booze.
So without booze, how do we fall asleep naturally? I’ll share what worked for me as I was retraining my brain. For my first few months of sobriety, I created a new bedtime ritual that showed deep reverence for rich, restorative sleep.
It looked something like this:
About 90 minutes before bed, I took a hot bath. Hot baths truly calm our nervous system the way we might have thought alcohol did. (Side note: a hot bath is now my go-to for stress relief. I’ve been known to take “emergency baths” when I want to calm down.)
After my bath, I went through a loving skincare routine--facial cleanser, rose water toner spritz, then rosewater witch hazel followed by a night facial oil.
I put on my pajamas, and prepared the bedroom by closing the blackout curtains, turning down the bed, sometimes spritzing the sheets with lavender water. I put my glass of water by the bed.
Then I made myself a hot cup of non caffeinated drink like Pero or Teccino.
I found an ambient music playlist that had a special effect on me, so I put on the exact same playlist every night.
While the music played, I did light stretches on the floor, journaled, read a few pages in a self-help book, or simply listened and let myself relax more and more while I sipped my hot drink.
When the mix ended, I knew it was time for bed.
As I lay down, I set my intentions for that restful, rejuvenating sleep, and then started thinking through each detail of my morning routine to give my mind something to do, and also to rehearse how I wanted the next day to start.
Does that seem like a lot of work? After drinking or smoking myself to sleep for years, I don’t think it was. I knew I wanted my body and brain to associate bedtime with true relaxation, so I followed this exact routine almost every night for several months.
And it worked. Although I was using scientifically valid methods: the bath, the warm drink, creating associations with the audio cue of the playlist— it felt like true self care, not the false kind that comes in a bottle. It was more than a routine, it was a ritual. I engaged all my senses, and reveled in the experience of slowly getting more and more relaxed without the need for substances.
What does your bedtime look like? Are you treating yourself with the respect you deserve? When you removed alcohol from your life, it has given you the gift of reimagining a new life where you honor yourself as the sacred being you are.
If my routine seems too elaborate to you, but you realize that binge watching TV or scrolling on your phone in bed isn’t the way you’d like to end your day, is there a teeny tiny adjustment you could make to give yourself the gift of a better night’s sleep? Our brains are always looking for associations. Think of how your brain responds when you smell a certain scent that brings up a memory, or you hear a ping on your phone. We can use that to our advantage, by deciding what we want our brains to associate with sleep.
Maybe you have an essential oil that you could use 30 minutes before bed. Or a song you play.
Let me know if you have a special bedtime routine or ritual, and how it has changed your sleep in sobriety. I’d love to hear about it!