Hey everyone, this is the Untwisted Voice. Thanks for stopping by and watching my video. If you can take a second, can you please subscribe to my channel. I'd really appreciate it. And again, thanks a lot for stopping by. You know, are you feeling tired, sleepy, unmotivated in early recovery? And when I'm talking about early recovery, I'm talking about 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, even as far as 120 days out, you still feel kind of sluggish like you're not motivated. I just want to start off by saying that's pretty normal for recovering alcoholic or recovering at it. That's pretty, pretty normal to feel tired and want to sleep a lot. It really, really is. If you have any concerns with that, by all means talk to your doctor, go and see your doctor and tell them what's going on or tell her what's going on when it comes to your sleep. Okay? I always advise that. I'm a guy recovering alcoholic, doing videos. Don't take what I say as gospel. These are only my experiences that I'm sharing with you. One of the main reasons I want to point out first, why I couldn't get a proper sleep for about the first 30 to 60 days is I couldn't slow my mind down. You know, I had court charges, marital issues, financial issues. I had so many issues in my life going on in early recovery when things got quiet my life. Like just before you go to bed, you know what I mean? That quiet, my mind would fire up and just start racing through the night. It would take me sometimes an hour or two to go to sleep. I remember calling my sponsor up and talking to them at that time for two or three hours before I went to bed just to get the mind to slow down. I couldn't slow it down. And even after I did that, you know, one, two, four, five in the morning, I still wake up, you know, in and out of sleep all the time. And I was wondering why I felt so tired. You know, then after all that, I would drag my ass out the door. I had seven or eight to go to work. And I was wondering why I was tired all the time because my mind would not let me sleep. It wouldn't let me sleep. Another reason I felt tired and I think a lot of addicts and alcoholics do this, they put the cart before the horse. I was in a 12 step program, working my program to the best of my abilities, but I wanted to play catch up. So I got a full time job. Of course, right? Need to make money. I got a part time job. It was a cleaning job, cleaning a beaver lumber here at Ottawa. I was also going to school at an adult learning school part time. Try that one on for size and try and figure out why you're tired. I was trying to make up for last time. No balance in my life when it came to my daily structure in my life. You know, wondering why I was tired. It was completely crazy. But when I was in it, I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. Somebody pointed out to me, Terry, you need to slow down. You need to stop all this nonsense. And it was kind of nonsense, but I want to make up for last time. Another reason is, is the medical doctor told me, is my sleep patterns were off. You know, when I drank, I went to bed anytime I wanted, basically. I didn't care if I got off for work. You know, I go to the bypass out at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, wake up at 2, start drinking, wake up at 7, go to work, or go to work at 3am. I mean, go to sleep at 3am and wake up at 10pm, this work all completely. So my sleep patterns are off. So he said, that's one of the reasons too. You're having sleep issues. You have no pattern that when you go to sleep, no sleep schedule. So that was the main reason too. And I identified that a lot because I was all over the place with my sleep. I was all over the place. Another thing he said to me was I felt really, well, I thought that was really interesting. He said because Terry, you did cocaine, smoking dope, drinking large amounts of alcohol, your body is repairing itself. You may not even know that, but you have liver issues. You have problems going on physically a little bit. Your body is repairing itself. So it takes energy away from you to repair itself. And I'm like, I really believe them. Sometimes I don't believe them to this day, but it sort of made sense at the time that I abused my body physically for a long, long time. At the end, I was a daily drinker, a daily user of, well, I shouldn't say a daily user of cocaine, but I used a lot of cocaine and I smoked a lot of weed. So my body had to refix itself, rebuild itself. So that was in the process too. It really was. And another one he pointed out is that the rims sleep, when you drank, you didn't really have rims sleep. The rims sleep is the sleep you go into when your body's sort of rebuilding itself. And it's, you know, it's the nurturing part of sleep. It's called the rims sleep. I'm not a scientist or a doctor. I'm just, it's the rims sleep. And when you drink and when you do drugs, you don't go into the rims sleep. You just sort of pass out and you pass out and you don't sleep. But you don't go into that deep sleep. So for months and years, how many times did I pass out from drugs or alcohol and not go into the rims sleep? So I was sleep deprived like crazy, like crazy. I was sleep deprived. So feeling tired when we sober up is really, really normal. It's really normal, but it takes time for us to adjust to our new way of life, both, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And things are going to be out of whack and sleeping is one of them. And not getting a proper sleep is a big, big deal. It's a big deal because in early recovery, we have a lot of emotions. Our life is very charged. We're trying to find a new way of living. We're trying to look after issues from the past. We're trying to reestablish ourselves and not getting a proper sleep can really make us feel overwhelmed, can make us feel depressed, can make us feel like giving up a cause for relapse, but it's not a cause for relapse. Just hang in there and get a proper sleep. Give it some time. A few things you can do is start having a sleep schedule. Start doing that. Do a little exercise. When you go to 12-step meetings, don't drink the coffee at 8 o'clock or 6 o'clock at night. Don't have any caffeine. Stop watching TV or going on your iPad or on your computer, you know, two or three hours before going to sleep. Eat a light meal. Eat something light. Like have a soup, a sandwich, a salad before you go to bed. Don't eat something big. If you have problems that you're experiencing throughout the day, call your sponsor. Talk to somebody about those issues of the day. Don't bring them to your bedroom and sleep on them and try and think your way out of them like I used to do and never get to sleep. Talk about what's going on in that day. You can meditate a little bit. Turn it over to God. Pray. You can do all those things to help you get some sleep. You really can't. But the main thing is you need to give yourself some time. Some time. Give yourself, I say, four months max. If you're still experiencing that, go and see your doctor. But don't start taking over the counter sleep aids. Don't start doing that. Don't start. Don't do that. Your body will be adjust. Your mind will slow down. And after a little while, you'll start sleeping better and you'll have good night's sleep. And you'll feel refreshed and you'll feel energized and you'll feel motivated. A lack of sleep, tiredness is pretty normal in early recovery. It's just a signal that how messed up your life really was. It's your body, it's your mind, it's your emotions telling you, hey, we're back. We need some sleep. Let's get on a pattern here. Let's get all fixed up. I know it sounds kind of corny what I just said, but it's the God's truth. It's really the truth. It's just a huge, huge adjustment. It's a huge adjustment. Okay, I hope you found this video helpful because those experiences I shared with you were things that I went through. And I've been silver for many, many years. So if you're feeling tired, you feel and sluggish, just go through it. Just go through it and deal with it. Ecknowledge it and just go through it. Okay, because it's perfectly, perfectly normal. Okay, thanks for watching my video. If you can take a second, can you please leave a comment or subscribe to my channel. I'd really appreciate it. But thanks a lot for stopping by and remember, it's one day to time, one day at a time. Okay? This is the untwisted voice of Terry G. And as usual, look after yourself because it shows and I'll see you later and thanks again for stopping by.