It's much the same with chronic alcohol usage, and a very similar pathway. Both alcohol and benzodiazepines bind to GABA receptors, and through several differen

It's much the same with chronic alcohol usage, and a very similar pathway. Both alcohol and benzodiazepines bind to GABA receptors, and through several difference mechanisms (desensitization, downregulation through gene expression, degradation), these receptors become less sensitive. GABA receptors are critical to sleep. After prolonged usage of alcohol, or benzos, sleep often becomes impossible without an ever-larger dosage. These sleeping difficulties sometimes persist for quite a while, and sleep disturbances are one of the primary causes of relapse in alcoholics. People learn that alcohol helps them to fall asleep. Even if the quality of sleep is poor, it's substantially better than no sleep at all, as anyone who has gone through what you did surely knows.