I’ve always heard doctors say that combining benzodiazepines, barbitutates, z-drugs, or opiates with alcohol is a toxic combo that results in either a coma or death.
I do know anecdotally many friends who have been prescribed a few tables of Valium or Xanax for flying and taking it with alcohol. The worst thing for them was either sleeping too much or experiencing anterograde amnesia.
Is it really that risky?
Yes, it can be. The trick is you’re aren’t going to know which reaction you’ll have: chill, calm, amnesia, sleeping too much, driving into a group of daycare kids out for a walk, coma or death.
Yes, absolutely. Throwing a couple Valium on top of a few drinks won’t kill you, but misjudging the dose could certainly kill you, and given that your judgment will be impaired already…
Docs tend to err on the side of saying “Do not ever, ever do this” for both legal reasons and not wanting to encourage risky behavior. But the danger is very real.
I know someone who died that way…so yes. (His was prescription benzos, alcohol and cold medicine). He was 22.
Extremely dangerous.
Anterograde amnesia is a condition in which a person is unable to create new memories after an amnesia-inducing event.1
Anterograde amnesia may involve either partial or total inability to remember events that have happened. At the same time, a person with this type of amnesia has intact long-term memories from before the incident.
Yeah, inability to form memories is a pretty serious problem.
This ^ Not to mention each person’s physiology is different. What might be ‘kinda bad’ for someone who’s large and doesn’t have an underlying organ problems could be life-threatening for someone else.
A guy I went to school with became an actor and found work in TV medical drama. They did a story about mixing drugs and alcohol and, for some reason, he decided to experiment for himself.
He shared a flat with two other people and (I believe) they all took part and eventually went to bed. The next day, the other two got up and when they eventually went in to wake him, he was dead.
Dangerous. As illustrated above, each persons tolerance to that will be different. I have done it a lot, in quantity, and made it through but wouldn’t do it again these days.
Here’s one comedian’s anecdote about mixing drugs and alcohol: (NSFWL)
You can also throw up in your sedated state and drown in your own vomit.
“Can” not “will” but the consequences of taking a chance can be severe.
A friend of my brother was given Chloral Hydrate as a child in South Africa, to prevent air sickness. (“Chloral Hydrate is a hypnotic and sedative with CNS depressant properties similar to barbiturates”). His parents were having a glass of gin before the same flight. The kid thought they were drinking water, and took a large gulp.
Out like a light, and didn’t return until hours later …
Among recreational drug users, the use of these sedatives is said to enhance the effects of alcohol, in that you’d get “really drunk” after just a few drinks. As noted, though, the combination can easily lead to an overdose, especially if the person is consuming the sedatives after they already overindulged in alcohol.
I can remember an extremely minty liquid cold med for children back in the 60s with an active ingredient of chloroform … one lovely day my mom had given me a dose, my dad gave me a dose and the babysitter gave me a dose. I slept for almost 20 hours and woke up in hospital where they were keeping an eye on me. I don’t remember a thing, I was IIRC 4 or so years old so I probably wouldn’t remember anything anyway =)
It was chlor-something, I remember mom telling me about it when I was like 13 and found on of the empty bottles in the storage shed at our cottage when we were cleaning it out.
Chlorodyne? (link to pdf of a 1974 paper arguing for it to be put on the controlled list)
'cause if that was it, it was not just the chloroform. The other active ingredient was morphine in alcohol a.k.a. laudanum.
No not chlorodyne. It was in a clear glass bottle, looked sort of like what dimetap comes in today round, about 5 or so inches tall. This one was specifically for kids.
Kimball White Pine Cough Syrup was banned in 1975-76. It had chloroform as the active ingredient. Chloroform was banned because it was believed to be cancerogenic.
Cosadein was the only other chloroform cough syrup I could find. This one had had codeine and cannabis along with the chloroform.
Wow should have had quite a kick …
And I found it, I asked a cousin that grew up with me [we got back in touch after like 25 years, thanks facebook =)] Novahistine, now it has whatever but back then it had chloroform as the active ingredient. I just really remember that cloying mint brick in the face taste.