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Does anyone have direct experience mixing alcohol with SSRIs, or medical experience treating people who have?
I'm asking in SSQ rather than WW because it's tangential to a red hot culture war question circa 2015: drink spiking.
The percentage of women taking antidepressants has doubled or tripled in the last decade, but there's been no decrease in drinking to compensate. I think Scott may have briefly tangled with this during the feminism wars of the 10s when Vox and Jezebel revived earlier panics, but afaik nobody's actually looked at the likelihood that a lot of the self-reported symptoms you see on reddit are real, but caused by interactions with other drugs.
Apparently there was a recent hysteria in europe about men injecting women with drugged needles in bars which eventually died down after the claims got too wild. The wikipedia article is very carefully written not to call it a social panic, but the writer obviously wishes he could just say it.
I'm worried we're going to keep getting mass panics like this fueled by social media, activists, and a dysfunctional drinking and drug culture that people are unwilling to own up to. But since I don't have any experience with SSRIs, drinking, or european party culture, I'm probably not the right person to make an argument about it.
I have had plenty of drinks while on SSRIs, and I can't say it made a difference.
From what I'm aware of in the literature, the risk is minimal, and primarily due to alcohol worsening symptoms of depression rather than a significant interaction.
I do, however, lean towards it being hysteria that so many women confuse being "blackout drunk" with being roofied. Like, drink enough alcohol and that just happens, including waking up in an unfamiliar place feeling like shit. It's just not probably due to SSRIs making it worse, women have a lower alcohol tolerance in the first place.
I've always been confused by the American tendency to conflate being blackout drunk with being passed out, completely helpless or doing things you'd otherwise never do even while drunk. All it means is that you drank enough for your brain to not store new memories (or store them very poorly) during that time (which could range anywhere from 30 minutes to many hours). There are many factors that can influence getting a blackout, such as how fast you get drunk (even if the level of drunkenness is the same), whether you ate anything, how tired you are, genetic factors etc, all without implying that you've lost control, are helpless or will pass out.
When I was much younger it wasn't that unusual for me to get blackouts when going out with friends to get properly drunk. It never worried me since I knew that my behavior didn't change all that much when drunk (other than being more talkative than usual and starting to tell really shitty jokes at some point) nor would I be any more helpless than normal. These days I skip the "getting very drunk" part and just progress to feeling like shit if I drink much. I guess that's age for you.
I had a bit hard time believing blackouts were a real thing rather than an excuse before experiencing one.
I don't seem to be able to get blackouts on alcohol alone, I can pass out but not blackout, I always remember everything regardless of whether I'm drunk or not. Then one night I had taken a combination of morphine, caffeine and a lot of alcohol and that made me both black out and act very out of character, not just lacking inhibition like when you're drunk but like a different person.
It made me have a bit more sympathy for people not remember things and acting out while drunk, but only a little. I was surprised and if that was the consequence of me getting drunk I wouldn't drink.
It's not like being drunk and having patchy memories, or remembering the dumb things you did and wishing you couldn't remember, or needing to be prompted and then remembering. All three times it's happened to me the last thing I remember is taking my nth shot of vodka in x minutes on an empty stomach. Then waking up.
I've drunk the same amount of alcohol on an empty stomach many times, often much more. I think the critical factor is drinking high strength alcohol much too quickly. Much easier to do when it's just a little shot instead of a big glass of cold gassy beer.
I also used to think blue balls and jaw-dropping were merely colourful euphemisms for sexual frustration and surprise.
From the few news clips I've read about the topic, I recall that how fast you got drunk is usually more important than how drunk you end up being when it comes to alcohol induced memory loss. Too fast and your brain can't keep up with the result that new memories aren't properly transferred from short term memory to longer term memory.
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