Paxil (paroxetine) and alcohol question

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I have an acquaintance that I'm sort of concerned about who takes Paxil and drinks quite frequently. I don't know if he goes off the Paxil for 24 hours before drinking, but my understanding is that it takes 6 weeks to get the stuff fully out of your system... after all, it takes 6 weeks to get in. He said so himself that it takes 6 weeks to start working. Is Paxil safe with alcohol?

I've used alcohol with paxil, prozac and zoloft. I say its safe but it likely will reduce the amount of alcohol one needs to get intoxicated.

In theory a person who is depressed should not use alcohol. If they have anxiety issues they should use more selective agents likes
benzodiazepines. Or perhaps and old fashion anti-depressant like
phenelzine that has a potent anti-anxiety effect.

Ive been on paxil for years, and drank heavily on it a lot.

Wheeeeee, that's a relief! What about Celexa? Anyone drank heavily (or at all) while on Celexa?

Okay, well, my acquaintance sometimes gets so drunk that he doesn't remember coming home, and it says on my bottle of Celexa to stay away from alcohol... and according to this guy with bipolar, it says the same thing on a bottle of Paxil or any other antidepressant, that it "warns against it" and is "very dangerous". Next time I see my acquaintance I should tell him but I don't know how he'll take it.

Have the person ask the doctor. I ask my doctor straight up. "Can I drink with this s**t? Will I drop dead if I do?"

Yeah; I'll ask my doctor. And when I tell my acquaintance I hope h'll take it all right and not see me as an interfering square.

It varies with the person... A friend of mine was on it, and drank one night. He almost beat his wife. almost. I gained weight on it and could not for the life of me lose it until i got off of it.

Most interesting... I was going to one day get around to starting a thread with the exact same subject. Ana54, you are my new good luck charm.

I happen to be in the Paxil + alcohol boat right now. I'm on 20mg / day, tapered up from 10mg / day a while back. AND I'm on Xanax XR, 1mg / day; I used to take it in the morning to help with stress/anxiety throughout the day, but it was making me so sleepy I actually fell asleep at my desk once while "resting my eyes"; I take it when I get home from work now. I've been drinking an 8-pack of Guinness every night for many weeks. I too saw the sticker right on the bottle, "Do Not Drink Alcoholic Beverages While Taking This Medicine." [It annoys me that they capitalized every word in that sentence.] BUT, one of my many endearing traits is that I never listen when someone tells me not to put my hand in the fire lest I get burnt; I always have to try anyway, to see if I actually get burned. Sometimes I actually do get burnt, and sometimes people are talking sh**; despite getting many burns, I like pushing the envelope, and especially like doing things that I'm told are "impossible". At the place I currently am in my life, I actually get some morbid amusement from grabbing a piece of brain candy from a bottle marked "no alcohol", and downing it with a good draw of extra draught. There've been a few times when I've laughed out loud while doing this; my wife tells me I have a death wish.

As for Paxil + alcohol... Aside from the alcohol not being good for me, I think I have not gotten burnt. They DO seem to interact in some odd way that is more than just "drunk" or "more drunk". In fact, there are times when I feel more focused and coordinated and coherent after the 8 pack than when I'm sober.

As a matter of fact, I did ask my doctor about this. I don't like doctors in general; I've caught too many of them trying to BS me when they really don't know something. But my current doc is a good one, and he has my full trust. On my last visit a couple of weeks ago, I told him I've been "drinking like a fish" recently. He immediately said "not a good idea", which I really expected him to say, but the question I really wanted answered was why. He gave me two reasons, neither of which was unexpected. One was that the alcohol and Paxil will compete for being metabolized in the liver and such, and that the alcohol would consequently skew the dosage of Paxil, perhaps causing 20mg to have the effect of 40mg, or something along these lines. When I pinned him down for actual effects, he told me that people who take Paxil and drink tend to start acting very "weird". This correlates with my experience. I have been a bit more... loopy... as of late. Not necessarily in a bad way. Not necessarily in an un-fun way. But I've definitely been loopy. Maybe around a quarter of my posts here on the WP have been under Guinness + Paxil. These have been very mixed. Some have been very dark and grim (like my initial response to you in "I confess...", Ana), some confrontational and violent... But some have been rather thoughtful; my torches post is among these, and I've had several friends comment that they really enjoyed reading that; a product of Paxil + Guiness, ladies and gents. In all, from grim to ranting to flippant to fanciful, all of these posts have been rather cathartic. People probably think I'm more than a bit crazy, but it feels good to just let stuff come out that I might otherwise keep locked away somewhere in the back of my mind.

I'm currently trying to stop the drinking, for no real reason other than I know it's not really good for me. Maybe I'll stop to night. Maybe not.

Interesting related article: Extroverted Like Me

Good fortune,

- Icarus the Unbreakable

Icarus, now I have some idea why my acquaintance likes drinking on Paxil so much. That was a rather enlightening post. *goes off to read "extroverted like me"*


EDIT: Now I REALLY understand why he wants to do that... that stuff seems to work best with alcohol. I can identify with the guy who wrote that... I'm a slightly different person on Celexa and she's actually the real me that I was afraid to show before now... and I gained empathy for the sociable kind of person too.