Posted by 3 Beer Effect on April 26, 2002, at 0:16:20
In reply to Re: Zoloft 50, 75, or 100mgs social phobia/depressio, posted by Geno on April 25, 2002, at 15:59:24
geno,
even after a few months on Zoloft 100 mg, the Zoloft still potentiated alcohol alot even though it was very activating for me to the point of insomnia/mania.
Usually I only blacked out if I drank vodka w/ orange juice, but with Zoloft 2 or 3 beers & I was already wasted and acting like an idiot. Zoloft cut in half the amount of alcohol needed to make you drunk, in other words 3 beers on Zoloft were equivalent to 6 when I was on no medication. People said I would get drunk and would not be able to put any coherent sentences together & act totally dissasociated and weird-almost like I was under anasthesia but still walking around. I ended up getting arrested for DUI (I had a blood alcohol of only .05 but had between 35-50 mgs of Xanax I bought from Thailand in my system- I got thrown out of jail and taken to the hospital because I was so messed up. A few weeks later on Sept. 11 I got extremely drunk & for fun I threw a pool (billiard) ball off of a roof of a house at passing traffic on a busy street & I guess I have good aim because the pool ball busted right through the winshield of a Ford f-250 4x4 that unfortunately for me, some big 300 lb good ole boy from West Texas was driving! He proceeded to pummell me & I was knocked unconscious and went to the ER, where they found out my blood alcohol was 0.30 2 hours after I had gotten beaten up meaning I was probably hovering around 0.32-0.35 a few hours before- most people go into a coma at 0.40. Of course I don't really remember these things because I was blacked out at the time. I never again drank Alcohol or took Zoloft after that!They (my psychiatrist) thought from the above "drug induced mania" meant that I was bipolar II but that ended up being wrong since I never had mania when not taking anything or when drinking alcohol by itself & have no family history of mania. So it turns out I just have major depression w/ social phobia (that I self-medicated by binge drinking) & also ADD.
So I guess the moral is that alcohol & Zoloft potentiate each other, & so binge drinking alcohol & while on Zoloft is a disastrous combination. I've also heard that when you get drunk on the weekends while taking an SSRI that since alcohol is a depressant you often go back to square one depression so all the effects of the SSRI (Zoloft) therapy are negated & that this is the real reason, along with liability issues, that the SSRIs all say not to drink alcohol in the PDR. Since GHB has somewhat similar social disinhibition and depressant/sleep inducing qualities to alcohol (except for the dopamine rebound) I am guessing GHB & Zoloft would probably potentiate each other in a similar way to Zoloft & Alcohol. It is possible that you might fall asleep & never wake up. From stories i've heard, GHB is even more disinhibiting (provided you don't fall asleep/pass out) than alcohol & i'm guessing with an effective dose of Zoloft (75-100 mgs) you will probably end up doing something stupid & end up in jail or the hospital like I did. Remember that Zoloft usually takes about 3-4 weeks to work, with optimal response at 3 months so just because GHB & Zoloft don't combine effects at first, doesn't mean they won't interact in a big way a month from now. Also, Remeron & especially the benzos you take are also potentiating GHBs CNS depressant effects which could result in an accidental overdose. I wouldn't ever take Remeron, Klonopin, Xanax or other benzos before you take GHB ever.
How much Remeron are you taking? I've tried all the higher doses (45 & 60mg) and they all made me feel like crapola & unable to study or even get out of bed in the morning- I think its the way too strong antihistamine effect that Remeron has that lasts all night & most of the day. It's too bad because if Remeron had no anti-histamine effects it would be the perfect antidepressant with no side effects whatsoever except for weight gain. Last night I couldn't sleep, even after taking Sonata 10 mg so I took a 15 mg Remeron & felt terrible all day the next day- I even took 20 mgs of Dexedrine in the morning & 20 mg at 2 pm & that was not even powerful enough to overcome the crappy "took way too many benadryl" Remeron feeling. But many people get relief from Remeron so I may just be different. Remeron does block the bad serotonin receptors that Zoloft increases causing insomnia, sexual side effects, & nausea but leaves the anti-depressant, anti-anxiety 5-HTI & other good serotonin receptor increases intact. So evaluate how you feel with the Zoloft/Remeron combo- it might be a good idea to keep a log book/diary of how you feel each day or week to show your doctor.
My best advice, besides getting off the GHB, is that you should take some time to read through psychiatry studies/journals/ & books to find exactly how GHB works. Don't read the advice of some random internet site written by a some raver kid with no medical background, look for real medical studies. By knowing the exact psychopharmacology & proper dosing of GHB you might prevent a fatal overdose for you or someone you care about- like friends that may take GHB & combine it with alcohol or whatever is available without knowing the possibly fatal outcome of such a combination. You might try to find reputable GHB studies at PubMed which is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
Hopefully, after enough study, you might even realize that you don't like GHB anymore & are sick of it and then give Zoloft 75-100 mgs w/ daytime Klonopin the adequate trial (3 months) it deserves.
Unfortunately for me, I can't take Zoloft but I've found 1 mg of Klonopin at breakfast & 1 mg of Klonopin at lunch works good for both social phobia & general anxiety without much in the way of side effects or sleepiness. Klonopin is supposed to be the best social phobia medication, & although personally I think Zoloft is a better social phobia medication, the combination of these two socialbilizing medications should work great. Also benzos (like alcohol) selectively increase the ability of GABA-A (the good GABA) to bind to its receptor in the brain. GHB may act in a similar fashion by greatly increasing the amount of GABA available for use by the brain's GABA receptors but I think it may be nonselective in that it also increases GABA-B which is the "bad" GABA- that is why the medication Gabitril has not been a successful substitute for Benzos- it is not selective for GABA-A & so causes bizarre side effects stemming from GABA-B potentiation.
A good way to quit GHB might be to titrate your doses downward & then, like people who quit smoking, you will be less likely to relapse than if you quit cold turkey. Also, when alcoholic man or lab animals increase the level of serotonin via SSRIs, their usage of alcohol often drops dramatically (but of course the SSRIs take about a month to increase your serotonin to adequate levels). I don't know if GHBer man or lab animals decrease their GHB intake when their serotonin level rises but there may have been studies done on this.
If you find you are unable to titrate you might have to either go to rehab or use the 'method of substitution' to decrease your desire for GHB, similar to the way heroin addicts get off heroin via methadone. For a substitute you might do some research on the old muscle relaxant Baclofen (brand name Lioresal) that is like GHB in that it is an analogue of GABA & crosses the blood brain barrier (like GHB) to a certain extent. I don't know if GHB causes drunken-like discoordination but Baclofen will at the higher end of the dose range but without excessive sedation. Soma is much weaker & probaly wouldn't work for you as a GHB substitue, but oddly enough it is the main abused drug in this class (muscle relaxants). Neither are scheduled controlled medications in the US although they require a doctor's prescription. Gabitril is a GABA analogue that crosses the blood brain barrier but does cause weird side effects such as depersonalization in some.
Also see my post "2 ways of curing depressant addiction."
3 Beers--------
poster:3 Beer Effect
thread:104015
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020425/msgs/104177.html