Common and normal, drinking dreams nevertheless leave me quite shaken; and I always awake with guilt and fear…and have a few moments of panic over my subconscious relapse.

Most people well into sobriety will know what I'm talking about, and although commonplace and seemingly normal, these drinking dreams still scare the heck out of me; and I wake up after each vivid drinking dream filled with this overpowering guilt and fear, and it takes me good moment before I realize that it was all a dream.

Drinking or drugging dreams are reoccurring experiences for many people in recovery, and they are almost universally scary and unsettling experiences. My dream is usually the same; and it's pretty mundane sounding…just me sitting on the couch with a few quarts of beer watching TV. Doesn’t sound too scary, but I can always taste the slightly bitter cool of the beer as if it were real, and that dream buzz feels pretty close to the real thing too. These dreams haunt me throughout the day, and leave me unsettled and pensive.

Intellectually, I don’t believe that these dreams signify anything particularly disturbing; but emotionally they always get to me; and one thing that I can be sure of is that any day that begins with a dream drunk hangover will find me in a meeting before the sun goes down. I don’t think that these dreams will ever make me take that first sip, but a meeting feels like the right antidote to a subconscious relapse, and sharing my with my knowing friends in AA always puts my mind at ease.

I've been sober for years, and I'm now resigned to the fact that I will live with periodic drunk dreams forever. Any addiction will come back to haunt you, and there's not much you can do about the directions your mind takes as you sleep.

I think that all you can do is use each and every drinking or drugging dream as a subconscious reaffirmation of your need to remain vigilant, and remain active in whatever keeps you sober throughout the day.