Adderall and alcohol: What exactly is the risk or interaction?

In My Humble Opinion
1

[DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know I should ask my doctor or pharmacist about this, and in fact I’m seeing the doctor tomorrow. Still I’d like to ask here. We have all kinds of health care professionals here, as well as those who have dealt with these questions as patients.]

I recently resumed taking Adderall (non XR), prescribed by my doctor. I stopped drinking alcohol at the same time, and I have to say I don’t miss that too much. I haven’t experienced any real cravings. I pour wine for my wife and, surprisingly, I don’t notice any FOMO as I would have expected. Perhaps that’s because I had been gradually cutting down anyway.

So I don’t have a problem embracing the change in lifestyle as a daily pattern. There are plenty of advantages to it, not least the imminent disappearance of wine flab. More importantly, I don’t want to sabotage the effect of my medication. But what happens if I drink a glass of wine occasionally, particularly when the afternoon dose of Adderall is wearing off anyway? It’s hard to glean much from the internet on this, because most of the Google hits deal more with situations of intentional abuse, e.g. “the Adderall will make you feel less drunk, so you’ll drink more.” This isn’t anything like that. My question is more on the lines of whether it’s OK to have a glass of champagne on NYE.

And pharmacologically speaking, does a glass of wine at night carry over into the next day, and dampen the effect of Adderall?

2

Yep, you should ask your doctor or pharmacist. But it never hurts to do your reading first. Here’s the pack insert for Adderall XR. The only times it mentions alcohol are in a context where the concern appears to be whether a patient is prone to abuse of/addiction to substances. So that might help you frame a question.

You could always try paging one of our doctors - Qadgop_the_Mercotan, for example.

j

3

As I understand it, the biggest risk of mixing a stimulant (such as adderall) with a depressant (such as alcohol) is that they’ll mask the most obvious effects of each other, which can trick a person into thinking that they’re less affected than they are, and thus make overdoses of either or both more likely.

4

Moved to IMHO from FQ as in general, Medical and Legal questions should be in IMHO.

5

I did speak to the pharmacist about this today. She essentially confirmed what @Treppenwitz and @What_Exit said. To paraphrase, a small amount of alcohol taken in the evening should be fully metabolized and gone by morning, so there’s no danger of the Adderall and alcohol interacting when it’s time for the morning dose.

So the bottom line is that I don’t have to be absolutely strict with myself, though I do plan to continue abstaining for the most part.

6

I am a doctor, though I am not your doctor and am not offering specific medical advice. In general, I wouldn’t be concerned about this.