3.4 Alcohol and other drugs
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Did you know that combining alcohol and other drugs can add further complications to a person’s health and wellbeing? |
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Jane Fisher |
Jane Fisher, alcohol and drug education professional, explains the adverse effects of combining alcohol and drugs.
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If someone has some other drugs in their system, whether it’s from medication or whether they’ve been smoking cannabis or taken speed or something like that, then that is going to make them more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. So if someone had taken another depressant drug like cannabis or they were on an anti-depressant or they were on a benzodiazepine like Serepax or Valium, then the alcohol would affect them much more than someone who wasn’t taking that medication. If someone had been using speed, for example, and then they came and drank alcohol, what may happen is that the speed may mask the effects of the alcohol, the person may feel that they’re not intoxicated, so they’re at much greater danger of having an alcohol-related harm of injuring themselves. They may be also over-confident and think that they’re fine to drive, and in fact, they’re quite drunk, or they’re quite over the limit and they shouldn’t be driving so that’s another danger. There’s also a greater danger of overdose—mixing drugs with alcohol increases your chance of risk and of harms from drinking. |
Alcohol belongs to the depressant category of drugs because it affects the central nervous system and causes it to function in a different way. Combining alcohol with any other drug can be dangerous or cause discomfort. The negative effects of one drug may be greatly increased by the other; it can also reduce the effectiveness of medications such as antibiotics.
Mixing alcohol with drugs which depress the body’s systems, such as sleeping pills, tranquillisers and marijuana, can increase loss of judgement and coordination and even cause breathing failure.
Certain drugs such as stimulants may mask the effect of the alcohol and cause a person to feel that they’re not intoxicated. This can place that person at risk of an alcohol-drug related injury as they may feel over-confident and think that they are fine even though they are in fact quite intoxicated. There’s also a greater danger of overdose when mixing any drugs with alcohol.
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For further information you can visit: National Alcohol Strategy, Australian Alcohol Guidelines: www.alcoholguidelines.gov.au NSW Health: www.alcoholinfo.nsw.gov.au National Health and Medical Research Council: www.nhmrc.gov.au |