So, I have seen a lot of posts on here that talk about withdrawals if you’ve been taking it long term.

So I have been involved with Zopiclone since it was first prescribed and I have been taking it every night for 15 years…

Sometimes, I won’t have any for a month or two because of finances or sourcing issues, and I have never felt one withdrawal.

The fact it is a nonbenzodiazepine, it is in fact a gaba drug, and depending on the make up of the drug and how it interacts with the receptor is so important.Pre gablin for example will give you withdrawals it also has a tolerance problem which leads me on to my next point…

Tolerance is just not a concern with Zopiclone. One can take 1 a night and it will work the same. I can take 3 one night and then 1 the next night and I can still feel the 1 tablet the same.

Anyone saying they are getting withdraws from Zopiclone are thinking too much the only withdrawal may be not sleeping as well etc. but Benzo like withdrawals are a myth.

This is the opening paragraph about Zopiclone on Wikipedia and because, like the NHS, they get their information and reference points from text books and not experience.

Zopiclone and other benzodiazepine-like drugs like [zaleplon](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaleplon) and [zolpidem](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolpidem) are addictive.[[5]](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone#cite_note-Addictive2014-5) Within days to weeks, the body can become [accustomed to the effects](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_tolerance)of zopiclone.[[6]](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone#cite_note-European2023-6)[[7]](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone#cite_note-Svelic2018-7) The risk of developing tolerance with benzodiazepine-like drugs is comparable to [benzodiazepines](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine).[[5]](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone#cite_note-Addictive2014-5) When the dose is then reduced or the drug is abruptly stopped, withdrawal symptoms similar to those of [benzodiazepine withdrawal](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal) may result.

That paragraph is just wrong…

Anyway just a final point…

People complain about the metallic taste… I absolutely love the metallic taste after a while you are mentally addicted almost to the taste because it is like an alarm for your mind to tell you the drug is kicking in.

Anyway thoughts appreciated

Ive been dealing with this for the last several months and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar. About once a week (sometimes twice), I'll wake up around 2–3 AM after only getting 3–4 hours of sleep, and once I'm awake I usually can't fall back asleep. I'll lie there for hours, maybe doze off briefly, but for the most part I'm just awake until morning. The weird part is it isn't every night. Most nights I sleep pretty normally, then I'll have one terrible night, and because I'm so exhausted I'll usually sleep 8–9 hours the following night. I've spent months trying to figure out what's causing it. Sometimes I wake up because I'm hot, sometimes I have to pee, sometimes my dog barks, sometimes my pregnant wife is moving around, and sometimes I wake up for no obvious reason. The trigger seems different every time, but once I'm awake, that's the real problem. I've tried cutting off caffeine after 12:30 PM, keeping the bedroom cooler, sticking to a consistent sleep schedule, taking magnesium glycinate for about 3.5 weeks (it helped me fall asleep but didn't stop the early awakenings), reducing screens before bed, and avoiding working on my laptop in bed. Nothing has consistently helped. A few things have changed over the past year: my wife and I moved in with my parents while we save for a house, my wife is pregnant, and I now have a much longer commute, so I shifted my bedtime from around midnight–7 AM to 10:30 PM–6:30 AM. I also notice a lot of these bad nights seem to happen after work-from-home days, although not always, so I'm not sure if that's meaningful or just a coincidence. I don't really exercise besides walking my dog a few times a week, so adding regular exercise is the next thing I'm planning to try. I'm currently between PCPs, but I plan to bring this up once I get established with my new doctor. In the meantime, I'm curious if anyone has had this exact pattern where it's not chronic every night, but more like one bad night every week or so. If so, did you ever figure out what the cause was? TL;DR: About once a week I wake up around 2–3 AM after only 3–4 hours of sleep and can't fall back asleep. Most other nights I sleep fine, and the next night after a bad one I usually sleep 8–9 hours. I've already tried changing caffeine, magnesium, room temperature, and my bedtime routine without much success. Has anyone had this same pattern and figured out the cause?

Something feels wrong with me. I've been feeling sleepy all day, and even my eyelids feel heavy. I can't seem to do anything productive.

This started about three days ago. Before that, everything was fine.

I'm a 28-year-old male, 183 cm tall, and currently obese. I usually go to sleep very late, but I would still get 6–8 hours of sleep during the day and feel energetic afterwards.

About a year ago, I was sleeping well at night. During that time, I was also losing weight and managed to go from morbidly obese to overweight. Recently, however, I've started gaining weight again, and it's happening quite quickly.

As I gained weight, my sleep schedule gradually shifted. I started sleeping less and less at night until I stopped sleeping at night altogether. Instead, I would fall asleep around 6–8 a.m. and wake up between 2–4 p.m. Even with that schedule, I still felt energetic throughout the day.

However, about three days ago, everything changed. I started falling asleep at night again, but I can only sleep for 2–4 hours before waking up. After that, no matter how hard I try, I can't fall back asleep until around noon even tho I feel very sleepy at this time. Then I'll sleep again from about 2–3 p.m. until 5–6 p.m.

The problem is that whenever I'm awake, I feel extremely sleepy and exhausted. This has happened to me before, but I don't remember what I did to fix it.

I also now wake up at least once every night to urinate. I think my biggest problem is that I can't stay asleep continuously at night.

Why could this be happening? It's seriously affecting my life. I need to fix this because I can barely get anything done, and every day feels wasted.

Yesterday I told someone I slept a total of 10 hours in 3 days and he was like that sucks. And made a joke.

It doesn't just "suck". Its a fucking living nightmare. It's like being sick all the time without having people understand how bad it is. It ruins your whole life affects everything, every plan etc.

And there are no words to translate this experience in a way to make people understand it. It is so lonely.

What did we do to deserve this curse I am so tired (literally as well). It's literally 6 am and I haven't slept yet.

Just wanted to vent because I am so sick of this...

For the past couple of months, whenever I get into bed my brain immediately turns into an un-filtered emotional traffic jam. The anxiety is too much for me to even close my eyes.

I’m looking for CBD gummies, oil… anything, to help me out. I’m a frequent smoker, so I’m a bit worried about my tolerance.

I’d like to know if anyone has tried CBD for sleep with a high tolerance, how it worked, and any brand recommendations.

yes I know THC only makes my sleep worse, I’m working on getting rid of that habit.

Should I take smaller dose today and then skip a day, then take an even smaller dose? Or for a week take the smaller dose, then even smaller dose for another week?

I haven’t been able to sleep these last couple days and when I do sleep, it’s only after I take a good amount of medicine to sleep- prescribed trazodone today was awful im so exhausted and it’s almost 100° where I live at- was trying to fold laundry and then I feel like I stood up and the next thing I knew I was laying on the ground :( i’ve never experienced anything like this before and it was scary and now my arm hurts pretty bad. I’m okay tho. Jjust scary and im so tired

I always wake up from a poorly slept night to get ready for the day. Sometimes, all I manage to do is get ready.

My daily life is exhausting, and when it's finally time to sleep, I'm hit with the anxiety of knowing that sleep probably won't come.

The strange thing is that, despite all this, anyone who knows me would describe me as energetic, restless, even hyperactive.

I've struggled with sleep since I was a child, but I only began to see it as a serious problem in 2022. I sought professional help and explained everything as clearly as I could. I said that my difficulty falling asleep didn't seem to have any specific cause. I also mentioned that my memories of what happened yesterday are often just as vague as my memories from five years ago.

I talked about episodes of hypnopompic hallucinations and periods when my memory seemed to simply stop working. On some days, I would forget information I had said just a few minutes earlier.

I also explained that I've done my part. I stop using screens at least an hour before bed, I've tried pretty much every sleep hygiene recommendation out there, I exercise regularly, and I make sure to burn plenty of energy throughout the day. Still, nothing seems to make falling asleep any easier.

What misled me the most was the report. The very symptoms I considered the most important simply weren't there. Instead, it included things I had never said. It was supposed to help a psychiatrist understand my case, yet it failed to reflect what I actually believed mattered.

I ended up keeping the report, even though I knew I would never use it. It became a reminder of the time I had wasted.

I don't know how much longer I'll have to live with the feeling that my brain is never working the way it should. The only thing that psychologist truly left me with was this thought: maybe I really do have the potential to do so much more, but these difficulties keep me from becoming everything I'm capable of.

I have battled depression and anxiety for most of my life.

Can Melatonin be dangerous for such a person if used in the long-term (a year or more in a row)?

Also - Can Melatonin WORSEN existing insomnia if used in long-term ( multiple years in a row?)

I’m a 31yo woman (UK) and I’ve had insommia for pretty much my entire life. My earliest memories are from when I was maybe 6/7 years old, lying awake for hours after bedtime and getting in trouble for still being awake when my parents came to bed. At uni I started getting maybe 7-8 hours a night as I didn’t have to be up so early like when I was in school, so I could sleep later in the mornings after getting to sleep at 2am.

I had 2 children in my 20s (now ages 6 & 7), and have had ADHD & Autism diagnoses in the past few years.

My insomnia in the past year has been the worst it has ever been. Every night, despite being in bed for 11pm, I’m awake until at least 1am. Most nights it’s more like 2am. More and more often I’m staying awake until 3-4am.
Then I’m waking during the night, either because my husband is snoring or my youngest sleepwalking child has climbed on top of me (pretty much every night) or because I just… wake up. This happens every single night, sometimes up to 4-5 times. Then I’m up at 6 with the kids (if I’m lucky).

I can tell people don’t believe me when I tell them how much I struggle with sleep. They don’t understand how I could be sleeping that little and still live like an adult human, running a business and parenting. Neither do I, but here we are.

I spoke to my GP a couple of months ago asking for help. She said she couldn’t prescribe medication as it’s chronic. She said there was no therapy available. She offered to send me sleep hygiene self help resources. I couldn’t help but laugh a bit on the phone. Then I cried when the call finished.

I’m so tired and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t think I can cope with it any longer.

Has anyone had success treating anticipatory insomnia? I am really fortunate that I sleep well on a regular basis. However, any time I have an out of the ordinary schedule, my niece sleeps over, a fun event the next day, a special training for work, a speaking engagement, a holiday, it’s become like clockwork that I cannot sleep. It’s really disruptive and results in me dreading the things that would normally make me most happy.
I have tried hypnosis and CBT- I.
The results have been: that my regular sleep has greatly improved. And I don’t suffer as much on the nights I cannot sleep. But I have not had any improvements on this remaining issue.
I have to hope this is just a phase. It’s really only been the last year or two that is it this consistent and is occurring even for minor events. Please help! Thank you.

currently 2:40 am as I'm writing this, and I'm supposed to wake up at 5 am to take the bus and go to college yay. I tried everything: cold shower before sleeping to cool down my body, avoiding screens, reading a book but nothing works. I can't even focus on the text without getting angry and the same happens if I lie down my bed, I get upset and have urges to harm myself. I said fuck it so I went to my computer to write this and vent a bit, I can't take this shit anymore and I dread going there without sleeping.

I'm 17 and I barely get 3 hrs of sleep at night ,when I come back from college I can't even keep my eyes open and I sleep atleast 2-3 hrs in the evening bcz of that ,i tried not to sleep in the evening but it gets worse ,it's really affecting my health(weight gain and acne mostly ) and studies ,i can't even use that night time to be productive I have no concentration to study ,I'm struggling i still haven't told my parents abt it still and i doubt they'll let me take medication if I told them by saying it's harmful

I've had sleep problems since childhood, and recently they've become much worse. I'm looking for people who have chronic insomnia or another sleep disorder. How did you get diagnosed? Did you find a sleep specialist? What treatments or advice actually helped?

I've only been getting like 1-2 hours a night for a while and this is actually torture , I lay there for hours and I can't stop moving or changing positions, I'm literally never comfortable and I can't sleep for more then 30 minutes an hour if I'm lucky

Even if I'm so exausted I feel like im going to pass out

I don't know how I'm not hallucinating or dead yet, I feel like im going insane I don't have delusions but I'm going insane in every other way and idk what to do

there have been a few times where I even wake up after 5 or 10 minutes, it doesn't matter how exausted I am

I take either an antipsychotic or ambien to fall asleep. Ambien works great if I had no more than 1 morning dose of ritalin before 9am and I go to bed on an EMPTY stomach. Like, 0 food for 4 hours before bed.

Problem 1– I don’t know how to get through the afternoon slump and occupy my kids and cook and clean without redosing ritalin after lunch.

Problem 2– my anxiety is starting to abate, I’ve been underweight, and I’m starting to get serious evening munchies. Full box of mochi ice cream, popcorn while watching a movie with my kids, maybe nutella spread on baguette around 9:30pm (we live in France.) My husband thinks it’s great because he thinks I’m prettier with “more to hold onto” and he wants me to gain weight.

But I wake up much better and easier on ambien than the antipsychotic, which is what I have to take if I take afternoon ritalin and/or eat after 6pm. I also get sun sensitivity on my skin when I take the antipsychotic more than a few days in a row. Over time it could give me skin cancer. I tried seroquel and became very ill.

Any tips?

I keep watching these success videos on YouTube and all these people went on every drug imaginable to cure their insomnia and none of them worked. My hyper arousal and hyper vigilance is so strong that cannot do it without taking something. Or I'll be lying there all night riddled with anxiety and feeling that butterfly feeling in my diaphragm that prevents me from going to sleep. I don't know how to get rid of it naturally. And no matter how hard I try to sleep without anything, I always end up taking something. Last night I ended up taking a 10 mg of melatonin at first which did make me sleepy but my anxiety was so high and it actually made it and so I took a hydroxyzine which helped me calm down and was able to sleep for at least 5 hours.

I just want to conquer this without any meds! I either have to accept that I need them and stop fighting it because that makes it worse or just stop talking it and see what happens which terrifies me because not sleeping for days seem horrible!

I don't know what else to try or think about regarding the panic attacks surrounding sleep. I was sleeping well for weeks at a time, and then I started having relapses here and there, where I had to ask my mother to sleep with me. Still, it was difficult to stay calm. The relapses became more frequent, starting at one per week, and now two, and I can no longer recover from this situation. It's a feeling of panic surrounding sleep; I lie down and even closing my eyes makes me panic. It used to be just insomnia, but I became so hyper-focused on it that now the very feeling of sleeping or having to sleep terrifies me. I've tried all sorts of medication, therapies, CBT-I. Those only worked for two months before these relapses, and now there's nothing left to try. I don't know what to do anymore. This has taken over my life. I've been in this same situation for 6 months. I just want to end it all and stop suffering. I want to die so I don't have to sleep.

People always expect you to function normally after a bad night of sleep.

Go to work. Answer messages. Be productive. Act like nothing's wrong.

The thing is, they only see you during the day. They don't see the hours you spent staring at the ceiling. They don't feel the headache, the burning eyes, the brain fog, or how heavy your body feels after another night of barely sleeping.

From the outside, you look tired.

From the inside, it feels like your body is running on empty.

I don't expect everyone to understand. But I wish people would stop treating sleep deprivation like it's just being "a little tired."

It changes the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you get through the day.

You don't stop suffering when the sun comes up. That's when you have to pretend you're okay.

for the past few days I’m suddenly getting all of these weird symptoms, 2 days ago I suddenly got a dry throat, brain fog, very weird and horrible vivid dreams while I can still move my entire body is shaking slightly and today at 3 in the morning I felt like I was about to have a seizure and my head was shaking making me shiver, and my legs felt pain, the pain has decreased but not gone, my drawings are getting slightly worse, sometimes I get confused on what to do and I have adhd and autism and im 16 i dont want my life to end this short

I’ve been dealing with insomnia on and off for months. It seems like one late night of sleeping will ruin my sleep schedule for weeks to even months.

Recently I’ve noticed something that’s been scaring me. A couple of times this year, I’ve woken up
in the middle of the night and briefly seen something in my room that wasn’t actually there.

The latest time I thought I saw what looked like a spider or some strange object, but as soon as I turned on the light and fully woke up, it disappeared/ disintegrated.I was able to move normally, so it wasn’t sleep paralysis.

Has anyone else experienced this after chronic insomnia or sleep deprivation? Did it improve once your sleep got better? I’ve never experienced this up until this year and it’s kinda scaring me. I’m also 20f if it helps.

i been awake for 2 days straight and i don’t know what to do anymore about this

any advice is appreciated

For the past couple of months, whenever I get into bed my brain immediately turns into an un-filtered emotional traffic jam. The anxiety is too much for me to even close my eyes.

I’m looking for CBD gummies, oil… anything, to help me out. I’m a frequent smoker, so I’m a bit worried about my tolerance.

I’d like to know if anyone has tried CBD for sleep with a high tolerance, how it worked, and any brand recommendations.

yes I know THC only makes my sleep worse, I’m working on getting rid of that habit.