Needing To Increase Prescribed Meds And Alcohol To Sleep

[DaneLover]

Hi there,
I have been a long time reader, but haven't posted much before. My main difficulties with my PTSD currently is the extreme resistance of the ability to sleep, despite my prescribed meds. I was diagnosed with PTSD 4 years ago (seems like only yesterday), and recently with Complex PTSD due to childhood traumas and a sexual assault in 2011. Needless to say as I'm sure many of you understand, sleep is more of a wonderful figment of my imagination than it is a reality. I have been prescribed many meds on the last several years, and have had to be hospitalized 5 times...the most recent being last month after a 2 1/2 year gap which I was very proud of. Alcoholism unfortunately runs in my family (father was an abusive alcoholic and my maternal family members are easily taken over by alcohol). I have always been aware of these predispositions, and have always been very leery about drinking much. I would normally have a drink maybe every 2-3 weeks. I am finding it has drastically increased over the last several months as I am not achieving any effects from my nighttime meds (Klonopin 2 mg, Zanaflex, Hydrocodone, and Ambien CR) My doctor is always quite shocked I am able to wake up in the morning and perform my daily duties, but I'm just not fazed by the meds. Recently, I have been needing to add a few drinks at night to fall asleep. As a nurse, and through speaking with my therapist of 4 years, I know this is extremely maladaptive, but I am simply not sleeping without that added portion. I know it isn't recommended to mix alcohol, especially with the number of meds I am on, but it's almost like I haven't taken anything at all sometimes.

My question is, have many of you found yourself doing the same as me and using alcohol in an attempt to enhance the effects of your meds (despite the negative nature of it)?

Thank you so much!

 

[joeylittle]

I am finding it has drastically increased over the last several months as I am not achieving any effects from my nighttime meds (Klonopin 2 mg, Zanaflex, Hydrocodone, and Ambien CR)

Here's what I know: hydrocodone likely isn't doing anything on it's own anymore, ditto for klonopin. You probably know that as well. Alcohol will intensify ambien and it's a soporific all on it's own.

Alcohol is also not effective self-medication. You'll adjust, the same way you have with the opiate and the benzo.

Have you tried (or can you ask to try) seroquel or trazadone?

 

[nursenurse]

All or most of these meds have addicting and habituating properties. If you take them long enough, you will need more and the beat goes on.

Why aren't you sleeping? What are you talking about in therapy? You do know better, and you need to take steps to find out why you are not functioning. From one nurse to another, you are treading a fine line. There are sleep disorder clinics and such. I don't deny that folks might need help a couple or few days a week, but this is dependence and is worsening. And your livelihood if you are actively nursing depends on you being alert and not under the influence. I can almost guarantee you that if you are working, someone has noticed. It is a matter of time before something bad happens. Dig deeper.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I have greatly improved my sleep with Reiki and yoga. And in turn, I have more energy during the day to perform my work better. I wake up at night but I no longer grab extra drugs. You know you're on a slippery slope. Please be careful. Alcohol makes everything worse I used it for twenty years and I always felt hungover. Do not miss those days at all.

 

[Changing4Best]

Here I am, awake again at 5:22AM, but I have been awake since 1AM or so. That means I got 3 hours of sleep. I take 150 milligrams of Trazodone before bed every night and have done so for years. I take Klonopin (Clonazepam) for restless Legs syndrome, and so on etc., but I still don't sleep every night as I should. I did sleep well the last 3 nights, so I am not complaining too loudly here. I have been in therapy for about a dozen years, was diagnosed around the time I started therapy and have been hospitalized many times, maybe 6? And that is not counting the times I went to the ER with panic attacks and they checked my heart, found out it was OK and sent me home without addressing the panic at all, not even telling me what it was!!!

Therapy has helped. Oh, and I also have had both childhood and adult traumas.

 

[Recovery4Me]

Recently, I have been needing to add a few drinks at night to fall asleep.

I am glad you are here among us and gentle welcomes are offered to your arrival.:) I think NurseNurse offered a wise answer.

I too am an adult child of an alcoholic family, come from a gene stock of addiction. I had a childhood friend (over 40 some years) that was in medical and did the cocktail mix. She changed so much that she became a danger to herself and her patients.

We had went through so much together, she meant the world to me, but she did not want to stop. Evidently, it came to an ugly head and she chose to do more damage to herself then anyone else could have done to her. I miss her.

My question is, have many of you found yourself doing the same as me and using alcohol in an attempt to enhance the effects of your meds (despite the negative nature of it)?

Please consider that many have taken that road but it is a slippery slope. Alcohol is never an solution.
However, don't stop posting, (because of different views):I am truly glad you found this site. :hug:'s if you accept them.

 

[Underdog]

Not sure what the answer is for you, but some good advice has been given thus far. I started drinking heavily about 4 years ago to numb the pain and feelings while the trauma was occurring. I didn't see it at the time, but it was a contributing factor to making things far worse for PTSD to develop. It's a depressant as you know, and it will change how you see things and how you function especially over long term usage. Even after the trauma ended I continued to drink and it got worse although I started doing better. I found myself not wanting to go to bed even today, and after a few drinks I was more "awake" and "alert". Sure, I would pass out asleep but always woke up even more exhausted. I still occasionally have a drink but even that will be stopping. Had two crashes in the past two weeks and found myself binge drinking. The next morning it literally made things worse for me mentally.

But now that I mostly don't drink, I find myself waking up every 30 minutes to an hour and I'm very excited inside. Sleep is becoming quite the rarity.

I'm sure each person is different, but my therapist has said that my subconscious fight/flight is highly activated and constantly dumping their wonderful neurosystem stimulants into my body. While consciously I know what is happening and can feel the internal "arousal", I can't stop it because the conscious and subconscious aren't communicating. For me, it's a process of lowering the base line and stabilizing it over time, but until then the long term effect on my body is irritability, inability to sleep well and all the other wonderful things that come with hyper arousal. It's even begun to affect my blood pressure.

The suggestion given to me was to cut out all stimulants (coffee, smoking if possible, tea, chocolate, sugar, etc...). They don't play well with an already excited nervous system and are counter productive in the long run. Excercise, meditation, trauma sensitive yoga, breathing excercises, visualization of happy things, etc... Are what we are working on to add to my tool box now that I've accepted responsibility to work on these things to help myself. Some days aren't easy, and I find that in order to walk outside or even lift weights I must have someone I trust there to assist with creating a safe zone and so I don't get upset with myself or explode at someone.

Truly hope you can find an answer and start working towards it. I've always been worried when people say they use alcohol to sleep, especially if they are currently on other meds. It's a dangerous and slippery slope.

 

[Ted Moen]

I found trazadone helped me learn to sleep, within the context of participating daily in a very active exercise program. After a couple of years I was able to taper off the medication and sleep very well as long as I maintained my exercise program.

 

[NovemberStar]

As a nurse, you will know alcohol is a depressant, and he's - a tolerance will develop.

Why can't you go back to your Dr and discuss this? It might be changing meds is the answer.

Anything had to be a better answer then self-medicating / increasing your meds / alcohol as a self-help tool. Doing what you're doing will not end well.

 

[Bekah]

I was reading over the other suggestions on this post, and they really cover most of the bases when it comes to stuff like this. I especially second the idea of cutting out other stimulants. Giving up coffee and chocolate is hard, but speaking from experience, just knowingly taking that step of 'this is a problem and this is something I can do to deal with it' can really make a difference. When it gets to point where you know you're in danger but you don't know how to stop it, making a conscious effort to change something - even if it's not a huge step or a complete solution - has a big psychological effect.

If insomnia is getting bad enough that you think your work is suffering, you might want to consider taking some time off. I was in a similar situation a year ago - taking every sleeping pill I could get prescribed to me and drinking too much when nothing seemed to work - but in the end what actually got me out of the cycle was realizing that my performance at my job was taking a huge dive as a result.

So, I took two weeks off work and made a conscious decision to spend them getting the drugs out of my system. I hardly slept at all, but since I didn't have to be functional for my job it wasn't as terrifying. At the end of my time off, I obviously hadn't 'cured' my insomnia - but I'd shaken myself out of some increasingly dysfunctional efforts to medicate the problem away. And eventually my tolerance for the pills went back to normal, meaning that I could return to a much lower and safer dosage when I felt ready. I don't know about your work situation or if taking that much vacation is even a possibility, but anything is better than waiting until things get so bad the choice gets taken out of your hands.

 

[CoolBlue]

Yes, I have added alcohol to sleeping meds, out of sheer desperation (not a regular thing). No family history of alcoholism, and if I do sleep - it's way better without alcohol, so I'm not inclined to continue on that path. Sometimes I just want/need three hours of sleep though, and nothing else will work. It's not smart, I hate doing it, and I've cut way back - though have dark undereye circles to show for that. I'm going to try cutting out coffee and calming myself down during the day, as mentioned above. I had to stop one sleep med because I got too tolerant to it, but I can probably try it again - I've never mixed alcohol with that one, since it works well (or did for a long while).

Sometimes I listen to a youtube insomnia hypnosis-type video... there are many to choose from. It's helped me at times, as long as I don't start telling myself "you should be asleep by now!" Sometimes I browse sleep disorder forums, and just read the posts - and I calm down knowing that I'm not alone (and then I sleep!).