Benzos and alcohol are a deadly cocktail that heightens one another’s effects. Get immediate help if you have consumed drugs and alcohol within proximity. For the many who have difficulty controlling their alcohol or drug use habits, you’ve come to the right place. We have all the crucial information about benzos and alcohol addiction rehab right here. Observing and acting upon the information below could mean the difference between life and death for you or a loved one.
Why Mixing Benzos and Alcohol is Dangerous
Mixing any drug with alcohol is harmful and potentially fatal. However, it is even more so the case when highly potent benzos are involved. Here are specific reasons why combining alcohol and benzos is extremely hazardous.
Mixing the Two Exacerbates Drug Potency
Alcohol’s interaction with the central nervous system has compounding effects on your body when benzos are involved. That is to say, alcohol alone is a central nervous system depressant. Adding benzos, another depressant on the central nervous system, compounds these effects to lethal degrees. Even if only trace amounts of benzos are taken, infusing alcohol into the mix heightens benzos’ effects to potentially lethal degrees.
Overdose Capabilities
Regardless of how little your dose of benzodiazepine may be, drinking in conjunction with drug use means potential overdose capabilities. That’s because once alcohol interacts with your central nervous system, the presence of benzos heightens the effects of both. This means your body can experience an overload of central nervous system depressants to the point of shutting down. Once this occurs, the only thing that can save you is swift and immediate medical attention.
Breathing Cessation Possibilities
The central nervous system is the primary component of breathing regulation. Therefore, when two depressants of the nervous system are combined, it can slow breathing to life-threatening levels. This means you can forget to breathe, be unable to breathe, or suffocate in your sleep. This is a disturbing reality that has befallen many who infuse their alcohol and benzodiazepine addictions together.
Unknown Preexisting Potency
In cases of synthetically made benzos, these potency factors are unknown even to the creator. This makes mixing any man-made benzo concoctions with alcohol a dangerous cocktail. These potency unknowns are dangerous enough when used alone. When used with alcohol, it exacerbates these potency factors.
Warning Signs of Polysubstance Abuse
Unfortunately, many have addictions to multiple substances, which produce several telling behavioral indicators. Get yourself or a loved one the help necessary if you notice any of the following signs of polysubstance abuse. Please note that the warning signs listed below are drastically variable depending on the combined substances.
Circumstantial Detachment
This type of oblivious behavior is a sure sign of polysubstance abuse due to the extent of bodily toxicity being exemplified. Circumstantial detachment refers to an individual who is unaware or oblivious to their surroundings. This includes being unaware of people, objects, buildings, or social circumstances. Such circumstantial detachment poses a danger to the user and any within proximity of them.
Extreme Energy
Excessive energy, accelerated speech, and other similarly extreme behaviors are an indication of multiple drugs being involved. Anyone portraying this symptom will often speak or act before thinking, putting their and others’ well-being at risk. Even worse, the person’s life may be in danger of overdosing and not even know it. Get your loved one the help they need immediately upon observing this key polysubstance abuse indicator.
Depleted Finances
Funding one substance abuse habit takes enough of a toll. Funding multiple substance abuse problems will reflect itself even more noticeably in utter financial instability and ruin. If someone you know is struggling to pay important bills and other financial obligations, there may be a much more profound underlying issue. If left untreated, these serious financial deficiencies will lead to loss of possessions, including your home.
Excessive Sleep
Combining multiple depressive substances like benzos and alcohol will induce deep, excessive sleep patterns. This includes extreme lethargy after the fact, when your body experiences the drug crash when the effects wear off. These extended sleep periods can last hours or even days, depending on the amount and type of drug consumed.
Insomnia
In cases where stimulants are involved, they will have adverse effects when under the influence. This results in an accelerated heart rate and high blood pressure that keep you up throughout the night. Over time, these compounding strains can lead to a variety of permanent mental and physical health problems. Seek help for addiction now to prevent further damage to your mind and body.
Profuse Sweating
When your body works overtime to keep up with processing drug intake, it results in profuse cold or hot sweats. This is not only a red flag of polysubstance abuse, but it an early sign of an impending drug overdose. Know the early signs of a potential drug overdose and contact the appropriate authorities to get immediate medical help.
Long-Term Health Risks of Mixing Alcohol and Benzos
Each time you mix the two is the equivalent of flipping a coin with your life every time. Yet, even if you happen to survive multiple instances of combining benzos and alcohol, it’s not without consequences. Bearing that in mind, here are the long-term health repercussions of prolonged alcohol and benzo use.
- Cardiovascular Problems: The compounding toll of both substances has irreversible effects on your cardiovascular system. These health consequences consist of, but are not limited to, heart disease, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, and other heart-related conditions. Once acquired, there’s no going back. However, you can manage your current conditions through medication-assisted treatment.
- Mental Health Conditions: The frequent combination of benzos and alcohol is fatally damaging to your neurochemical frequencies. These persistent manipulations of your chemical imbalances eventually lead to permanent neuronal deficiencies, inflicting permanent mental health problems.
- Permanent Memory Loss: Studies indicate a link between permanent memory loss problems and substance abuse. This includes potential ties to memory conditions like Dementia and Alzheimer’s later in life.
- Muscular Myopathy: Alcohol is known as a primary contributor to muscular myopathy, a disease characterized by permanent muscle damage. These damages result in permanent muscle loss, reduce muscle regeneration and growth, while inflicting muscle weakness. Further studies conclude that adding benzos to the mix can potentially accelerate muscular deficiencies like muscular myopathy.
- Stomach Problems: Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and other stomach problems are associated with prolonged alcohol and benzodiazepine abuse. This includes an increased risk of developing a variety of stomach cancers in or around your digestive tract.
- Organ Damage: Permanent damage to vital organs like the liver, kidneys, and pancreas can result from prolonged drug and alcohol use. Specific examples of health problems linked to these organs are kidney and liver diseases, or deficiencies in chemical production functions.
Treatment Options for Alcohol and Benzodiazepine Abuse
Several personalized treatment options can help you singularly or simultaneously deal with coinciding alcohol and benzodiazepine addiction. Here are just a few of the many more options our treatment assessment team will place you in based on personalized analysis.
Dual-Diagnosis Treatment
Nothing combats coexisting addiction battles better than our comprehensive dual-diagnosis therapy programs. These sessions are geared specifically towards resolving people with multiple addiction disorders. Please note, you cannot enroll in this type of treatment without a medical diagnosis. If your addiction battles remain undiagnosed, seek professional diagnosis to see if dual-diagnosis treatment is right for you.
EMDR Therapy
EMDR, short for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is a unique yet highly effective treatment that is sweeping the nation. This deals with medical breakthroughs that have found a sure link between traumatic memories, addiction cravings, and eye movement patterns. Put simply, these eye movements directly affect regions of the brain controlling recollection, desire, and how you process them. For addiction, scientists and highly trained therapists can manipulate these eye patterns to remove and replace addiction cravings. This is not too good to be true. It works by undergoing specialized training.
Personal Counseling
Our personal counseling treatment sessions are our advanced approach to individual therapy. These programs provide the highest grade of therapeutic attentiveness, confidentiality, and personalized effectiveness to conquer your addictions head-on. As is the case with all our programs, our superior treatment model is expressed through these problem-solving-focused sessions. We listen, we empathize, and we provide individually implementable solutions based on our professional assessments and observations.
Family Programs
Our mission statement stresses the importance of togetherness and the family being an integral part of the rehab process. That’s because there’s no better support group to have than your closest loved ones. We know that families that recover together, stay together, and strengthen their bonds together when striving towards a common goal. Strengthen yourself and your family unit by speaking to our empathetic representatives about family therapy today.
Holistic Treatment
Holistic practices include meditation, yoga, and other similar meditative-based protocols to treat addiction. This is especially effective for substance use disorders, considering the source of many addictions stems from anxiety, stress, or mental health struggles. This is where holistic treatment thrives, helping you naturally manage your stressors and anxieties without turning to substance abuse.
Agape Can Help You Heal from Addiction
It’s amazing what a single call will do to alleviate your addiction and mental health burdens. That’s exactly what you’ll feel the moment you contact our care team. Your journey to true healing begins the moment you reach out to us. We’re longing to show you just how green the grass is on the other side of your addiction battles.
Stephanie Robilio is an accomplished Clinical Director at Agape Behavioral Healthcare. With a Master of Social Work degree, LCSW license, and extensive training in Rapid Resolution Therapy under her belt, she brings a wealth of expertise to her role. Her unique combination of education and experience allows her to provide exceptional care to clients and lead her team with confidence. Stephanie’s joy comes from witnessing the moments when her patients creatively connect the dots and bravely move toward reclaiming their power. Her purpose is to help individuals understand their past so they can create a future full of hope, growth, and success. Stephanie attributes a large portion of her success to the supportive culture and strong sense of community fostered by the Agape team.
