Alcohol

[[An...]]

I got drunk a couple weeks ago. I didn’t experience much relief from the benzo withdrawal. I’m just wondering how alcohol and benzos differ and how they are alike. Also, did I compromise my recovery by drinking?

[[Ma...]]

Alcohol is essentially a liquid benzo. They are the only 2 drugs that effect GABA in the same way.

Delay your recovery? Probably not as alcohol leaves your body within 24 hours and supposedly the brain can recover much much quicker then with a benzo, so don’t worry too much about it. You are not the 1st one to consume alcohol during recovery and some even have through out and still healed!

You just might want to consider not drinking for a long time so you can recover quicker! Hang in there!

[[An...]]

Thank you @[Ma...]! I was worried. I thought that if alcohol is a liquid benzo, that it would have felt better than the way it made me feel. It felt like I was drunk, but I still felt like I was in really bad withdrawal. It was weird.

[[Da...]]

Been there done that. Desperate for relief and got so drunk. Really stupid but desperate people do desperate things. Alcohol doesn’t attach to receptors like benzos do. I was back to baseline within a day or two. I honestly wish I had been an alcoholic instead of using benzos because it seems alcoholics recover within weeks unlike us benzos users. Don’t worry 

[[Es...]]

@[An...]

Alcohol acts a bit differently. It also has euphorizing properties. People often substitute opiates with alcohol. Even heroin. I cannot drink alcohol. It gives me hot flushes. You can only reinforce a BZD action with alcohol, you cannot substitute alcohol for a BZD. Terminal alcoholics are sometimes given small doses of BZD like diazepam as maintenance therapy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on the physchopharmacology of alcohol, but it's a bit complicated:

"Much progress has been made in understanding the pharmacodynamics of ethanol over the last few decades.^[20][83] While no binding sites have been identified and established unambiguously for ethanol at present, it appears that it affects ion channels, in particular ligand-gated ion channels, to mediate its effects in the CNS.^{[19][20][21][83]} Ethanol has specifically been found in functional assays to enhance or inhibit the activity of a variety of ion channels, including the GABA_A receptor, the ionotropic glutamate AMPA, kainate, and NMDA receptors, the glycine receptor,^[85] the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors,^[86] the serotonin 5-HT₃receptor, voltage-gated calcium channels, and BK channels, among others.^{[19][20][21][87][88]} However, many of these actions have been found to occur only at very high concentrations that may not be pharmacologically significant at recreational doses of ethanol, and it is unclear how or to what extent each of the individual actions is involved in the effects of ethanol.^[83] In any case, ethanol has long shown a similarity in its effects to positive allosteric modulators of the GABA_A receptor like benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and various general anesthetics.^[19][83] Indeed, ethanol has been found to enhance GABA_A receptor-mediated currents in functional assays.^[19][83] In accordance, it is theorized and widely believed that the primary mechanism of action is as a GABA_A receptor positive allosteric modulator.^[19][83] However, the diverse actions of ethanol on other ion channels may be and indeed likely are involved in its effects as well.^[20][83]"

[[Es...]]

@[An...]

@[Da...]

If any of you have any history of alcohol abuse in your family, there can be no alcohol in your house. My Husband is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I went with him to AA/NA meetings for nine years prior to BB. They helped me with benzo dependence.

His Father drank himself to death after the two-month BZD WD in hospital. It was just a few years ago. Alcohol and benzos are not to be messed with together. Cause they can kill.

Benzos alone have little chances of killing you. Barbiturates did. Now with the advent of the opiates in the US, there are more and more accidental ODs. I met a guy in the hospital who substituted heroin for alcohol for a whole year. Heroin addicts drink when they cannot get their fingers on alcohol. Alcohol is a legal drug. It has killed many of my AA Friends. I will never forget their faces.

Stay safe🤍

Paula

[[Th...]]

Du yourself a favor and stay away from alcohol during post-withdrawal. I am so glad, that Pamster has explained this to me - and I am certain, that alcohol was the main reason for me going through a monstrous 5-week-wave after having been off the benzos for more than 3 months. We don't know of a way to shorten waves, but alcohol is certainly a way of making them longer!

Since I have cut out alcohol, the waves are much shorter and less intense. They still suck, but I feel like I can handle them, fingers crossed.