Wellbutrin mixed with alcohol

The Doctor is correct and has advised you well.

Great advice from all.

Remember, Depressant vs. The AntiDepressant, counter productive.

Its hard to tell if you are self-medicating using alcohol for your symptoms cuz you are after all a college student. Lots of alcoholics get started that way, its the only way they can escape the crummy way they are feeling. You would be wise to cut back on the beer. It isn't "just" beer. Great idea saying, go on you, have a beer for me why don't you.

When the Wellbutrin has a chance to work, it may seem worth the price of giving up drinking.

Good luck to you !

John -
This is info that you have been given from people with a LOT of experience. Just to remind you: (Please don't take it lightly)

"I have seen people try mixing the two & insist that the advice they got can't possibly be right. Then they get angry that their depression never improves."

"The receptors that the Wellbutrin are trying to build up, the alcohol just cuts them off."

"Remember: Depressant vs. The AntiDepressant"

Not a scare tactic. Just solid advice to help you get better. What you want, right?

In your best interests,
Sandy

Bipolar II
Severe depression

Hi John,
If you're really concerned that your doctor is giving you inaccurate information, really your best bet is to talk to another doctor. All we can share here is our own experiences.

But alcohol does bind with NMDA and GABA receptors. It latches on much more tightly when higher doses are administered all at once. So let's start with the GABA. Depressed individuals already have less GABA in their system. Then you mix in alcohol & it binds with the receptor & prohibits the release of GABA. In the short term, the alcohol can make you feel less stressed but with increased amounts, after each drinking session some of those receptors permanently fail. So after the alcohol is out of your system, the "benefit" goes away but the damage is done & you remain permanently less able to transmit the neurochemicals that can make you feel happy/excited. Wellbutrin is an activiating anti-depressant. It's job is to try to "excite" some of those receptors. When there are fewer & fewer receptors, that is harder & harder to do. NDMA helps us deal with stress & still feel happy. The most cutting edge treatments out there (still experimental) focus on activating those receptors. Wellbutrin doesn't actually seem to act on NDMA receptors, but the fact that they also are damaged by alcohol means that the Wellbutrin needs to work twice as hard.

None of those effects are really ideal for anyone, but for someone already struggling with depression, alcohol can be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" so to speak. No, you're not likely to see any earth-shattering side effects from combining to two; it just seems kinda pointless to take the Wellbutrin if you're going to be drinking a few times a week. Kinda like the former co-worker I knew who was maybe 300 pounds overweight. For lunch he would have 3 Big Macs, 2 large fries, 3 apple pies and a large Diet Coke. Can Diet Coke help you lose weight? sure. But you can't be downing 5000 calorie meals and then wonder why the Diet Coke isn't making a difference.

Depression & drinking are kinda like that. You are staring off with a health condition -- your neurotransmitters are not getting to the right places in the right amounts. Would having 1-2 drinks once a month make a difference? No, not really. Just like if you eat a couple Big Macs once a month it's not going to totally derail a diet. But when you're already at a disadvantage & then go damaging the very receptors that the Wellbutrin is trying to get working again, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Is it possible that the Wellbutrin still might make a tiny sliver of difference in your particular case even with the drinking? Yeah, maybe. Did the Diet Coke maybe keep my colleague from getting even more severely obsese? Yeah, maybe. But do you really want to get hung up on whether she should have told you that you have a 99% probability of ruining any chance of the Wellbutrin working vs. telling you that you have a 100% probability?

There's a lot of research showing the impact. There's not really any reason to believe that you will be the special case who can mix Wellbutrin & alcohol and still get all (or even most of) the benefits of the medication. I truly mean it when I say that I know a lot of people who have all kinds of regrets about fun that they missed out on in college [mostly things I can't post here on the forum] but I've yet to meet a single person who says they gave up drinking for part or all of college & feel like they've missed out. The fun is in the parties, the crazy games (other than the drinking games), relaxed people, ridiculous stories to tell for days & years to come... it really isn't in the drinking. And I don't know what year you're in, but if you're not a senior, there's no reason to believe that you couldn't lick this depression, go off the medication & then be able to participate in some of the drinking again.

Hope that helps. I'll shut up now. ;)
frances

I guess I wonder what kind of friends you have that would not understand that you just don't feel like drinking anymore. What's more important - your health or looking cool? Please take care of yourself - and yes, I'm a mother.

Hey John,

We wish you the best and hope you can come to terms with making a decision on to drink or not to drink? I think we have advised you well and I do understand your  wanting to drink to relax and have fun.  It is your choice, my friend, which road to take.

Sincerely,

Kitt

 

Hi,
If you think that your depression is related to not feeling like you've done enough with your life so far, why not start doing something with it? I can't relate to feeling the way you do when I was in college but I got very ill & needed a lot of surgeries and had to quit my job teaching to save my life. But lately I was really struggling with what the point of getting well was. I went to a counselor & she reminded me of a book I had read back while at university called "The Night is Dark and I am Far from Home" by Jonathan Kozel. His view on depression (and I point out that he is a sociologist, not a psychologist) is that it exists b/c we are not acting on what is upsetting/compelling in our world. His advice, in a nutshell, is that if a precocious young child is depressed about wars & injustice & the rough things in the world, that parents should not spend thousands of dollars on counseling trying to convince the child not to worry about those things but that instead they should help the child figure out how to contribute to the solution.

So I suppose it's possible without knowing your situation that maybe you don't need medication at all. Maybe you just need to figure out how to take action on the things in the world that bother you. For me, those things are immigrants, urban education, diversity & child welfare. If you already know what issues matter to you, try volunteering. If you don't know, maybe some introspection and/or counseling are warranted.

Not everybody needs medication. And medication is almost never the total answer. In 90-some % of the cases, there is a psychological component as well that needs to be addressed. The important thing is that you realize you can't keep on the way you have been living your life. Change is so hard but it gives us a chance to escape to something much better than where we were. Sometimes medication can be an important piece of getting there -- giving us a running start. But if it's not for you, there are a lot of other therapies & self-help strategies that you can try.

best wishes,
frances