Better Than Not

Zolpidem, the generic, my nite cap.
 

The evening Kevin and I split up, as I walked away from him and down the West Side Highway to home, one of my first thoughts was to self-diagnose myself as needing the assistance of Ambien to help me get through the emotional head-trip that would be the next few days and months.
That night I borrowed a few pills from my roomie, and despite the heartache and the head spin I was going through, I still managed a good nights sleep.  I woke suddenly, an hour or two earlier than necessary, not needing anyone to tell me that the effects of the pill had just run their course, nor was my now freed mind going to allow me any additional rest.  So I woke up, got my things ready and went to a morning session of CrossFit.

I continued borrowing these pills from my roomie every night that week and on into the next.  Every night it would be the same - about a half-hour after taking it, in which I would lie in bed, my head spinning, dwelling sadly on the end of my four year relationship, I would suddenly be gone, out like a light.  Approximately 6 or so hours later I would suddenly wake up, feeling fresh and recharged, my head immediately picking up the previous night's spin, my recognition that it was better to just get up and work out than to try and force myself back to sleep.

Not long afterwards I made an appointment with a doctor that a friend had recommended to me - a kind, generous older gay man who seemed genuinely interested in hearing every detail of my sad state of despair.  After providing verbal condolences he wrote me my first prescription for the generic form of Ambient, acknowledging that while not ideal, the damage caused to ones body by not sleeping outweighed the negative habit-forming usage of the drug.  "It's better than not sleeping," he said.

And now, here it is, four years later, and my sleep still appears to be contingent on the little white pill that I have taken nearly every night since that break-up.  During that time I had a 1.5 year relationship which also ended, but even during the height, and most happy moments of that relationship, I continued to use Zolpidem, as the generic is called.

Some people have awful horror stories around their sleep-walking while under it's influence, of feeling groggy the next day.  For me it has been wonderful, ensuring that I get a pretty good nights sleep without disruption or interruption.  For the most part I just need the drug to assist me with falling asleep - once I accomplish this the first time, on weekends where I don't need to get up I can fall back into slumber after the pill wears off and get more than my typical 6 hours of sleep.

However, I do acknowledge that it's a habit that I would like to kick.  So at the beginning of this trip I requested that my dose be cut in half, from 10mg to 5mg, hoping that I could slowly begin to wean myself off of my dependency on it. My doctor has suggested this path, to some degree, for quite some time and I figured that this two weeks off would be an ideal time to test whether or not it will work. 

Of course part of the reason I'm writing this entry is because I woke up so early, hours ahead of everyone else. 

We will see.