What does alchohol do to pills?

The bottles always say don't drink in combination with medication.
What happens if you do? I Googled it and didn't find anything.
Does it make the pill stronger? TV shows always show like someone really high.
Just curious, not going to try it.


I feel like everytime i post here i ask a weird question high...
I probably do.

 

not a pharmacist but I'm pretty sure it can cause bad reactions. I know t3s contain acetaminophen which is broken down within your liver. Alcohol is also broken down within the liver so the combination of the two is not going to be good on your liver.

Just one example.

 

Good question.

What happens if you do? - depends on what medication you are taking. But its all to do with bioavailability.

Alcohol can increase the effectivness of some medications by competing with the enzymes needed to metabolise the drug, meaning the drug stays in your system for longer, giving an enhanced effect, and indeed sometimes severe side effects.

Conversely, sometimes alcohol, especially in large quantities over a prolonged period of time can reduce the effectivness of a drug, by activating drug metabolising enzymes, meaning the drug stays in the system for a shorter period of time.

In some cases alcohol can magnify the effect of sedatives and narcotics at their site of action in the brain. The combination of opiates and alcohol enhances the sedative effect of both substances, and can easily lead to an overdose.


So I guess in answer to your question, it can make the pill stronger, but also weaker! It depends on how much you drink and what pill it is!
Not that I'm advocating drinking whilst on medications, but a lot of medications say 'Dont drink' to cover themselves legally, rather than worrying about any specific alcohol-drug interactions.
Though if in doubt, dont drink! (Smoke instead!!!)

 

Best advice right there.

 

It depends on the pill. Alcohol is a depressant; combining it with other depressants increases the risk of unwanted side effects such as respiratory failure. Lots of painkillers also have acetaminophen, which in some cases will lead to liver failure as a result of combining it with alcohol faster than the opiates it accompanies!

The way you framed this question leads me to believe you know very little about drugs and their interactions. No offense, but please make sure to know what you're doing before you do it, for your own sake.

 

You would have to take an overdose of acetaminophen for it to cause liver toxicity, even if you were drunk as a skunk and took a normal dose you would be fine(ish!)

Interestingly, some maintain that an acute alcohol ingestion at the time of the acetaminophen overdose is actually protective! (Though of course don't try this at home....)

But yeah I see your point, chronic alcohol users tend to have bad news when it comes to acetaminophen overdoses.


Horrible way to die!

 

yea it is.

my great uncle died this way. he was awesome to me, although not the best role model...

i wouldn't combine "pills and alcohol."

 

makes them easier to swallow?

 

it counter acts them, but for percs it fucks your up and you throw up

 

Many such as opiates and benzos, alcohol and the pills just potentate each other

 

Such things are best discovered through extensive experimentation.

Take every pill you can get your hands on with alcohol, in mass amounts, and find out for yourself!

n00b.

 

^^^ personally i'd start at the mixture of a bottle of asprin to one bottle of jack..

 

to much alcohol wit a pill can kill u and its not safe to take alcohol wit any pill cpet painkillers but only like 1 or 2 beers

 

sold some dude methadone (not admitting, just theorizing). he drank and ended up in the hospital.

 

alcohol is also a blood thinner, like many medications. if you have a hard time clotting, and don't know about it, and you are drunk and high and fucked up on painkillers very likely to lose your balance, you could bleed out.
then theres the damage to your liver, kidneys, stomach lining, esophagus (when you puke) and many other parts to your body machine that you risk damaging.

google doesn't speak dumb.