For example, the cough and cold medicine Vick’s NyQuil Liquid contains 10% alcohol and can lead to a significant interaction. NyQuil LiquiCaps and Alcohol-Free NyQuil Cold & Flu Nighttime Relief Liquid do signs of being roofied not contain alcohol. Combining any of them with alcohol can cause dangerous side effects, like liver damage, stomach pain and vomiting, redness of the face, a racing heartbeat, and a sudden drop in blood pressure.
The mixture of opiates and alcohol, for example, can cause your breathing to stop and is a common cause of death. Some medications—including many popular painkillers and cough, cold, and allergy remedies—contain more than one ingredient that can react with alcohol. Read the label on the medication bottle to find out exactly what ingredients a medicine contains. Ask your pharmacist if you have any questions about how alcohol might interact with a drug you are taking. Your pharmacist or other health care provider can help you determine which medications interact harmfully with alcohol.
Don’t stop taking an antidepressant or other medication just so that you can drink. Most antidepressants require taking a consistent, daily dose to maintain a constant level in your system and work as intended. Researchers haven’t compared medication alone to psychotherapy alone, and results are mixed as to whether combining the two provides greater benefits than either one alone. Some studies suggest that simply getting help — whether through medication, counseling, or both — is what matters for successful management of this addiction. Like naltrexone, acamprosate seems to work best for people who are able to stop drinking before starting treatment. The balance of these systems in the brain of a person who has been drinking heavily for a long time gets thrown off, Holt says.
Having an alcoholic drink while you are taking medications to treat prostate conditions can cause dizziness, lightheadedness, and fainting. Mixing these medications with alcohol intensifies the side effects and increases the risk of a fatal overdose. Certain types of anti-nausea medication can be used to help someone who is trying to stop drinking alcohol. When used under medical supervision, the combination can be an effective way to treat alcohol withdrawal.
You take it daily as a pill or get a monthly injection at your health care professional’s office. The medication can help you have fewer days when you drink heavily as well as drink less overall. Yet medications for alcohol use disorder can work well for people who want to stop drinking or drink a lot less. It is known that certain over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, dietary supplements, and herbal medicines can cause important interactions. It’s important to check for alcohol interactions with these groups just as you would with any other medication. Also, be sure to review your food and medicine labels to be sure these products do not contain alcohol or ethanol.
The more alcohol a patient consumes, the greater the risk for alcohol and staying motivated in recovery medication interactions. Universal screening, careful prescribing choices, and patient education can help minimize the risks of combining alcohol with certain medications. The risks of mixing antipsychotics and alcohol include impaired judgment, dizziness, drowsiness, low blood pressure, the worsening of a psychiatric condition, an increased risk of suicide, and more. The use of complementary, alternative and herbal medicine has grown tremendously over the last few decades. A study by Ekors and colleagues noted that over 80% of people worldwide use some type of supplement. Many of these products are not regulated by authorities or monitored by a patient’s healthcare provider, and the potential for drug interactions is often unknown.
Diabetes Medications
And remember, always read the medication label thoroughly, and talk to your healthcare provider if you have any concerns. The combination may intensify either the drug’s effect or the drink’s effect. It can also make your medication less effective or change how you feel the effects of alcohol. Beware that some medications, like laxatives and cough syrups, may contain some alcohol themselves, too. When you pick your prescription up at the pharmacy, chances are the label or package insert will come with a warning if it is not safe to consume alcohol while you are taking the medication. Narcan (naloxone hydrochloride) is an opioid agonist—a medication that can help counteract the effects of opioid medications such as morphine, oxycodone, and heroin.
- If you take any medication—even over-the-counter (OTC) products—drinking alcohol might affect how your meds work.
- It is usually best to avoid the combination of alcohol and medications for depression.
- And remember, always read the medication label thoroughly, and talk to your healthcare provider if you have any concerns.
- Beyond the examples noted above, alcohol has the potential to interact negatively with many other commonly prescribed medications.
Drug interactions with alcohol
Joining a support group or a 12-step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous may help. When you have alcohol use disorder, just thinking about alcohol triggers a pleasurable response in the brain. Other people might only need to take the medication at times when they know they’ll feel triggered to drink.
Angina (ischemic chest pain) is caused by reduced blood flow to the heart. If you have angina, you might be prescribed a medication called nitroglycerin. Alcohol and medicines can interact harmfully even if they are not taken at the same time.
Other Medication Interactions
Utilizing a large database of over 1,300 medications, they found that 45% of these medications had the potential to interact with alcohol. Research has shown that the prevalence of alcohol and medication interactions is widespread. The National Institute of Health (NIH) conducted a study of over 26,000 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES) to determine their alcohol and prescription drug use. The Do Not Drink Alcohol label should be taken seriously to avoid the possibility of dangerous, or even deadly, drug interactions. Nearly a third of all American adults take medications to lower their cholesterol. Combining alcohol with cholesterol medications can cause liver damage, flushing and itching, and stomach bleeding.
However, even medications what happens when you drink alcohol on accutane that don’t require a prescription can be unsafe when mixed with alcohol. There are hundreds of prescription and over-the-counter medications that are not safe to mix with alcohol. The dangers of mixing alcohol with medications can range from increased side effects to potentially life-threatening symptoms, overdose, and even death. Medications prescribed to lower cholesterol levels (known as statins) can cause flushing, itching, stomach bleeding, and liver damage. Combining these drugs with alcohol can make the risks and side effects worse, especially if you have liver disease. Drowsiness and dizziness are common side effects of medications used to treat allergies, colds, and the flu.
Combining alcohol with medication for seizures, including epilepsy medication, can cause serious side effects. These include dizziness, sleepiness, unusual behavior, changes in mental health status (including suicidal thoughts), and the increased risk of more seizures. Whether the pain medication is OTC or a prescription drug, you should talk to your healthcare provider before drinking alcohol.
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. Combining alcohol with medications used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) can cause dizziness, fainting, drowsiness, and arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). If you have a medical condition (such as atrial fibrillation) that puts you at risk for developing a blood clot, your doctor might prescribe anticoagulant medications to “thin” your blood. While these drugs make it less likely your body will form blood clots, they also make you bleed more easily. In addition to worsening the side effects of antidepressant medications, mixing these drugs with alcohol can also make symptoms of depression worse.