Hey Penny64,

Glad to have you on board.  Have you ever read the warning sticker on your meds bottle(s).  Or the pharmacy information they include with every prescription?  All anti-depressants warn against the use of alcohol while taking the medication.  Alcohol is a depressant, Zoloft is an anti-depressant.  See any conflict here?  It's like a milder version of a speedball - cocaine and heroin - which is what killed John Belushi.  Mixing medications with conflicting purposes is just asking for trouble.  You know, you just can't have it all.  If you need to take the Zoloft, lay off the beer.  Sometimes you have make sacrifices to fix a chemical imbalance in your brain.  If nothing else, try substituting a non-alcoholic beer.  That way you can be out and social, without the fear of something really bad happening, or doing things you won't remember the next day.

I made the mistake of drinking while on my meds back in October.  I had no idea that it would affect me the way it did.  I was drinking double White Russians faster than the alcohol was hitting me.  It started catching up with me pretty quickly.  I knocked something onto the floor, which I bent over to pick up.  I hit my head squarely on the bar and gave myself a concussion.  I remember nothing about the next half hour.  I saw friends, had conversations, and had to get an escort to walk me back to my room.  Good thing he was a really nice, well-built fireman, because my room was way at the other end of the complex.  I do remember bouncing off the walls a number of times.  Drinking was a stupid thing to do, and I knew better.  I thought I'd just test the odds.  Bad idea.  Don't keep making the same mistake.  It's just not worth it.

Leigh Ann

Hey Penny,

I didn't mean to come across as lecturing, I just wanted to give you another perspective, since my mixing of anti-depressants and alcohol did not work out so well for me.  If you step back and look at your situation like it was some unknown person, you might see things slightly different.  You started taking anti-depressants for a reason.  Unless your situation is drastically changed, stopping prescription medication in favor of herbal remedies is a crap shoot.  Non-regulated herbal remedies are very sketchy in their effectiveness.  Because they are not regulated by the FDA, which would basically eliminate their existance, there is widespread disparity in what benefits they may offer.  In addition, the concentration of the "active" ingredient varies widely, not only from product to product, but within individual lots of the same product.  That's why the FDA wants to regulate all herbal remedies.

Drinking alcohol numbs you out, and seems to make your problems disappear.  But they don't.  It just prevents you from dealing with them.  Saying that you've been drinking on the meds for ten years is not a thing to brag about.  If you stopped drinking for a while, you might be able to confront and resolve your problems while still on your meds, and if you did that, maybe you wouldn't need to take them anymore.  Not lecturing, just giving you food for thought.  Lastly, you're not posting on this board because life, as you are living it, is working for you.  Just think about it.

Let us know how you are doing.  We care.

Leigh Ann