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“Dear Normal, I’m having drinking dreams.”
Today’s Dear Normal Question comes from an anonymous submission via the Dear Normal form. You to can submit your questions for Dear Normal completely anonymously via this form here.
“Dear Normal. I recently stopped drinking alcohol. I’m not sure that I have a “problem” with alcohol but I’ve noticed that I am drinking a lot more than I used to. It’s just become a thing I do so often. With friends out to dinner, at brunch, a glass of wine after I get off of work, a beer or cocktail on the weekends when out, it’s just all the time. I’m feeling like alcohol is becoming the main course in my life and I want it to be a side dish. Not even the good side dish, but like the cranberry sauce. So I decided to take a break for a while just to reset and I’ve been having these drinking dreams almost every night. I wake up feeling like I actually drank and can’t recall at first if it was real or just a dream. It’s spooky and makes me feel weird. Has this happened to you? Is it normal?”
~ Dreamer
Hello Dreamer,
Wow, first off let me say that it’s so refreshing to hear about a person choosing not to drink in the way that you have. I have this conversation often in the sober groups that I belong to. With my sober women friends. The conversation about alcohol in today’s society and the role it plays. The importance we have put on a bottle (or can) of liquid. To solve our problems, to relax, to mingle, to meet new people, to unwind, to have a good time, to have courage, to deal with stress, to deal with our children, increase the list ad infinitum.
I’ll try not to get to Sunday morning preacher on you, but I always find this so very interesting. Alcohol is a substance that contains ethanol. Ethanol is a toxic chemical that when consumed alone would cause coma or death. It’s literal poison. Alcohol is produced by the fermentation of grains or fruit or other sources of sugar that act as a drug. Alcohol is a depressant but in low doses can cause a feeling of euphoria. Making socialization easier and reducing the feeling of stress.
I think we all know what happens when consumed at high doses. Drunkenness. Inability to control balance, loss of memory, slurred speech, impaired judgment.
Alcohol has become such a major part of our society in such a socially acceptable way that places like Target are notorious for their “Wine O’Clock” somewhere t-shirts and marketing to the mommy wine culture. Like the only way that moms can manage is to get wine drunk. We have decided as a society that it’s actually more acceptable to drink and drink yourself into a drunken stupor than it is to not drink. We drink at every occasion.
I was vacationing in Hawaii on the beach in Waikiki and I was surrounded by fellow vacationers that were just loaded. A young group of men beside us was falling over in the sand, stumbling over each other, their bag of cans constantly being emptied out on the beach because of their lack of ability to tie a bag and they would pick the cans up and put them back in the bag only to spill it out again and again. It was painful to watch. It didn’t look relaxing. it made me wonder if they would remember the way the beach looked as the sun set and the colors of the sky changed. Would they remember the sounds of the children laughing and the waves crashing?
As I walked down the beach I then saved a very drunk woman from being swept out to sea and drowning as she clung to a boogie board. Her fake eyelashes half clinging to her face as she could barely get out the words, “Thank you.”
While there are few people that can manage or navigate society and all the excess around alcohol while maintaining moderation (and their dignity) the majority of the population is consuming more and more alcohol at an alarming rate. Not meaning that the majority of people should be labeled as “alcoholic” but that their relationship with alcohol should be examined.
Okay, so I’ve shouted from my pulpit enough. The point is, I’m so proud of you for recognizing the relationship you have with alcohol and saying, “this doesn’t feel healthy.” In today’s society that is brave and commendable as hell. I hope that if or when you return to drinking you find a more manageable, healthy approach. And that if you don’t, you know that there are people and places you can go to for help. And that by seeking help you are the most courageous. Seeking help is so very much self-love and when we love ourselves we show others how to love themselves and on and on.
When I stopped drinking in December of 2017 I had a dream about alcohol almost every night for about six months. I was an extreme drinker and proudly label myself alcoholic. I’ve got the “ism.” I was drinking daily at least one tall can of beer. On most occasions, I was drinking a bottle or two of wine a day and on the days when I really wanted to get obliterated, I would drink a couple of bottles of wine and a few beers, and a few shots of whiskey. My body was completely dependent on alcohol if not only for the sugar content I was consuming. My body was physically addicted to alcohol.
According to John F. Kelly, Ph.D., founder, and director of the Recovery Research Institute, "REM sleep and deep wave sleep undergo important changes in abstinence from alcohol, even long after people enter recovery, and these relapse dreams may be indicative of the healing process and brain-mind stabilization that occurs with time in recovery."
I was around nineteen days sober from alcohol and I had a dream about this insane girl. She was in my house and I had friends over and she was causing so much chaos. Breaking things and shouting and I wanted her to leave but none of my friends were even noticing that she was a problem. I kept looking around the room at all of my friends just having fun and acting normal while this psycho was hanging from the light fixtures and breaking all of my things. I started pleading with everyone to notice, to do something. I finally got so angry I yelled at her that she should leave. When she refused I forcibly marched her out of my home and across the street to a train station.
A train arrived and I pushed her through the door and as the door shut on her face she just started wailing. Screaming. The sounds of her screams followed me as I walked back into my apartment. At the bottom of the stairs were these cool-looking skater kids and they were all put off by the way I had treated the crazy girl. No one seemed to be bothered by her or understood why I made her leave.
Then all of a sudden she’s standing there in front of me again and I’m screaming now in her face telling her to leave. To leave me alone. To go away. I’m making this big scene in the streets and there’s a big crowd gathering around and the insane girl looks like she’s going to kill me but a bus pulls up between us and she gets on the bus and leaves. Watching me from the window as it drives down the street.
I share this particular dream because it was so haunting. But it was also so obviously my subconscious self not wanting to let go of alcohol. I think the girl was my alcohol use, my addiction to the substance, and all the demons and chaos attached to it. How incredible is the human mind and all the things we don’t understand.
So yes, Dear Dreamer, your drinking dreams are so very normal. Amongst us sober people we talk about drinking dreams often. I’m almost five years sober from alcohol and I still have the occasional drinking dream. I’ll wake up from it confused and feeling off like I’m not sure if I drank or not. But those dreams now are so very few and far between. As we heal, as our body heals and we relearn behaviors our drinking dreams will go away.
What it says to me is that you’re on the right path. That if you are experiencing these dreams then obviously alcohol was in fact playing a far bigger role in your life than maybe you even knew. Your subconscious knows. Your body knows. I’m so proud of you for choosing yourself and your health. It’s not easy to go against the grain, right? It’s not easy to choose ourselves in a society that has taught us how to check out, how to lose ourselves.
Thanks for writing, Dear Dreamer, and I hope you can take solace in knowing how very normal you are.
xo Normal