Alcohol and Lorazepam

Hi all,

I'll try to make this as simple and straightforward as possible, I hope this is the right place to post this. Anyways to make a long story short, I have been drinking about a 6 pack of beer every night(only at night) for the past 2 months, while at the same time I take lorazepam 1mg in the morning, and 1mg at night. I have been taking my night-time dose of lorazepam after drinking, and I believe it is clear that I have become addicted to the alcohol as well.

 

I know how unsafe this combination is, but truthfully I have not been able to find much information about what to do. My lorazepam history is in my signature, so I know i've been tolerant on that for the past 5 years, but I am really concerned about how to safely cut out or lower the alcohol. The past couple of days I have lowered my drinking to 4 beers at night since I believe this is something I need to cut down on and remove from my life much more sooner than later.

 

My hope was to get any advice or information anyone might have about this combination of alcohol and lorazepam every night.

Any advice is much appreciated!!

 

-Mark

Hi Mark,

 

Some questions.

 

I see when you first joined you were on 4 mgs, so good job of getting down to 2 mgs, can you tell us how long you've been holding this dose? 

 

Have you always been a drinker or is this something new for you? 

 

It sounds like you know how dangerous it is to take a combination of benzo's and alcohol, both which can depress the respiratory system, can you tell us why you're drinking?  It looks to me like you're drinking the beer to make up for the Ativan you've eliminated, do you feel it's helping you sleep?

 

I have addiction issues so I'm fairly comfortable talking about this but I don't want to label you, that's not my intent.

Hi there,

Thanks for the response.

- I've been holding this dose at 2mg for just about a year now.

- I haven't always been much of a drinker, every now and then I would drink heavily for a few days in a row every few months when I was younger(maybe during college so about 7 years ago) before the lorazepam even came into the picture. But the drinking has never been something consistent for me. I have had addiction issues though with smoking marijuana every once in a while, more like a binge in a way for a couple of months or so in a row, and then I'd just stop.

- I started drinking because I found that I was getting too stressed with everything that was going on in the world at the time, was getting more anxious and was having more issues sleeping. I would say you are definitely right about the sleeping - I do find that it is helping me sleep. My two main worries are that if I just stop drinking completely all of the sudden, I would get bad withdrawals from the alcohol that from what I've read can be intense. And the other worry is not being able to get to sleep. I know that I have to cut out the beer completely, I've just been scared to yet at the same time not really sure if it is safe to stop immediately....really confused on that.

 

Hope that answers your questions

My feeling is your body has grown tolerant to the 2 mg dose and augmenting it with alcohol is helping to keep you going, alcohol is basically liquid benzo's, this is what they give alcoholics when they detox. 

 

From my perspective I don't think you'll experience withdrawals if you stop drinking the beer but you will begin to feel the effects of your tolerance to the Ativan.  This will result in the typical symptoms we all feel to include sleep issues. 

 

You've smart to be concerned about your alcohol use, it can get away from you and make your life a lot more difficult so you have a decision to make.  My hope is that you'll stop drinking for now and concentrate on tapering the rest of the Ativan.  At some point in the future when you've recovered from the withdrawal you can look at drinking again and do it for enjoyment rather than desperation.

During tolerance withdrawals I was unknowingly boosting my benzo Rx with bi-weekly(sometimes daily) infusions of alcohol that served to slow my body breaking down the benzos.  Slowing the breakdown means I was  effectively increasing my dosage by maintaining a higher benzo saturation rate with an alcohol buffer.  It doesn't matter that I did not usually drink every day, even once a week is enough to maintain a higher benzo saturation.  Obviously the alcohol became a source of dependency right alongside the benzos I was dependant on.  Wether or not I truly became an alcoholic with the existing prescribed benzo addiction dictating the need for a buddy drug to get higher amounts of benzos in my system= totally immaterial for me. If you need government studies to explain everything in detail, I urge you to run a quick search.  At least this aspect of how benzos work has been studied. 

  I quit the drinking first because my alcohol dependency hadn't reached anywhere near the horrific benzo level of severity.  The absence of alcohol effectively lowered my average benzo saturation levels and since I was clueless at the time I started hitting my Xanax Rx in order to stay out of acute K withdrawals.  I don't really remember much as I went through the alcohol + benzo drawdown or the withdrawals from quiting Xanax after that.

  Getting out of drink/pill/drink/pill cycle before the alcohol really gets ahold of you like the benzos is the best thing you can do.  Wether or not you are becoming dependant on the alcohol or just it's ability to immediately + successively heighten benzo dose saturation doesn't matter, either way it will hurt. 

  Good luck and good on you for noticing that their was an issue with the alcohol + benzos.  You will have a much much much more stable benzo level to work on tapering after you remove all the erratic alcohol induced fluctuations from the equation.

Pamster - Thank you for the good advice and information. It always helps to hear someone else's perspective. Do you think that I will not experience withdrawals after stopping the beer because I am taking the lorazepam? In other words, is it because I am taking the benzos already, it would probably keep away the bad withdrawals?

 

Myke - Thanks for the response. Very good explanation on how I've been drinking to heighten the benzo dose saturation. Thanks for sharing your experience, I appreciate it.

Pamster - Thank you for the good advice and information. It always helps to hear someone else's perspective. Do you think that I will not experience withdrawals after stopping the beer because I am taking the lorazepam? In other words, is it because I am taking the benzos already, it would probably keep away the bad withdrawals?

 

My feeling is you probably won't experience withdrawals from the beer because you've not been drinking enough or long enough to get them.  I think you'll miss it because it's become a habit and a crutch but I don't think you'll experience actual physical withdrawals.  I could be wrong, my perspective may be skewed by how much I used to drink, it was a lot more than a 6 pack and for a lot longer than 2 months.

 

I do feel though that you're going to hurt but it will be from the Lorazepam tolerance and dependence, like Myke said, you've been supplementing your benzo dose with alcohol so you're going to feel it when you stop, it'll be like a big reduction to your 2 mg dose.  This doesn't mean that I think you should taper the beer, I feel stopping it altogether would be best. 

Thank you Pamster. I appreciate you taking your time to help me out with the advice.

 

-Mark

I think you will likely have some benzo withdrawal symptoms after your body is not spending all it's time metabolizing the alcohol.  Alcohol takes priority in metabolizing before benzos.  The benzo accumulation from each dose stacking on top of the mostly still present(not metabolized) prior dose can quickly lead to fatal levels of benzodiazepine in the body.  I think the danger of continuing to inhibit benzo breakdown is your primary concern.  I have no clue as to what sort of benzo levels you have accumulated, or if you have accumulated anything.  I therefore would have to recommend that you stay safe before anything else.  Do what you need to in order to get back on your taper path, but if there are negative consequences then be aware that you are effectively making a dosage cut of an unknown amount.  Fortunately you have not been doing this for all that long.  I had YEARS of consistent alcohol caused benzo stacking and I am glad I can't really remember the benzo crash about 2-3 weeks after quitting the alcohol.  Getting off with very minimal consequences after such a dangerous situation is something I recommend you take as a real blessing.  Be careful and I am really glad you were able to see the alcohol as a problem.

Thanks Myke. I took the great advice I’ve received from you and Pamster about a month ago and didn’t taper the alcohol and decided to just stop it all together.

I successfully quit that and did experience the benzo crash about a week or so later.

Unfortunately, after one month of no booze and becoming more stabilized with the lorazepam....I had about 3 drinks when I went out with a few friends.

 

Does this mean I will experience that same benzo crash as before for another 2 weeks and did I just cause the same process to restart after drinking only one night after a month of being clean of it? Or will this be much less severe considering it was just once.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

-Mark

The more frequently you do this drinking and detox, the more likely you will start to have kindling and each time it will get worse. I highly suggest you force yourself to stop drinking, you're just making the GABA receptors even more sensitive and making it harder when you decide to actually get off the lorazepam altogether.

 

I used to drink to cope with the fact I was in tolerance withdrawal... It was a very bad idea as I'm finding out with how brutal my taper journey has been.

While I personally strongly caution imbibing in any alcohol because it is a verified dangerous endeavor while still taking Benzodiazepines and it can certainly have negative consequences early in benzo recovery, I don't think you need to panic.  It seems for many people they may lose some of their withdrawal symptom progress and end up having to tough out a nasty wave, but it isn't usually going to be anything more than that.

  See how it goes as you assimilate to the temporary addition of alcohol and take it easy.

  In the future, hopefully after your taper is complete, when testing the alcohol waters to see how it effects you, maybe just try a single drink and go from there.

Thank you all for your latest replies.

I wanted to comment back on this and say that I did stop after that one day of rebounding on the Alcohol and I recovered back to normal fairly quickly.

 

The reason I am coming back to this thread now - is that I have found myself in a similar situation again and was hoping for some good helpful advice like I've received in the past. (really grateful for everyone on this forum helping each other out.)

About 2 months ago, back in mid-October, I started drinking daily again and I have up until last night. I have noticed this time around, I have had a much harder time (much more tired, feeling unwell and generally weak for about a week now). Basically I have been telling myself i'll cut down and I never actually have. However, my body and mind feel very slow and I have been sort of worried about Respiratory depression due to feeling very slow and tired, not very anxious - but very weak and my breathing is a little bit slower, or at least it feels that way.

 

Anyways, I am prepared to not drink at all tonight given that I am concerned about the immediate danger I could be in health-wise. Is it safe being that this is the 2nd time around that I have drank daily for 2 months straight, to just stop drinking and not have to worry about having a seizure or DTs from quitting the alcohol. I felt that it has had a much stronger control over me this time around. Will the lorazepam be able to most likely void off any of the serious life threatening withdrawal symptoms from quitting drinking? Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

I hope everyone is doing alright during these rough times....

 

Thanks,

Mark

It sounds like your body is trying to tell you something and I hope you're listening, what you've been doing is incredibly dangerous.  Drinking while taking benzo's, especially at night can lead to death, your suppressed respiratory system will simply cease doing its job and you'll die in your sleep. 

 

I'm not a Dr or medically trained but I wonder if you're not getting enough oxygen at night and you're experiencing the same thing as those who have sleep apnea, their body also forgets to breathe and they feel sluggish, weak and cognitively impaired.  If this is the case and you're depriving your brain of oxygen you could be doing permanent harm to your brain.

 

I very much hope you'll stop drinking and taper off the Ativan, it's time. 

Thank you, Pam. I wondered about the Sleep Apnea myself, I noticed that I do wake up often but its so brief that I fall immediately back to sleep and barely even remember that I wake up at all. My concern is that I will not be able to get a Sleep study or any kind of diagnosis for Sleep Apnea until at least a few months from now, where I live they have been foregoing a lot procedures altogether, and most specialists of any kind are so far booked out.

 

If I was to stop drinking immediately which is my plan, would you think if it was some sort of Sleep Apnea - that it would get better? I ask because I know how long it takes even under normal circumstances to get things like that diagnosed and figured out.

Have you noticed the same sleep disruptions when you're not drinking while taking Ativan, if not then this may resolve itself when you stop this behavior.  We have another member on the forum who had a virtual appointment for their first sleep study evaluation, if you're genuinely concerned, I'd at least pursue this avenue.  I would be totally honest with them about your use of alcohol and Lorazepam.

 

You asked my opinion about the danger of you stopping alcohol cold turkey, I don't know how much you've been drinking but if it's only been since October and only at night and you've still got Lorazepam on board you'll probably be okay but if you're concerned, you should consult a medical professional.

I have not noticed the sleep disruptions when I was not drinking before I started roughly 2 months back while taking Ativan. Thank you for the information on the virtual sleep study evaluation, I've called around a bit and a lot of are scheduled out a couple of months the earliest for new patients.

As for the stopping alcohol cold turkey, I've only been drinking 6-8 standard drinks at night only and since mid-October.

 

Thank you Pamster!

It appears you may not need the sleep study once you stop drinking, I hope so anyway.  If a standard drink is 1 ounce and you're consuming 6-8 a night you're on a path I'm very familiar with, I hope you can take a detour before you cause damage to your personal life, your work life and your health.