Well the good news is that in the past few months, I've actually reduced my usage considerably and the sneaky cravings have pretty much faded. Now, I'm not so naive to think it is forever.
I'm not sure what exactly initiated it other than the fact that the after-effects like hangovers, heart palpitations, panic attacks and gout flare-ups were finally getting to the point of intolerance. I'd reached my limit of the amount of suffering my body could endure and even moderate amounts of beer or wine would cost a too painful physical price.
But beginning a couple weeks ago, I started getting comfortable with a new drug. And now, after what amounts to just a handful of days it seems to have a grip on my acting much more like an addiction than alcohol ever did. I've replaced drug A: Alcohol with Drug Z: Zolpidem aka Ambien.
Attesting to my doctor that my work schedule causes difficulties in regulating a proper sleep pattern as it's flipped upside. I need to stay up all night and sleep well in the daytime. The rest of the world (people phoning you, neighbors milling about, auto traffic on the street, even the natural things like birds chirping and the sun shining) all seem to want to keep me up.
So I asked for Ambien and she quickly wrote me a script.
I filled the script upon leaving her office and started using it immediately.
I used to take either Benedryls or some alcohol if I couldn't get to sleep before. Bennys would envelop your brain in wave after successive wave of drowsiness until you finally relented and went to sleep. It also seemed to coat your skin with a slight numbing tingliness that made it easier for you to find a comfortable sleep position in bed. But unfortunately, that drowsiness could and often did stay with you well after you've had 8 hours of sleep. It also seemed to work erratically. Sometimes the onset would hit you right after taking it, other times it felt like no effect at all.
Alcohol wasn't a really good sleep aid because, for me anyway, I wanted to push it to experience the buzz a while before essentially passing out. The sleep was tortured, tossing and turning, having cold and hot flashes and feeling my heartbeats racing fiercely. Not the way to get a restful sleep.
Now with Ambien, I start to feel the effects about 20 or 30 minutes after taking it (depends if my stomach is full or not) and instead of the sometimes harsh feeling of a Benedryl drowsiness, Ambien just simply seems to be like Dave unplugging those brightly lit circuit panels from Hal's mainframe.
"Daisy, Daisy give me you're answer,do,"
"I'm half crazy all for the love for you."
By 45 minutes, you notice the things that were worrying you: faded away. The actions you were doing: slowly being forgotten. Try playing Jeopardy on it. I must look and sound like that wheel-chair kid on South Park, Timmy!
The dreams are complex and interesting, yet not overly busy or worrisome. The body finds a comfortable sleep position and tends to stick with it. Once your ready to wake up you can feel a normal cortisol cascade flooding your neuro-pathways and even before you partake of caffeine, you're alert and refreshed.
But then the next day, you try just fall asleep naturally with out the drug. You lay for hours on the pillow, your eyes tightly shut behind the obscuring sleep mask and just think. Think, think, think, about anything that comes into your mind. You toss and turn and try to block out the noised from outside the apartment. Oh man, is that a car radio? Sniff, sniff, cough, why do they chose now to grill steak? Is the neighbors dog barking again? Ughh!
And before you know it, you succumb to the lure of the little amber-colored vial on your nightstand. The little white diamond-shaped pills are so tiny they can be dry-swallowed effortlessly.
So despite your best efforts you reach for it again. You use again. I'ts now your drug of choice.
Your dance card's full up. You've gone from Dashing Demon A to Dastardly Demon Z.
And you like the way he takes you into his big, strong arms and gently carries you, gracefully dancing across the ballroom under the pale moonlight. Or, in my case, the window-blind blocked and diffused muted sunlight.