Why cant you drink whilst taking antideps? What am I doing to myself?

[piscesgirl]

Have been taking my antidepressants (venlofaxine) for PND. Have been on them for bout 5 months now and have started having the odd glass of wine which has turned into the odd bottle of wine. Does anyone know if the alchol stops the antideps from working properly as have been feeling quite desolate again. Or maybe someone else has experienced mixing the two. Will go to the doctors at some point but just thought I would post on MN for any others experiences.

i have taken ad's a few times and found they didnt work atall when i was also drinking.the only time they've worked for me is during pregnancy when ive not had any alcohol.and i did go through a stage of drinking a bottle of wine a night at one point.

whether alcohol is a complete no no in moderation depends on exactly which AD you are taking - IIRC for a few of the older ones you shouldn't drink any as there could be a very bad interreaction. In general, alcohol is a huge depressant, so it sort of defeats the point of being on ADs if you regularly drink other than very moderately. Also some people can get bad reactions mixing alcohol and ADs -e.g a MNetters husband last year had a bit of a memory blackout after a few glasses of wine and got caught driving his car after his works Xmas do (he had meant to stay overnight at the hotel)., resulting in a lost licence.

they stop the andi d's working properly, as alcohol is a depressant.

I'm on venlafaxine and had a glass of wine the other day for the first time in a long time.

It just gave me a sore head.

Just logged on to see lots of replies. Thanks everyone I guess the general consensus is that the drink counteracts the effect of the drugs so I need to abstain ! Will try and do so but so hard when spent nearly three years not drinking (2 babies and 2 lots of breastfeeding close together!) and sometimes just want to let my hair down! I will have to find something else to do !