ok so that colorado shooting thread in the news forum got me to thinking...

for the first time in my old ass life I have been on antidepressants. since the summer.

anyway, I am noticing that when I would drink beer...my reaction was different to it than before.

in the past, this negro could drink a 12 pack and feel the effects, but that's it.

since I've been on this stuff...I found when I drank I would start having memory lapses, lapses in judgement, imparied and often delusional thinking.

it's scary as a mother of fuck...and as a result I have stopped drinking. the shit is freaky.

has anyone else on antidepressants ever experienced such a phenom?

I don't have any personal experience with this, no, but alcohol certainly can react with antidepressants. The effect depends on the specific med you're on. Sometimes there's no effect at all, sometimes you just get drunk quicker, and I've read that some reactions can be fatal (don't know what med that's with, though).

If you want to continue drinking occasionally, talk to your doc. He might be able to adjust your dosage or put you on different meds.

any type of medicine is pretty much going to react negatively with alcohol. anti-depressants work with the neurotransmitters in your brain so does alcohol but in conflicting ways. your psychiatrist should have warned you!

no one mentioned a frickin thing!

it's some bizzarro shit. one to 3 beers is fine. anything beyond that, it's like I crossed over into the twilight zone and have little to no control over what I may do or say.

defintely disturbing.

what's the name of the stuff? lets check it out on teh intarweb. obviously talk to the doc though too

i heard that shit will get you fucked up. we used to mash them up and smoke them in high school

they generally tell people to abstain from alcohol when you are taking them, just fyi

ditto on both

it's plain old prozac.

Sometimes people are warned to avoid alcohol while taking Prozac® (fluoxetine hydrochloride). This is because alcohol and medicines like Prozac act upon similar chemicals in the brain. The concern is that Prozac will increase the effects of alcohol -- whether this means increasing symptoms of depression or affecting motor skills.

When many healthcare providers are asked whether or not it is okay to drink alcohol while on Prozac, they recommend that people choosing to drink should only drink light to moderate amounts -- and should also wait until they understand the effects that Prozac and other medicines they are taking may have on their body.

well fucking great!?

I wish to hell they would have told me?

I thought I was going batshit insane.

That sucks

well not NOW...I mean I haven't drank in almost a month. but yeah, I was completely out of my fuckin mind a couple times and it was scary as hell.

like putting myself in really dangerous positions where I was likely to get dead. I guess god really does look after children and idiots.

I assume you're not dumb enough to be drinking while the medicine is still in your system.

How much were you drinking? I went through a similar thing months ago. I was depressed but not on antidepressants. Like a fucking moron, I used alcohol to "cope", and eventually it started fucking with my mind. I'd drink about 3 whisky/cokes and start acting really bizarre. Seeing shit and stuff. I don't know whether it was psychological or some sort of physical reaction from my body since at the time, I was drinking heavily and often. Since I started drinking infrequently I've yet to have it happen again. Then again, I drink for entirely different reasons now, so that probably has something to do with it.

All I know is don't drink to cope with depression. Don't drink to put yourself in a better mood. It's a temporary "solution" to a permanent problem. Actually, it isn't a solution at all, it just fools you in to thinking it is. And that's dangerous as fuck.

Might I ask why you started taking antidepressants? If you aren't comfortable saying, that's fine.

Antidepressants are typically taken on a daily basis and take several days to mostly leave the system (can take a couple of weeks to be gone entirely).

This post has been edited by Spectatrix: Dec 11 2007, 01:51 PM