Will Mirtizipine help me sleep?

I don't think you need much more of a hint from your body to ease up on the alcohol. Not necessarily quit but drink responsibly. You will feel better physically and mentally.

Yeah does it sound obvious to you that alcohol was the main culprit with my panic attacks/depression? because I have not had a drink since Tuesday night. Today is the first time in a long while I did not have a panic attack or feel down.

Prior to Tuesady I was drinking every night for about a month. It was 4 cans of high strength beers. Not sure what country your in but in the UK I was drinking about 15 "units" of alcohol a night, a full bottle of wine contains around 10. Overall I was drinking over 90 units a week. The recommended max intake for a male is 22, so I was way over the limit. No wonder I felt like crap.

I too went through a time when alcohol and cigarettes were my go to drugs to ease the constant anxiety and pressures of my day to day world. Then I crashed and burned and found myself in a full blown mental collapse. Years have passed since then with many ups and downs along the way. I have learned that moderation helps and have found solace in what I know as the "serenity prayer". In case you don't know it it goes like this --- Please God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference---

And try not to over think everything.

I am in the USA, New York State to be exact.

Be well my friend

That's what time I've been going to sleep for the last 9 months Gareth. What dose did you take?

I take 15mg. Certainly doesn't knock me out like it does for a lot of people. I seem very difficult to sedate, also I seem to be angry on it, not depressed but angry. Not sure what to do.....I'm thinking of quitting it altogether and trying to sleep naturally even if it means a night or two of no sleep. Surely I will sleep on my own when I get exhausted.

Gareth my best abvice to you is stop taking it. I've had angry issues for weeks on end honesty u believable. This drug has stripped my personality ang I'm a shadow of who I used to be. I hardly slept I don't want to eat and the anger arrives often. A lot of people have had anger while taking this drug. Find other ways mate because I wish I was in your position where I could stop taking it but I can't.

I might try a supplement called 5-htp. It's supposed to increase serotonin and in turn melatonin so it aids sleep. I tried it back in December and I'm sure it worked but came off it when I thought I no longer needed it and was still sleeping well until mid Jan then I started having problems sleeping again. Should have gone back on it sooner, but I started drinking alcohol to sleep.

I also suggest that you stop taking the drug.  Obviously, I'm not your pdoc, but my own experience was not good.  The drug caused a lot of weird side effects and I was taking a low dose (7.5 mg) for insomnia.  Restless leg, jittery feeling every morning like I drank too much coffee, my left hand felt like it was detached from my body - I had a hard time typing on a keyboard; my gait was messed up like I couldn't walk normally, not to mention that the drug made me feel like hell every morning upon waking with bad nausea.  Initially, I was getting ok sleep, like 7 hours, but after a couple weeks, I was back to 4-6 hours so at that point, the benefit of the drug was outweighed by the side effects.  Another aspect you possibly haven't considered is that when you decide to discontinue the drug, the withdrawal effects will be horrible depending on the dose and length of time you have been taking mirtazapine.  There are many posts in the Mirtazapine forum that discuss the difficulties people have tapering off the drug.  In any event, I learned that Mirtazapine ain't no joke.  It is a very potent drug; even a little crumb can have a profound effect on you.  Unlike Pudsey67, I can't say the drug made me angry, but I was certainly irritable, possibly because I was tired all the time.  This drug basically made me 100% unmotivated to do anything other than sit in my recliner all day long and surf the internet.  I'm trying to find a natural solution to the insomnia.  Ideally I would like to find something that does not contain melatonin as there are some risks to taking melatonin on a long term basis.  Nested Naturals has a melatonin-free version of it's Luna product that I think I may try. 

I was only on Mirtazapine a few nights. Last night I did not take any, took me a while to get to sleep but today no groggy drugged up feeling like you get from these overly sedating drugs like Mirtazapine. I actually felt more rested than when I was on the Mirtazapine. I guess that was because I wasn't groggy today. I just felt like I had some natural sleep.

Yeah, totally agree with you.  I felt like hell in the morning when taking Mirtazapine not to mention useless and unmotivated for pretty much the entire day.  It's just not worth it.  That being said, I am now facing severe insomnia after not having taken the drug for a couple weeks now.  I was taking Ativan to make me fall asleep, but that also has its problems long term.  I took melatonin the other night, but it gave me a dull headache the following day.  I hope I can find a natural solution that doesn;t make me feel awful in the morning or make me drowsy throughout the day.

Probably only had about 4 hours sleep last night but still felt better this morning than when I was taking Mirtazapine. I hope you find a long term solution to your insomnia, lack of sleep is crap. Personally for me I will now try and not have any sedatives before bed - antihistamines, sleeping pills, alcohol. It seems I have built a tolerance to them anyway after using them often for sleep over the past months. I might buy some Zolpidem online for emergencies when I have a night or two in a row of zero sleep. But as of now I can sleep on my own but it's far from perfect. I can function though so I can live with that.