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Sleeping problems during recovery
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Recovery from alcohol abuse affects sleep in two main ways. Firstly, it can be hard to fall asleep, and secondly, when you do eventually fall asleep, that sleep is not as restful as normal.
Alcohol abuse causes a long term disturbance in sleep and wakefulness cycles, and alcohol induced sleep is largely free from necessary REM sleep. When alcohol abuse is stopped, the body responds with an REM rebound sleep period in which the body strives to make up for the period of REM deprivation with greatly increased amounts of REM sleep. REM, which is the part of sleep during which our remembered dreams occurs is generally pleasant, but when recovering alcoholics are subjected to many consecutive hours of REM, sleep becomes exhausting, and dreams can become nightmarish or unpleasant.
Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done about this, and you simply must repay your debt of REM sleep, and it will ultimately normalize.
