dollygirl said:
Wow VolkeBobruysk...that's alot. I feel like such a baby that I cant handle my whopping 30 m of paxil & .5 of klon and drink alchiehall! It's not that I am a daily drinker...I have a business and I have to go to events where everyone has a coctail or two plus I like friday happy hour...uggg! Do all anti anxiety drugs exclude drinking? This is going to be alifestyle change.
Yeah, it is a lot, more than I'd like. Actually I'd rather not have to take them but I do. Really, it is a major lifestyle change when it comes to drinking, even socially. I got a DUI/DWI going through a checkpoint a couple years ago and registered less than 1/2 of the legal BAC (illegal is 0.8%+, my bloodwork came back 0.34% ) but they found my legally prescribed benzos in my blood which automatically and technically makes you DUI/DWI. I'm unfortunate to live in the only county in my state that has
NO plea bargains. The DA office automatically gave me the highest tier of DUI (my state has three, the third being the highest BAC of 0.16% ETO with the highest penalties including min. 48 hours jail, year suspension, $3500 in fines, ignition interlock on the car after your year suspension (total of almost $3000 for that) and probation/parole, drug & alcohol evaluations and classes (you pay for), etc.
This isn't just my state...they can nab you for DUI/DWI in just about any state just for having controlled meds in you, even though they are legal and medically necessary. You don't even have to have alcohol in your system. Technically you can have OTC cough syrup in you and be legally DUI/DWI. A lot of people don't know this.
None of the med families I can think of are supposed to be taken with alcohol, not even Buspar which was an expensive joke. Alcohol is contraindicated with all benzos, benzo derivatives, SSRI's, SNRI's (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Lexapro, Celexa, etc.), tricyclics (Pamelor, Elavil, amoxapine, etc.), MAOI's (Nardil, Marplan and all others).....
Sorry about the long reply, but there's no short answer. I've been through all of these classes of meds and have been on most of them, if not just about all. Doctors will tell you to avoid alcohol when taking any of these meds. Some will say that an "occasional" drink is fine if you know what it will do to you but few will allow alcohol with any of these meds.
The only way I can drink socially is if I take a 'drug holiday' where you skip the last dose before having a drink or reduce the meds for the occasion. If I were to drink on my usual dosage just socially, I'd get drunk quickly. If I drink more than one or two...like drinking back in 'the day,' I would be all-out sloppy drunk, messed up.
I too have occasions where I have to go out to dinners or functions for work where drinks are involved. On those days, I cut my dosage to the absolute minimum or skip the clonazepam that day. Sometimes I can do that because of it's longer half life. In a regular social setting I can drink but no where near as much as my friends--at least not without getting REAL goofed up. There are days where I need my regular dose and end up having either non-alcoholic drinks or drinks that I have watered down significantly. In cases like that, I'll discretely pass a little note to the waitress with a tip to make sure my drinks are watered down. These are cases where I'm with VIP colleagues or business contacts. Sometimes (usually in my experience) the company you're with likes to get hammered when they go out. I just make sure I don't drink so much that I end up dancing on the tables (or just get sloppy, falling-down hit-on-anything-that moves...)
Again, sorry everyone for the long post. It just really is an issue with a surprisingly large number of people. It comes down to knowing your body and it's tolerance to the medications you are on and how you will react.
