Aspergers and Alcohol

I used to drink heavily before I was diagnosed , and it was mainly as a means to cope socially. I stopped drinking about two years ago , and to be honest , I feel so much better not drinking and don't miss alcohol at all. 

I have a low tolerance to alcohol, 2-3 cans of cider after a bad day is my limit. But I do medicate with cannabis every evening.. much better even than vallium!

What noises wake you up? I am woken up by car engines, people talking outside, and my neighbour walking above me - boom, boom, the worst noise ever.

Doors opening and closing, neighbours talking and clattering, anyone walking above me, even plugs being taken in and out of sockets next door, noises from outside, similar things to you really.  I have a history of not being able to get to sleep for ages every night too, it's just more lately as things have become so exhausting (plus I am on medication which probably makes it easier).  Sometimes I just wake up and don't even know why I woke up too.  I feel so tired from broken sleep and lack of sleep most of the time.  I could do with a long break on a remote island with someone waiting on me hand and foot.  Back to alcohol, I do think it has it's uses, but it is known to affect sleep too.

I have never been a heavy drinker (although I have been drunk before but never so that I didn't know what I was doing, I find alcohol affects me quickly).  However, for the last approximately 3 years I have not been able to do without a glass of wine every evening to help me cope with PTSD, anxiety and inordinately stressful and overwhelming responsibilities.  I like the slightly blurry feeling it gives me that I don't have to think so much about what a difficult time I am going through.  At the moment, my body is so desperately in need of recuperation I don't have much trouble falling asleep, however small noises are still waking me up, but that's something I have always had to deal with.

longman said:

There's a book around (Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2008), by Matthew Tinsley and Sarah Hendrickx, entitled Asperger Syndrome and Alcohol - Drinking to Cope?

Sarah Hendrickx is the AS expert who did my non-clinical assessment and confirmed I had AS before I got my "official" clinical diagnosis.

I never drink alcohol because I don't really like the taste, excepting liquers, and then only a very small amount at Xmas; so I have never got drunk.

I have never smoked, but then my family don't either.

I drink tea, which is my drug!

There's a book around (Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2008), by Matthew Tinsley and Sarah Hendrickx, entitled Asperger Syndrome and Alcohol - Drinking to Cope?

I drank very little through my early twenties, on some sort of morality, but got more into it in my late 20s early 30s. I developed hiatus hernia problems, and one possible cause identified was alcohol so I gave it up again, and for years drank mineral water and occasionally low alcohol lager (though it gives me wind). Latterly I've broadened out more but will go weeks without drinking and if I do its very much in moderation.

However I'm not very socially active and would be drinking on my own, more often than not, if I did. I will sometimes go into a pub for a half of bitter and a bottle of sparling mineral water, and sup them both at the same time.

I've never smoked.

I rarely drink. Never been a huge fan of it.

However, I did, relatively, recently stop smoking.

Now, we're a tiny, insignificant, sample, but it wouldn't surprise me if something about the autistic brain means we find it easy to change our habits when we set our minds to it (but that we have to want to make that change in the first place).

I do not take substances, alcohol, cigerattes or drugs.

Reason being,, that I see them as unnatural poisons so why contaminate my body, quite honestly I am probably just scared to take them due to effect, but the reality is why ? I can not see the benefit.

I find it easy to give up things, if I put my mind too it. Tea, coffee, TV etc. My mind is quite good at forgeting about it after a week or so, as I have transferred by mind onto something else anyway.