Changingthegame

I've been taking antidepressants for a month and noticed that my alcohol use has changed. I'm getting drunk quickly and lose my boundaries and have blackouts. Before I was having 3 pints and home and dinner. Now it seems like proper alcoholic behaviour. Don't want to stop after 3, get drunk, say silly things. Anyone else experience this?

badger257

Hello! So you started an AD, I'm assuming because you are depressed, and you keep adding a depressant to you system? Seems counterproductive to me.

Changingthegame

Thanks Badger. Maybe you are right. Some time off might be the answer.

Dee74

Most meds don't go well with alcohol but I think it's particularly true of antidepressants.

I would definitely aim for sobriety.

D

soberclover

Many antidepressants say to not take with alcohol because it doesn't mix well at all. Try life without alcohol and see what a difference that might make in your life; I'm sure it will be a positive difference.

Soberwolf

Anti depressants & alcohol is highly dangerous like seriously I can't stress that enough

freshstart57

I did that too. Didn't work. It didn't work because I feel my drinking got worse, and the pills didn't do squat for my mental state. The whole picture changed when I decided to quit the alcohol for good. I wasn't consuming a depression-causing substance any more, and my AD medication had a chance to work.

Give this permanent sobriety thing a serious think once you decide you are going to get better. This will be one decision with zero regrets and you will wonder why you waited. You can do it. Honest.

Anna

I hope you stop drinking and give your antidepressant a chance to work.

JoeCree

I was never able to identify the exact accellerant to alcoholism. In my case i believe it occured when i quit smoking as i tended to drink even more.
I currently take a daily anti-anxiety of Effexor, and at bedtime (if needed) lorazepam.
Ive never abused drugs, but there certainly is a correlation between alcohol intake and anti-depressants.
Basically imo for the last several years my alcohol intake renderred the anti-deps useless.
I never even gave them a chance to work.
In 2010 i quit for 15 months and was the happiest i have ever been. When i started after that and until about three weeks ago i had slowly become miserable.
In my new sobriety i am better prepared and already am feeling much better (as vague as that sounds).
It truly is no coincidence that alcohol (after drink 1 in my case) brings nothing but misery and self loathing which seems to fit the exact description of depression.
Vicious cycle. Complete abstenance is the only choice.

ScottFromWI

Your alcohol use in the past included blackouts, still being drunk in the morning and binging - well before you started taking antidepressants. I'd recommend talking with the doctor who prescribed the anti-depressants and let them know about your drinking behaviors.

I'd also recommend you read the links below which are posts you made over the past year and a half describing your alcoholic tendencies prior to taking anti-depressants. Strongly consider the fact that you may be an alcoholic and that quitting drinking may be a very good solution to many of your problems.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...4-morning.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...y-amnesia.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...you-think.html

Eliad

That is exactly, word for word, my experience. I have taken a antidepressant for one year and I have drunk regularly during that time.

Now I have completely stopped alcohol. It's not a good cocktail. Try to stop one of the two (under the supervision of a doctor of course, don't experiment on your won).

Not that it will directly kill you, there is no proven interaction, but you ll continue to behave very dangerously while drunk (like even worse than the average drunk guy). No boundaries, in speech as in action, that's exactly that. And then your forget half of it.

It will be very bad for you confidence on the long run because you'll probably do a lot of things you ll regret and alienate a lot of people.

Try not doing that, good luck

totfit

My only experience along these lines was just the opposite. I had not been able to moderate drinking almost from the first drink. I took AD's for a time and found that I did moderate for a "short" period of time, but that did not work for long. In the end I have ditched both the AD's and Alcohol and substituted healthy eating and exercise. Exercise has been a key for me in combating general anxiety and any desire to drink.

Aellyce

Not with prescription ADs, but there was a time a few years ago when I had a bad depressive episode and instead of getting proper treatment, I self-medicated with 5-HTP (an OTC supplement, basically short-acting serotonin). It seemed to help for a while, but then I took the courage to drink on it (before I was more careful to at least separate my drinking time and taking the drug by a few hours). What I discovered was that the combo actually made me quite high and I would lose control and take much more 5-HTP when drunk than usual. That made my mental state and some of my actions even crazier than ever and in the end I experienced some pretty scary effects. I stopped the 5-HTP then, but not the drinking...
The whole thing was a bad idea.

Soberwolf

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ful-links.html

PurpleKnight

Sounds like alcohol is not doing you any favours, drawing a line under it may be the best way forward!!

LiveInPeace

Please note this does not work for everyone. It's great that totfit was able to do this, but if you truly have underlying anxiety/depression, you will not be able to use exercise and healthy eating to quit an addiction or AD's. I learned the hard way.

That being said, exercise and healthy eating are great things to do which lesson the effects of anxiety/depression. But they are not solutions in all cases.

LiveInPeace

Something I always forget too -- ALCOHOL IS A DEPRESSANT.