SSRI's?
 

I don't have any issues with medications to treat mental illness and know a lot of people need them and they do indeed help people.

Has anyone else developed an alcohol or other substance abuse disorder after taking an SSRI before? Has anyone had a substance abuse disorder that seemed to get further out of control when taking SSRI's?

Prior to taking prozac for depression and anxiety my issues involving alcohol were manageable. I started taking the medication and my issues became completely unmanageable.

Stopped taking the medication and after a few months my husband reports I am more stable and I have noticed I have not had a desire to consume alcohol.

I feel almost like I did prior to all this mess. Of course the same issues are still ever present in my life but the depression is not as overwhelming.

Just curious.

There's been lots of talk surrounding this issue both here and out in the general recovery/psychological community. I've taken SSRI's and they had lots of other bad side effects so I quit them anyway, but it was several years after I quit drinking and I did not notice any increased "desire" to drink because of them.

I think the bottom line is that SSRIs, along with any other mind-altering substance ( alcohol included ) affect each of us in different ways. And sometimes in bad ways. Just read the possible side-effects of any prescription med these days and you'll see that almost anything is possible. If you have found that avoiding SSRI's is a good thing for you, then I'd suggest you continue to do so .

My thought on this and from my own experience is that drinking on SSRI counteracts, so my anxiety, depression got worse, hence felt the need to drink more to manage my emotions. To be honest I may of well had been popping smarties. Still on anti-ds today, sober and my mental health has massively improved.

I have heard many times that using while taking an SSRI basically voids any benefit you get from them. The effect you get from them is subtle but works if you let them. The roller coaster that using creates easily overshadows and benefit.

I got on them 3 years after I got sober and they have been a life saver. Just my experience though.

I forgot to mention that most SSRI's become ineffective the person continues to abuse substances while taking them.

In some cases, it can cause a synergistic effect if someone continues to drink on them often getting far more intoxicated on less than what the person usually drinks to get loaded.

I know there is controversy around SSRI's but the one I take changed my life for the better, going on 15 years now. My only complaint is that sometimes I think I lack emotion. But I had anger issues so maybe that's not so bad.

I took an SSRI years ago for around 3 months when I was drinking,. It honestly didn't seem to make any difference to me in terms of my alcohol consumption.

D

Do you have links to information regarding the controversy surrounding SSRI's? Im super curious.

I think if you do some digging you'll see there are articles that point out that many suicides are committed by people on SSRI's. There is also evidence that most of our mass shooters in the US have been taking an SSRI or have stopped taking their SSRI. They alter brain chemistry, so I think if you have millions of people taking them, there is going to be a few that don't do well on them.

I was more interested in information on people who also have substance abuse problems and whether or not they consumed more or less while on SSRI's.

I'll do some digging.

sorry, I misunderstood your question.

No worries! :hug:

Increased suicide IS indeed a risk, but that's primarily in teens. Still, they carry a black box warning, but most doctors feel that the benefits for someone who's deeply depressed far outweigh the risks.

As to "most of our mass shooters in the US were taking or had stopped taking SSRIs..." I've heard that theory from gun advocates to justify not changing our gun laws, but never from a credible source. Even if there IS a correlation....remember that correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. Deeply troubled people commit mass shootings, and deeply troubled people are also more likely to have been treated for a psychiatric disorder. And people who have been treated for a psychiatric disorder are far more likely to have been prescribed psychiatric medication, including SSRIs.

Look at the sources for articles that say otherwise. I've found the ones I've tracked down to be from NRA and other gun blogs. It's the "mass shootings are a mental illness issue, not a gun issue" rationale.

As far as SSRIs causing an increased desire to drink...I'm sure it's possible. If so, and you're OK with not taking them, then I could continue to do without. If your depression returns, there are other medications besides SSRIs.

I'm bipolar, so SSRIs aren't the best choice for me, they can definitely trigger mania. I take a non-SSRI AD that works far better for me. YMMV, these drugs affect everyone differently.

I didnt know SSRIs could trigger mania in bipolar patients.

Any psychoactive drug can have a vast array of possible side effects.

To play devil's advocate, I would ask - what if you could find an article that conclusively stated that SSRI's do cause some people to have increasted "cravigns" for alcohol? Would it change how you approach things? You already know that it seems to cause that in you, so you shouldn't need an article to tell you that, right?

The reason I ask is that I used to obsess about lots of things like this due to my health anxiety. And one of the ways i was able to help get over some of it is to ask myself if what i found actually helped or not. Most times it did not because I already knew the answer ;-)

Just curious if my experience is isolated or a shared experience. I studied psych for a while and work in the field so I guess a bit of personal and professional curiosity.

So far, I have only found articles to support SSRI's particularly, Prozac, to have the opposite effect and are commonly prescribed to help people kick an addiction.

There's a wealth of articles suggesting the opposite. A quick google of "ssri increased chance of alcohol consumption" yields hundreds of results - some peer reviewed and some not so much ;-)

Thanks... I think.

I typed in, "effects of SSRIs on addiction." Different search, different mind set I guess ;-)

Yes, google can be your friend or your enemy ;-). And as I mentioned before, for me it became a rabbit hole that consumed a lot of my time but didn't yeild much value in the end. Part of recovery for me is accepting that some of the things about me just "are".

yeah, I can't agree with this Jeff, and more than that I dispute the claims above.

Millions of people take SSRIs.

If we're going to look at any community - be they priests, housewives, judges or serial killers - you'll find SSRIs.

D