From what I understand, alcohol and sedatives are a very bad idea and the combined effect is similar to 1 + 1=3. Is there a chemical reason for this?
Alcohol slows down your liver, making it harder for “poisons” and other foreign substances to be processed out.
Once your liver is fully occupied, any outside elements that make it in your system gets in and your bloodstream and stays there longer, at higher “doses” for a longer time than normal.
Doesn’t matter if it’s cocaine or your favorite sleeping pills, drinking and using drugs can be risky. Consult your doctor about proper intervals between ingesting medicine and booze. Some medicine pretty much requires that you stop drinking.
I’m going to have to disagree with this.
Alcohol (ethanol) stimulates the breakdown of many substances. Look toward the bottom of this table. Note that ethanol induces, that is it ‘stimulates’, the 2E1 enzyme. Then look at the substances normally broken down by 2E1 - i.e. the substrates of 2E1 - at the top. You can assume, then, that to some degree, alcohol speeds up their metabolism.
Please also note that ethanol does not inhibit the breakdown any of the many, many substances listed. It does not “slow down” your liver.
And, to answer the OP, the reason that alcohol and sedatives are a dangerous mix is that they both have the same or similar effect to DEPRESS the brain. In this way, they can synergize.
So wait, are you saying the sticker on the prescription bottle that says “alcohol may intensify this effect” is a warning and not a suggestion?
The term is a synergistic effect and it is much more common with some drug combinations than others. Alcohol and barbiturates are a classic example that have made more than a few part goers go from buzzed to dead very quickly. The biochemical mechanism are the GABA receptors on neurons. Substances that work on GABA receptors tend to inhibit neuronal firing. Certain combinations of drugs can act of the receptor so that the effect is much more than 1+1 and be lethal.
The sedative effects of alcohol are increased by certain medications for several reasons. One, simple additive effects. In some cases alcohol reacts with the drugs in your system to create different (possibly more effective) compounds. In the case of mixing alcohol and cocaine, they combine to create a compound known as cocaethylene, which produces a greater euphoria than cocaine alone.
I need to clarify my post regarding the 2E1 enzyme and Mr. Slant’s statement that “alcohol slows down your liver”. I am referring to chronic use of alcohol when I said that, if anything, alcohol “speeds up” your liver.
In any case, note that although alcohol itself is a substrate for 2E1, and thus can tie up some of that enzyme such that other substances normally broken down by it tend will to hang around longer than in the absence of competing alcohol, none of those substances are sedatives (see the table I linked to above)
The term “sedatives” usually refers to benzodiazepines and barbiturates, two classes of drugs that both work by overstimulating the GABA-A receptor on neurons, which when stimulated inhibits neuronal activity. Alcohol also works through this receptor. Because they work on the receptor in distinct ways, alcohol plus one of these drugs makes for excellent synergy, which means that you suppress neuronal activity much more than either alone.
Another class of drugs, opiates, are also sometimes used in lieu of sedatives. These drugs have the effect of suppressing your respiratory drive (acting on the respiratory center in the medulla oblongata, in the brainstem). Alcohol does this too. The two together suppress respiration synergistically, and so you can stop breathing.
GVG
My statement in post #2 is wholly withdrawn.
Must be why I got a C in that college bio class…