The combination of antidepressants and alcohol will affect your judgment, coordination, motor skills and reaction time more than alcohol alone. Some combinations may make you sleepy. This can impair your ability to drive or do other tasks that require focus and attention. You may become sedated or feel drowsy.
However, since many patients are not willing to give up alcohol completely, it is important to combine alcohol and antidepressants in the safest way possible. Some physicians allow moderate drinking for their patients. This means 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men.
It's important not to skip a dose of an antidepressant so that you can drink alcohol. Missing doses of antidepressants like Zoloft can cause withdrawal symptoms, which can include: Dizziness. Headache.
Quitting an antidepressant suddenly may cause symptoms within a day or two, such as: Anxiety. Insomnia or vivid dreams. Headaches.
For people with chronic or severe depression, medication may be needed on a long-term basis. In these cases, antidepressants are often taken indefinitely. That is, in part, because depression is not an illness that can be cured.
When combined with antidepressants, these effects of drinking become heightened. In other words, you may get drunker faster, and with less alcohol than usual. The results can be dangerous if you make poor decisions while combining these two substances.
Mixing Alcohol And Antidepressants. At best, mixing alcohol and antidepressants leads to minor reductions in the effectiveness of the medication. At worst, it can cause serious health risks that require emergency medical attention to remedy.
Blackouts & Extreme Intoxications
These incidences are known as pathological intoxication or in more common terms, a Zoloft and alcohol blackout.
Allow at least two weeks to pass before consuming alcohol if you've recently stopped treatment with a MAOI antidepressant.
Alcohol can intensify Zoloft's side effects, including sedation, dizziness, and difficulty concentrating. In addition, health care providers recommend individuals with depression avoid alcohol anyway since alcohol is a central nervous system (CNS) depressant and drinking—especially heavily—can make symptoms worse.
When a person combines alcohol and an SSRI, it can cause a condition known as serotonin syndrome. This can be a life-threatening condition that occurs when there is too much serotonin in the brain.
Weight gain is a possible side effect of nearly all antidepressants. However, each person responds to antidepressants differently. Some people gain weight when taking a certain antidepressant, while others don't.
There are no antidepressants that are completely safe when taken with alcohol. Some providers may say that light to moderate drinking is OK while taking certain antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like sertraline (Zoloft), fluoxetine (Prozac), and escitalopram (Lexapro).
Antidepressants and Alcohol
However, many of these drugs include side effects such as grogginess or a spacey feeling. Some patients have even reported confusion and hallucinations when taking certain antidepressants. These effects may be amplified when a person also consumes alcohol.
You may have to keep taking antidepressants for a long time. Side effects—which can include nausea, diarrhea or constipation, sexual problems, weight gain, and trouble sleeping—cause many people to stop taking the medicine.
Research has found that antidepressants can intensify the effects of alcohol, or can lead individuals to increase their alcohol consumption and become heavily dependent on alcohol. SSRIs induced alcoholism is likely to be relatively common but reported as being rare.
Starting an antidepressant can't actually make your depression worse. But it can cause side effects that are very similar to depression. Antidepressants can make you feel tired, cause concentration problems, and lead to changes in sleep and appetite.
Antidepressants may affect metabolism, causing the body to burn calories more slowly.
Drug-induced hair loss usually occurs within the first 3 months of the treatment [12]. In addition, other antidepressant medications may cause telogen hair loss too. Fluoxetine is the most common SSRI causing hair loss [13].
Many antidepressants have been reported to cause weight gain rather than weight loss. You may initially lose weight with an SSRI medication, but that changes the longer you take it. Also, as the medicine works to improve your symptoms, your appetite might increase and return to normal levels.
The majority of cases of serotonin syndrome present within 24 hours, and most within six hours, of a change in dose or initiation of a drug [3].
The more intense or frequent the alcoholic blackouts are, the longer it will take your brain's neurotransmitters to return to normal activity levels. Generally, though, it may take up to two weeks for the brain's chemistry to return to normal after experiencing extended periods of alcoholic blackout.
It's important not to miss any of your doses, as this could make your treatment less effective. You may also get withdrawal symptoms as a result of missing a dose of the medicine. If you do miss 1 of your doses, skip the missed dose and take your next dose at the usual time.
Official answer. Zoloft (sertraline) may lead to a small weight gain ranging from 1% to 1.6% of initial body weight when used over 6 months to 1 year. For example, in a 150 lb (68 kg) person, this would equal an added 1.5 to 2.4 lbs (0.7 to 1.1 kg) of weight.