I had a very bad experience with alcohol

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Last night, I went to two bars and we ordered pitcher after pitcher. All told, I probably had 7 beers and 1 shot. This is a lot for me because I hardly ever drink.

The thing is, I’m on two medications for clinical depression: Xanax XR and Zoloft. I know you’re not supposed to drink alcohol on these medications - but I stupidly did it anyway. Well, I’m not going to do it again, at least not at that level. I’ve had a beer or two and been fine, but this morning was really a nightmare.

See, the thing is, it’s not that I got uncontrollably drunk. When I get drunk, it’s a very in-control drunk. I’m just a little louder and a little happier, even if I drink a lot. I have this relatively high tolerance even though I rarely drink at all. But what sucked was not the drunkenness - it was the morning afterwards.

That night, I very stupidly forgot to take my Xanax XR. This is a very habit-forming pill and I have become pretty dependent on it, as I discovered the hard way. When I woke up in the morning, I felt OK - a little hungover but OK. I didn’t sleep all that well, since I crashed in my girlfriend’s bed which is very small and uncomfortable for 2 people to sleep in. When I got up, I drove her to class, then I drove myself home to go back to sleep.

Well, when I fell asleep, I had the most nightmarish dream ever. It was so vivid that when I woke up I was truly traumatized by it. There were several parts - in one part, I was driving this truck that had these hoses on it that pumped out poison gas. And I was driving it all over the neighborhood and pumping poison gas everywhere. And In the dream, I felt horrible and guilty, because it was like I had this fascination with the poison gas and couldn’t stop myself from using it. Later, I was in a very tall tower with a shopping mall in it, riding an elevator up and down - one of those glass elevators where you can see everything around you. I am very afraid of heights and this was quite scary. Then later, I was driving an old classic car (a Chevy Bel Air) which was covered in dust, and there was this scary, criminal-looking guy shouting at me, and I drove away in terror.

When I woke up, I did not feel like myself. I felt like I was in another person’s body or something. I got up and felt weightless and heavy at the same time. Above all, I had this absolute feeling of emptiness and loneliness, like I had just had my soul stolen from me. And I was traumatized by this horrible dream, because it felt so realistic. It was totally indistinguishable from reality.

Later I went to work, took my Xanax XR at 7:30 PM, and an hour or so later I felt better again. Then I called a friend who has also had depression and was also a pharmacy student and is a neuroscience major, so he knows a lot about all this stuff. I told him what I had been through and he said it was all very normal for someone who had both drunk too much alcohol and missed a dose of the medication. This made me very relieved because now I knew that I was not in danger of relapsing into full-scale depression, the kind I had several months ago and mentioned in another thread.

Anyway, I have learned a valuable lesson from this. As long as I am on these medications and dealing with depression, I must not drink so much again.

2

If this is the worst thing that happens to you as a result of drinking too much, you are hell of lucky.

Seriously. This is very low on the scale of drunken regrets.

Not to minimize your bad dream, but your negative consequence were entirely emotional and dream-related.

You didn’t wake up to find someone scary in your bed. Your car wasn’t wrecked. You weren’t in jail. You had no new scars, tattoos or broken bones. You didn’t mention the presence of any unpleasant bodily emissions. Nothing was scrawled upon your body in permanent marker and your clothes were all present. Warrants had not been issued for your arrest. You didn’t awake to discover yourself the owner of unexplained garden gnomes, opposite-sex undergarments, motor vehicles or firearms.

Count your blessings.

3

Have you ever had severe clinical depression?

It can be pretty fucking bad. When I said, “Above all, I had this absolute feeling of emptiness and loneliness, like I had just had my soul stolen from me,” that’s not an exaggeration, that’s what it felt like. I wouldn’t want to be arrested or get in a car wreck, but if I could be rid of my depression by exchanging it for broken bones, scars, pissing my pants or getting marked on, I’d do it. I can handle physical pain pretty well, and humiliation - but the void that is true, clinical depression, is my worst enemy.

4

Usually if someone tells me a story like this I tell them they should stop taking drugs.

5

One or two beers and I’m fine. I’ve done it before, no problem. I know my limits pretty well. But it was really stupid of me to go overboard. I can have two drinks and then stop, no problem - my friends will understand, and I won’t crave more. I don’t have an addictive personality.

6

Remember when you asked if it was ok to drink while taking these meds? We weren’t just blowing smoke up your ass.

7

Read these statements while sober, and tell me they don’t scream denial. You’re making excuses to nobody, perhaps you’re trying to justify your actions to yourself? I am in no way qualified to diagnose, or recognize any problem you might have, but what I’m seeing is really familiar to me. Talk to your prescriber. I can’t tell you what’s wrong, but I can see smoke as well as anyone else. You really need to speak to an authority on the matter.

8

Well, I should have listened to your advice better.

9

I’m really not trying to say “I told you so”, I’m trying to tell you that sometimes the right answer has already been given to you, you just need to realize it, and internalize it. Making mistakes is one of the primary methods of learning, however it carries the most risk. If you can manage to keep things in perspective, you can overcome much more difficult problems than you might imagine you could.

10

I’m sober right now, and they don’t scream denial. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I appreciate your efforts to help me but I have to respectfully disagree. There’s this idea that if you have problems with alcohol, you can’t just have one or two drinks, you have to stop drinking completely. This is B.S. It is true for SOME people, people who are alcoholics. People for whom drinking is an addiction and a disease. For others (me) the issue is not consumption but overconsumption.

I am not making excuses to nobody. I don’t know where you got this idea. What I was doing was responding to what Chrismoody said - that’s not nobody, it’s somebody, somebody who said something (“you should stop drinking entirely”) that I disagree with and have to object to.

I know people who are alcoholics. I know people who have severe addictive personalities with booze, cigarettes, weed, coke, you name it. Believe me, I know the difference between the people who need to stop completely and the people who can continue to enjoy their vices in moderation. I am one of the latter and have been my entire life. In college, I smoked weed and cigarettes on and off. I never felt the need to do it or a craving for them - I just did them when I felt like getting a little buzz, and then would go for weeks without doing it again. There were other guys who went through an 8th in a day - for me, it would last me months. I don’t smoke pot OR cigarettes anymore. And I was never a big drinker. I’d have a few beers - not get drunk, just have a few - every month or so, and that’s it. I don’t have a single alcoholic in my family, unlike some for whom it can be an inherited problem. I know that I do not have an addictive personality.

Again, I appreciate your advice. Really. I did before in that other thread and I still do. But I think this is an issue of moderation for me, not abstinence. It’d be like if I got in a car wreck after going 80 miles an hour in one isolated moment of stupidity - you wouldn’t say, “stop driving your car,” you’d say, “don’t go 80 miles an hour again.”

Now, if I was compelled to *regularly * drive recklessly, then it might be wise advice for me to stop driving my car entirely. But that’s not the situation here, nor with the alcohol. My mistake was not drinking, it was drinking too much. AND skipping my dose - that was just as big of a mistake as the drinking, if not a bigger one. That’s the lesson I’ve learned from this, not that I need to never touch alcohol again.

11

I’m not saying that you should never drink again, but

is a lot different than

and

You said yourself that you drank too much and went overboard. These are your statements, not editorializing on my part. My perception may be flawed, but I’m hearing “I have a problem” and “I don’t have a problem” at almost equal volume. Call me crazy, but I think you’re looking for a good grasp on your current situation.

12

The reason why I mentioned:

was strictly to underscore the fact that the unpleasant feelings came with the aftereffects of the alcohol, the come-down if you will - not the act of being drunk itself. The final part of that paragraph you quoted states:

All I was trying to do was give a little background on my past alcohol use, and distinguish between the act of being drunk itself, and the after-effects that were what really gave me trouble. It’s that I physically took a toll on my body and brain as a result of my overconsumption of alcohol combined with the fact that I skipped a dose of Xanax and the fact that I’m on these medications to begin with. Like I said, the night went fine, it was the morning after that sucked. The last thing in the world I’m trying to do is deny that I have a problem - I do have a problem, and the problem is called clinical depression.

13

Depression is exacerbated by alcohol.

Where on your medication does it say “a drink or two is fine”?
Or even “drinking in moderation is acceptable”?

Feel free to ignore the well meant advice you’ve received here.

If you’re really serious about dealing with the clinical depression, follow the best medical advice you can find. Drinking in any amount won’t be a part of the treatment you are prescribed.

And you’re free to ignore that, too.

14

You’re acting like you’re intimately acquainted with my brain chemistry. You’re not! Didn’t I say before that I’m perfectly capable of drinking one or two beers, while ON my medication, and been fine? Well, I did. Many times. My dad is on the same exact medications that I’m on and he also has one or two beers, and then stops, and he’s fine. He told me that I would be fine if I just limited my consumption of alcohol - and he was right. Okay? Jesus Christ, stop acting like you’re intimately acquainted with my brain chemistry. I’m here to tell you for a fact that I can drink two beers, while on my medication, as I said before, and not suffer any ill effects. None. None whatsoever. I have done this many times and it’s not a problem.

I thought that the car wreck analogy I used earlier would be easy to understand, but apparently it’s not. So I’ll make it even simpler. One beer good. Eight beers bad. Is that easy enough to understand or do I need to make some flash cards or something?

As a matter of fact, my psychiatrist told me that a little drinking wouldn’t hurt me, and that it was up to me to judge how alcohol consumption affected my depression and act accordingly. And that’s what I’ve been doing, for God’s sake. I’m not going to drink 8 beers again, or even 5 or 4 or 3. Because I know it will put me in a place that I don’t want to be in.

15

If you don’t have a problem, why did you feel compelled to describe your “very bad experience” on the Internet?

As for the nightmares…well, all I can recommend is to try and enjoy them more. Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve always been thrilled by nightmares. Just last night, I dreamed that I was being chased by a creature that was a combination of Robocop and a Golden Saint from TESIV: Oblivion. The monster chased me down a mountainside, throwing Molotov cocktails and flaming hay bales which landed with frightening accuracy. Eventually I made it to a forest, where Hagrid (yes, that Hagrid) intercepted the monster and battled him for me. It was scary, but exhilarating at the same time (and probably symptomatic of watching too much news coverage of the So. Cal wildfires…)

My point is, next time you have a nightmare, try and think of it as a thrill ride or a horror movie; eventually, your dreams will become less disturbing and more cathartic.

(BTW, what’s up with taking Xanax XR? That’s not an antidepressant…indeed, benzodiazepines can actually cause depression as a side effect.)

16

Look, I’m going to bed now, and the last thing I want is to check this thread when I wake up and find that everyone’s pissed off at me. I’m sorry I used such an abrasive tone above, it’s just that I get defensive when people try to tell me what’s best for me, even if they’re right. I know you all mean well. Keep in mind that I did not solicit advice in the OP, but I’m grateful for all your input regardless. Really, I mean it.

As to the above, “depression” also includes anxiety. I didn’t understand this either and I asked the same question that you did at first. I’ve got a problem primarily with anxiety, not “feeling depressed” but feeling jittery, nervous and panicky. This was diagnosed as “clinical depression with generalized anxiety disorder” since there was also an element of me feeling depressed. But frankly the anxiety was what predominated.

17

A “very bad experience with alcohol”?

Even a “kind of bad experience with alcohol” includes drinking yourself to death and leaving your family a scarred, alienated shell. “Very bad” experiences mean lots of people die. Just by chance I know not one but two people who killed entire families while driving drunk, and they have since more or less gotten their lives together, so the outcome could have been worse still.

Is it worth any of this???

18

I am not a psychiatrist. I wouldn’t recommend the Xanax/alcohol combination, Even though you missed a dose, you’re taking XR, which eliminates more slowly; in addition, benzos are cross-tolerant with alcohol and a) feed the same addiction; b) may cause a more extreme intoxication.

19

I have been on the meds you are taking, and I know my psychiatrist AND my pharmacist PLUS the warnings on the bottles said “Do not drink alcohol while taking this medication.”

That’s not getting mad at you, that’s pointing out the advice you’ve received from multiple sources (despite your saying your psych said it was ok).

Do you want to get better or do you want to drink? My answer for me was I wanted to get better. So I did not drink.

20

I think you guys are being a little bit tough on the OP – he said he made a mistake, admits it, learned from it and says he won’t do that again.

I take a Paxil-equivalent for depression and anxiety. Before, I used to be able to hold my liquor pretty well. Post-Paxil, not so much. In fact, not at all. I found that (a) a MUCH smaller amount of alcohol got me much more impaired than before, (b) I could have one glass of wine with dinner and it was nice, © if I had one glass of wine for dinner two or three days in a row, on the following day it was as if the Paxil had stopped working. It would take another couple of days of NOT drinking a drop of alcohol before I felt right again. YMMV, etc.

I have now become an all but complete abstainer. (I did have a glass of champagne and one cocktail at my daughter’s wedding.) And damn, sometimes I miss it. Mmmmm… Martini… Single Malt Scotch… How I used to love 'em.