Nightly Delta-8 for insomnia — effective but now I cannot sleep without it

Started using Delta-8 gummies for insomnia after melatonin and valerian root stopped working. 25mg about an hour before bed. It worked beautifully at first — fell asleep within 30 minutes, slept through the night, woke feeling rested. No grogginess the next morning.

For the first two months, this was transformative. After years of lying awake until 2 AM, I was sleeping by 11. My work performance improved. My mood improved. I thought I had found the answer.

Month 3: needed to bump to 30mg to get the same effect. The original 25mg would make me relaxed but not quite sleepy enough.

Month 4: up to 40mg. Tried skipping a night to test dependence. Lay awake until 3:30 AM, then had vivid, disturbing dreams when I finally fell asleep. Sweated through my sheets.

Month 5-6: 40mg nightly. It works, but the magic is gone. It is now a maintenance dose — it does not make me feel good, it just prevents feeling bad. If I skip, the insomnia returns worse than my original baseline. Irritable during the day. Appetite drops. Mild headaches.

I recognize this pattern from when I was prescribed zolpidem years ago. The drug becomes the problem it was supposed to solve. My sleep without Delta-8 is now objectively worse than it was before I started using it, which means I have to keep taking it just to get back to the bad sleep I had before.

Currently trying to taper down — reducing by 5mg per week. The rebound insomnia at each step is real but manageable. I wish someone had told me that "it is just Delta-8, it is not addictive" is a misleading oversimplification. The dependence is real. If you use it nightly for sleep, keep it to 2-3 nights per week maximum and take regular breaks.