Alcohol and its Dangers

ALCOHOL
-Alcohol mixed with depression mixed with cold medicine can leave you suicidal. Alcohol and antahistamines have a synergistic, depressing effect, and at high levels can be lethal.
-Alcohol can be the most dangerous when people drink a lot very quickly – drinking games, can’t taste alcohol (jello shots, everclear, etc).
-Drinking on an empty stomach particularly risky.
-If person becomes unconscious, is impossible to arouse, or seems to have trouble breathing, call immediately.
-Don’t drink alone and if you find your friend wandering off alone, follow her. Do not let anyone go “pass out” alone. Make sure someone checks on them to make sure their okay.
-When drunk people pass out, their bodies continue to absorb the alcohol they just drank. The amount of alcohol in their blood can then reach dangerous levels and they can die in their sleep. Keep checking on someone who has gone to sleep drunk.
-Drugs can be deadly when combined because they increase the other’s effects.
-The rapid absorption of high concentrations of alcohol can suppress centers of the brain that control breathing and cause a person to pass out or even die. Absorption is increased when on an empty stomach.
-If the drinker consumes more than the amount than the liver can handle, then the additional alcohol simply accumulates in the blood and body tissues and waits its turn for metabolism.

-Continued drinking increases the enzymes that metabolize alcohol and these enzymes can either lessen the effects of critical medication for diabetes or blood thinning or can increase the breakdown of Tylenol and can be toxic to the body.

-40% of college students report blackouts – alcohol affects the NMDA receptors and block formation of new memories.

-Alcohol affects the frontal lobe (in charge of executive functioning, making decisions) and the hippocampus. If start in adolescents, can actually prevent these structures from forming fully.

-In general, the areas that are affected are memory formation, abstract thinking, problem solving, attention and concentration, perception of emotion.

Dangerous combinations with other drugs:
-It is dangerous to combine alcohol with anything else that makes you sleep.
-This includes other sedative drugs such as opiates (heroin, morphine, or Demerol).
-Barbiturates or Quaaludes – unconsciousness or event death. The effects of alcohol may be totally unexpected in the presence of other sedative drugs. (downers, blue heavens, blue velvets, blue devils, nembies, yellow jackets, Mexican yellows, purple hearts, goof balls, reds, red devils, pink ladies)

-Valium-like drugs cause severe drowsiness in the presence of alcohol, increasing the risk of household and automobile accidents.

-Antibiotics – nausea, vomiting, convulsions

-Antidepressants – alcohol increases the sedative effects of tricyclic antideprssants and impairs both mental and physical skills. Ask doctor how it interacts with alcohol.
-Sleep medications like Ambien
-Antihistamines found in cold medicines – excessive dizziness and sedation, particularly dangerous.
-Antipsychotics – thorazine – impaired coordination and fatal suppression of breathing.
-Pain relievers – morphine, codeine, etc. – magnifies the sedative affects of both increasing the risk of death from overdose. Even a single drink can increase the effects.
-Energy drinks – enhances pleasant buzz of alcohol but does not diminish the depressant effects. If a person feels as if she is alert and unimpaired, she might feel that drinking more alcohol is safe when in fact it may not be.

Special considerations for Women:
•The percentage of women who drink alcohol has increased from 45 to 66 percent over the past forty years, and that as many as 5 percent of women are heavy drinkers.
•There is a chemical called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) that breaks down some of the alcohol in the stomach before it gets absorbed into the blood. Women appear to have less of this in their stomachs so compared to men, more of the alcohol they drink gets absorbed into the blood. In fact, after a given dose of alcohol, a woman may achieve a blood alcohol level 25 to 30 percent higher than a man.
•Birth control pills slow down the rate at which alcohol is eliminated from the body. Can feel the sedating effects of alcohol for a longer period of time than a woman who is not.
•Women are at a greater risk for liver damage than men.
•The pancreas are more likely to be damaged in women.
•Alcohol increases risk of breast cancer.
•Women seem more likely to show deficits in cognitive function.