Mixing Alcohol With Prescription Medications: Side Effects & What To Avoid

It’s important to remember that the effects of mixing sleeping pills and alcohol can vary depending on the individual. Some people may experience more severe impairment than others based on factors like body weight, age, sex, and overall health. The enhanced sedation caused by mixing sleeping pills and alcohol can also increase your risk of falling asleep unexpectedly.

• These interactions can lead to severe health issues including heart problems, liver damage, and increased risk of overdose.
• But these efforts have had limited success in part because Web sites go offline and then reappear online under a new domain name or with a new IP address, making it hard for the agency to track them.
• It’s important to note that the effects of mixing sleeping pills and alcohol can vary depending on the individual.
• In the worst-case scenario, mixing alcohol and antidepressants can cause severe impairment, overdose, and death.
• Other risk factors of combining cocaine and alcohol include heart attack, overdose or death.

Alcohol & Drugs: Effects and Complications

Antihistamines can cause excessive drowsiness and may put you at risk if you’re driving a car or operating machinery—and that’s without alcohol. When you combine these drugs with alcohol, you’re even more at risk of accidents. Narcan (naloxone hydrochloride) is an opioid agonist—a medication that can help counteract the effects of opioid medications such as morphine, oxycodone, and heroin. Naloxone can rapidly reverse opioid overdose by quickly restoring normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped due to mixing opioid pain medications with alcohol. Mixing these medications with alcohol intensifies the side effects and increases the Twelve-step program risk of a fatal overdose.

How Long After Taking Medication Can You Drink Alcohol?

• Benzodiazepines like Xanax, Valium, Ativan, and Klonopin are often prescribed to treat anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and insomnia.
• Our programs offer diverse types of therapy, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to allow clients to modify negative thoughts and behaviors.
• Combining alcohol with certain medications can counteract the treatment’s benefits, exacerbate side effects, and, in some cases, even be lethal.

Speak to your healthcare provider if you have any concerns about mixing prescription drugs and alcohol. Painkillers like Vicodin, Xanax and OxyContin are heavily prescribed in the United States to treat moderate to severe pain. When used with alcohol, these drugs can produce dangerous health conditions. However, when the substances are combined, you significantly increase your risk for developing liver problems and possibly liver disease.

Center for Health Statistics and Informatics

• Adderall is commonly used to pull long study sessions for exams or used as a stimulant at parties and when combined with alcohol, can be increasingly dangerous.
• We believe everyone deserves access to accurate, unbiased information about mental health and recovery.
• Contact a treatment provider to find out more about your recovery options.
• It is not uncommon for people to mix alcohol with drugs, some accidentally and some intentionally.

Mixing isoniazid and ketoconazole with alcohol can also cause liver damage. Medications used to treat insomnia or help you fall and stay asleep should never be mixed with alcohol. The sedating effect of these drugs can be increased by alcohol, leading to slowed or impaired breathing, impaired motor control, abnormal behavior, memory loss, and fainting. Here is a short list of the most common prescription and OTC drugs that can mixing alcohol and pills pose a risk to your health if mixed with alcohol, as well as what can happen if the substances are combined.

California Health Facilities Information Database

These include confusion, lack of balance, dizziness, and even respiratory failure. Consuming them together can have serious and even life-threatening consequences. Ecstasy is a stimulant that can cause severe adverse reactions when consumed with other substances, including alcohol. The powerful high experienced while taking ecstasy influences you to drink large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. This can trigger extreme dehydration, among other side effects such as diarrhea, excessive sweating, heat stroke, nausea and vomiting. Disorders surrounding alcohol or substance abuse should not be self-treated.