# Cipralex and Alcohol - Side Effects ?? Understanding How I am Feeling



## c2understand (Jun 12, 2012)

Hello and thank you for taking a check out my problem/ concerns

I am a young adult who has a past of an addictive personality and with that found myself drinking and smoking a lot.
As I began to feel anxiety and felt like I was losing control of myself and the world around me. I was prescribed cipralex and as I had normal side effects it looked like a good fit for me (finally as I have tried previous antidepressants). 
My Problem is that I have decided to drink excessively and continually while taking my medication, and though I have gone back down to 10mg of cipralex (previously on 20 mg for approx 6 mnths). with that said I have been feeling terrible side effects of feeling *spacy, depressed, confused, sleepy and moody and now recently explosive with anger and impatient (recently- i am not sexually interested or want to be close to my partner). I am aware that I SHOULD NOT mix alcohol with my Cipralex as for myself it is just not a good mix emotionally. I just feel like I need to espress what I am going through so others could identify or pass on advice to me as I feel helpless and lost in my emotions. I am not planning on drinking anymore but its hard for me to cope alone as my doctor and psychologist can only give me the advice they know themselves. Any thoughts or recommendations would be great for me to get back on track and relieve my suffering mixed emotions.


its my 22nd bday today. its a happy day, though I wish i could figure these feelings out as it is such a terrible feeling to be going through by myself

Thank you! C


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

*Hi from Australia!*

Well Happy Birthday, to start with!

Secondly, Cipralex is called Lexapro here in Australia ( Escitalopram), and I've been taking it for about 4 years - on and off.

The moodiness and anger outbursts could be because you reduced the dose - you said you dropped back to 10 mg from 20? In my experience, that is enough to make you very irritable - my ex-wife never used to let me stop taking them at home as I used to get so cranky.

It's also well-known that they cause a reduction in sex drive. When I take them, I rarely even think about sex. I have done a bit of research recently ( and also I know from personal experience ) that the intensity of the sexual experience ( ie. when you reach orgasm) will aslo be decreased to some extent - this is apparently quite common with a range of anti-depressants. I know when I stop Lexapro ( Cipralex ) this is reversed pretty quickly.

These things can cause a range of side -effects - weight gain , indigestion, migraine, etc - I have been trying to get off them for a while now, and it's difficult. The side-effects, plus the withdrawal symptoms seem to vary from person to person , plus from time to time - my recent withdrawal symptoms have been much more severe than usual.

Hope this has helped at least a bit, Happy Birthday again to you,

Don.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

Hi again, I forgot about the alcohol part - sorry, but I can't really comment on that bit as I didn't really drink for the whole time I was taking them, I used to have a problem with that , so I stopped.


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## istayhome (Apr 4, 2012)

Happy Birthday!

I used to drink pretty heavily while on a variety of SSRI's and SNRI's. The medications were all pretty miserable for me so I quit taking them. Then I noticed that alcohol really caused me to have rapid mood swings and generally just be more depressed, anxious and less aware. So I quit drinking and it has made things much better.

It seems like alcohol was just a way to make the time go by quicker while I was miserable but it just caused a whole host of problems. It's definitely worth giving up the booze for 30 days and seeing how you feel. It might help a lot. Good luck, I hope you start feeling better regardless.


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## CD700 (Apr 22, 2010)

istayhome said:


> Happy Birthday!
> 
> I used to drink pretty heavily while on a variety of SSRI's and SNRI's. The medications were all pretty miserable for me so I quit taking them. Then I noticed that alcohol really caused me to have rapid mood swings and generally just be more depressed, anxious and less aware. So I quit drinking and it has made things much better.
> 
> It seems like alcohol was just a way to make the time go by quicker while I was miserable but it just caused a whole host of problems. It's definitely worth giving up the booze for 30 days and seeing how you feel. It might help a lot. Good luck, I hope you start feeling better regardless.


I used to drink (get drunk) on all the medications I have tried and I wonder if that's why none of them ever did anything...
I stopped drinking two weeks ago and started Parnate one week ago so I guess I will find out. What I wanted to ask you was since you stopped drinking, when did you start feeling better ?
I think I feel almost worse because I don't have the option of alcohol to get relief...


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## c2understand (Jun 12, 2012)

Thank you for the bday wishes  appreciate that. I think i should definately stop drinking altogether .. as cipralex is my main priority and will hopefully start working as it should with no alcohol in my system from this point on. thanks for the response, i have never used a social site like this but its comforting to talk to others who are/have been in a similar situation. I actually just took a .5 of a lorazapam and i feel a bit less anxious and panicky.. as my brother said it (fear of something bad happening). 

thanks and ill update soon~!


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## Inshallah (May 11, 2011)

You need to quit the alcohol asap. It causes depression and anxiety even for non-prone people and is probably nullifying your Cipralex, depending on how much and how often you are drinking.

Alcohol is total ****!


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## istayhome (Apr 4, 2012)

blakeyz said:


> I used to drink (get drunk) on all the medications I have tried and I wonder if that's why none of them ever did anything...
> I stopped drinking two weeks ago and started Parnate one week ago so I guess I will find out. What I wanted to ask you was since you stopped drinking, when did you start feeling better ?
> I think I feel almost worse because I don't have the option of alcohol to get relief...


I think I started feeling better within a week. It's like quitting anything, at first it's uncomfortable but once I got used to life without drinking I noticed all the negative effects that drinking had caused went away and I felt a lot better.

I have quit drinking many times in the past for different reasons so it's never seemed like a daunting task to me. Also I had realized that drinking was really causing me to have bad moods, so it was a relief to give it up. I guess for people that really like to drink it would be a tougher experience. For me it was just a matter of changing a habit that I recognized wasn't helping me at the time.


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## Boomstick (May 19, 2012)

Inshallah said:


> You need to quit the alcohol asap. It causes depression and anxiety even for non-prone people and is probably nullifying your Cipralex, depending on how much and how often you are drinking.
> 
> Alcohol is total ****!


This^^^

I've drank heavily on all medication I've tried from ssri's to anti psys and since having a bad episode on my last binge I've decided to cut it out all together while taking medication and man what a hell of a difference it makes.

I realised I was drinking just to numb the side effects of the drugs so I would drink for days and days,noon till night or till I passed out and it's just made me 10 times worse in the long run.

Cut out the ale till at least you have given any medication a good run.


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## silver03 (Oct 24, 2012)

Hi, 
I see that these post were a while ago but I was just looking through google to see more info on my meds im taking and came across this. I had a drinking problem over the past years that lead me into a lot of mistakes and big problems that I could no longer control. I was dosed with Cipralex about 3 years ago. I'm now 23 years old and I'm now on more then just Cipralex , I had problems with not only anxiety but bad mood swings to emotional out breaks and very depressed from a lot going on in my life. I saw no difference in just being on the cipralex I was past to many different doctors to different doses. I couldn't take much more of it so I turned to drinking and the whole party vibe which made my systems worse from mixing them. I used drinking for my problems and trying to use it to dose myself thinking it would take me out of reality. Which yes it did but in the worse ways because I was also dosing myself with drinking etc. with the meds I was taking. It lead me down a scary road when I became unable to think straight, I went into my own world of not caring about anything or anyone. I lost friends and hurt many family members from being selfish and dragging myself down with depression and mix feelings. I tried to talk to a social worker but I didn't care for what they had to say or didn't want them to know what was going on in my life they would have no clue or understand how i felt. So i let the drinking and mix doses drag me down to being in a car accident and almost dying and being kidnapped and sexually assaulted, dropping out of college, to being so emotionally wreaked wanting to end my life. I let it keep going and dragging me to hell until I found myself sitting in a jail because of making the stupid choices i made because of drinking and not getting help for all Ive been through. I only was there from 2 nights but that was enough to snap me into reality that this was where my life was heading too and to hear my family cry and to see how i disppointed them. It made me feel even worse because I let myself down and everyone who believed in me. I then turned to help and it took a while to break me. I went to rehab and cleaned myself out and met people with the same problems in life and i could get a long and open up to who understood me and to just hear them out and to talk about my problems and how i felt made a huge difference in my life and to feel the change over the weeks of opening up and learning to deal with my life issues and clean myself out and give myself a reality check. I made the best choices but getting help before it was to late. I'm a very lucky person to this day. I was sober for 6 months after and went to meetings and saw a social counselor often and kept in touch with people who were like me and could talk too. I turned my life around from just dealing with my issues and coming to terms with everything that had happened to me. I was no longer an emotional person. I was happy and understood life and finally felt like a normal person. After my 6 months of being sober I did start to have a few glasses of wine here and there and was able to enjoy it and not let anything get out of control I could handle the drinking again but only so much. I still to this day have my glasses of wine and i'm okay now that ive emotionally dealt with my problems and have been dosed on the right meds and let them settle in and do its work. It doesn't just work like a magic pill though you have to do a lot more work for it to work. I had to learn to deal with my problems and when something were to happen how would i deal with it. I saw help on a regular bases and still do to this day and I also got an interest in psychology and learned a lot more that help me to my everyday life and I read self well book which make me feel amazing after reading them and they help with you everyday life. I now went back to school to improve my grades and applied to social work in college and got an early acceptance and will be atteding in jan. I want to help other who been through the same things as myself and who need someone to understand and take advice from. I know how bad things can get and I want to help anyone who is in need for help because its scary and lonely out there if you don't have that help you need.


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## istayhome (Apr 4, 2012)

^^^^sorry but I can't read the above. It's a huge blob of never ending lines, no paragraphs, I wish I could read it all and reply but that text is just too much for me.

Regardless, hello thanks adding to te discussion I hope things get better f they're bad, good job if you've overcome some obstacles and I'm really sorry that things suck if you are having any problems. Best of luck to you.


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## RNWB (Nov 22, 2012)

I know a lot of these posts are quite old, but I thought my recent issues might be of some comfort/help to others in the same/similar predicament.

I got put on cipralex 6 months ago, being on 20mg for the last 4 and a half months. I initially didn't drink for the first 2 months and felt a lot better than I did prior to being on the medication. I started to feel better and so started to have one or two drinks...after a couple of weeks it was more than that, and then after a month or so, it was looking for any excuse to drink at any time, to the point that I would go to the pub on my own if no one would come with me, sit at home drinking alone on a regular basis and drinking excessively every day.

I began to get into a real state, lower than I was when I first went on the medication, felt completely worthless, like I didn't deserve anyone or anything and was having thoughts which terrified me. I felt totally detached from everyone, confused about everything and just hated myself, I really didn't care about anything or anyone during this time. 

I ended up pushing my girlfriend away from me and in the end she just couldn't deal with me anymore and we broke up. I then went on a 24 hour bender and then it all came crashing down on me. I broke, spent the next 24 hours crying and unable to contemplate anything that had happened and saw no way out, like I had ruined my life.

I know a lot of the above might sound ridiculous, but I really can't explain enough with the benefit of hindsight, how much the drinking on cipralex effected me. I made the decision to quit drinking immediately after this happened. It's now been 2 weeks without a drop, and whilst I have some pretty insane cravings, I have never felt more like my old self. I am no longer confused, I don't feel even remotely as detached as I used to, and most importantly, I am happy and see everything a lot more clearly than I did when I was drinking.

My doctor told me I could have "1 or 2 drinks" whilst on Cipralex, however I think this just opens the flood gates to a pretty dark and confusing time, as if you are a depressed person, you are looking for ways to mask your unhappiness and alcohol becomes a good one. I would suggest to anyone on cipralex that they completely avoid drinking alcohol.

Hope that helps in some way.


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## c2understand (Jun 12, 2012)

Hey again,

It's nice to see that others have similar feelings and thoughts when dealing with an anti depressant (anxiety) medication whether it be Cipralex or a different type of drug. Since my last post .. on my birthday, yuck- I have been doing better here and there but I do know I have a way to go yet.
About 4 months ago i had visited my psychologist in order to discuss decreasing my dose of Cipralex (that I still currently take) to .5 from 10.. the transition was fine though I have struggled with not taking my dose at a regular time, (skip it for 2 days, then take it normally).
With the irregular times I chose to take my Cipralex.. I was also drinking on top of that, sometimes more heavily depending on the day. I know I need to keep a regular balance, but wow it's a struggle.. being a college student and all.. and wanting to live a normal healthy drug free life. 
More than anything I am struggling to socially drink when I want, while keeping a low dosage of cipralex. 
I guess somethings gotta give.. because man I am a feeling the withdrawal now a days. I feel like I am coming out of my skin and a congestion feeling in my head. Not to mention the super impatient moments and bursts of anger.
Common sense to do one or the other eh? (drink & meds) i hope I can get through these withdrawal symptoms smoothly and truly make some good change (hopefully without meds to support me) 
Will update soon.. hope everyone is doing well! It's nice to blog with others and I would love to help others in any way I can too! Talking about it is the first step 

C


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## SirDurden (Apr 6, 2013)

I have been on the medicine about two months now, and I feel better than I have ever done before in my life. I can go out an socialize with people, with of without alcohol. 

I know that two months might not seem as a long time, but I like to take a drink now and then, and at first I felt the same way... I blacked out and I could not talk nor remember anyone. But now as I have evolved and I have learned more about myself, this feels fine. I react stronger and faster to alcohol and therefore I drink less. I haven't felt this good as in, EVER. So It's perfectly fine to have a drink or 7 with cipralex, as long as you know your boundaries. 

Take it slow, enjoy life and let it affect you. For me this medicine has been a lifechanger. I'm so glad and I even enjoy my crappy job.


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