Drunk nights versus sober nights.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This post has been brewing since about 5am this morning. So naturally 19 hours later it is going to have about ten percent of the insight/ideas/quality it developed between 5am and 10am when I was finally nodding off.
A typical sober night (a night after work and the morning after)

Get home around one-ish. No rush. ( work til 12)

Half-one I find a film to watch. Usually something from box-office. (Last night it was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)

Half-two-half three I go to bed and read until about 4am.

Until 5:30 I am still quite wide awake. This is when the hustle and bustle of day-shift workers starts. All I can hear is the quite loud hum of an old house’s pipes supplying a tap intermittently, the click-click-click of expanding hot metal as the pipes warm up, the clickity clickity clickity of the radiator (despite being turned all the way off) negotiating with the rest of the heating system, the ‘ghhhuuum’ of my step-dad clearing his throat.

Up to this point I don’t mind the sounds. They leave the house by 8am. But if my window is open the inevitable sounds of the next door neighbour’s dog crying (I presume to be let out of some dog cage). This morning I had the thermostat of their boiler turning it on and off every 15 seconds.

Most of the sounds at this time are ok. Birds tweeting, construction site constructing (distant so it’s ok), cars. But the one sound that forces me to close my window is the dog somewhere further up the street that seems to live outside (in a something by something yard. Most Brits will understand the dimensions of a ‘back-yard’)

Having the window closed is almost as bad. I lose the ambiance of wind and trees being blown by it. So my mind sort of notices the silence and begins to wake up to daytime-levels again.

If I’m lucky I’ll be drifting in and out of sleep between the hours of 9am and 12am.

At 12am my first alarm is set to go off. If luck is still on my side I will drift right back to sleep until second alarm (1pm) goes off. Depening on my mood I will either drift back to wakefulness, or I will press snooze, which will alow me a series of 7-minute daydreams until 2am.

At 2 I get up, and ready for work. I will feel groggy and sleep-deprived for the entire day until 12 comes around.

A typical drunk night

Get home at at least 12 thirty (having rushed, to get started asap)

At 12:40 I am sat at the computer listening to music and drink is flowing into my system. I am probably feeling good.

At around 2am - 2:30 I’ve consumed most of the drink. I get into bed, and fall instantly asleep.

Around 5:30 the usual wakes me up, I get up and shut the window calmly. It doesn’t matter because my senses are dulled from sweet darling alcohol.

At 12:00 I am woken by my alarm, click, back to sleep.

At 1pm I am woken again, click. Lie in still-dulled peace until 2pm.

At 2pm the morning shower (of sorts) kicks me into lucidity.

The lucidity lasts until the moment I open the front door to leave.

I walk to work feeling somewhat unsure of myself.

As soon as I walk through my office door the lucidity returns in full force and I am ready/prepared/ and willing for another productive workday.
On consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that a regular drinking habit is the most sensible and logical course of action in my situation. I could take measures (moving house, solving noise problem, switching shifts) but no measures guarantee success. What does guarantee success is my precious drinking habit.
(Lager and whisky… If you were wondering)

2

So is the noise or the drinking the problem? :confused:

3

I think reading to four is a problem. Try arranging your day to get up 10 ish and go to the gymn for a couple of hours before work. The extra activity will soon help your sleep more easily if you are anything like me. And gymn before work really helps for being allert at work. If you haven’t got a gymn to go to, other exercise can do just as well.

4

I probably didn’t convey the differences well enough in my op. It was afterall delayed by 19 hours (I had intended to post it at work, but I was too busy)

The short version is - Drink is preferable to Non-drink because Drink makes inevitable noise tolerable.

5

The reason I read (and do other stuff beforehand) until four is that it doesn’t feel right to go to sleep (or try to sleep) any earlier. It would be like a nine-to-fiveer going to bed at 6pm. They would just feel silly say in bed one hour after leaving work. I’d feel the same way in bed at 1am.

I used to get up fairly early to take a long route to work with my camera but somehow that routine has become derailed. Point is, even when I did that, I still needed drink to gain any hope of a decent night’s sleep.

6

my solution, mostly, was a second pillow, put over my eyes and ears and of course aluminum foil on the bedroom windows. In spring and fall I leave the bathroom window open so I get fresh air. My big issue was the screaming kids next door and the yard work people.

7

Alcohol is your good and loyal friend. It has never steered me wrong. I can’t say as much for pussy.

8

Meeeeeeeeeeeow!

9

Totally hear ya on that. I’ve worked shift work and hubby does currently. If he gets done at midnight, 3 is the absolute earliest we’re going to bed. When he’s done at 3, it’s closer to 6 am. We’re just naturally kind of wound-up right after work. Sleeping is not an option.

In order to sleep during the day, I wear earplugs, have blackout drapes over the window and I have a fan going for a little extra white noise. It helps.

10

Lobsang, have you tried earplugs? They (mostly) worked for me when I lived over a bar. (You really can’t appreciate the value of earplugs until you’ve been woken up at 3am by Kenny Rogers’ “Coward of the County” wafting up from the bar downstairs. Because, really, don’t you just have to sing along? And then you never get back to sleep.)

11

There’s truth in that.

On the other hand, too much pussy has never made me puke. I can’t say as much for alcohol.

12

Maybe you could sleep 3 hours after coming back from work. That’s 4 ish and you should have a chance to be in deep sleep before the rush really starts arround 5.30 to 6 ish. Earplugs are worth a try if you can get used to them, but they can also make getting up to the alarm more difficult. Making sure the room is properly light proofed if it isn’t allready, heavy curtains can help dedern some sound from outside as well.
Getting drunk every night will eventually seriously fuck you up one way or another. If you can’t sleep then find another job before you take the alcohol self medication, it’ll be easier to find another job than to live with a destroyed liver.