Five to seven hours of sleep after drinking isn't quite the same as five to seven hours without. When I've been hypo in the past I've been able to sleep about that much after getting hammered, so I would convince myself that the drinking was actually helping me because I'd actually sleep some! When I didn't drink it was more like 2-4 hours.

Drugs and alcohol can very much complicate things when it comes to diagnosis of mood disorders. The erratic, impulsive, and unsafe behavior associated with mania can be explained by substance use. However, mania tends to make you want to use and abuse substances, so you can't say that it's alcohol and not mania making you do crazy stuff. Mania and intoxication often go hand in hand.