Effects of Methadone With Alcohol

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's John Bosworth. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in Saint Pete, Florida. I'd like to speak about the effects of methadone with alcohol. Since both methadone and alcohol are central nervous system depressants, it would make sense that we would not want to take them in conjunction with each other for fear that the effects would exponentially increase the risk or the actual affect on the central nervous system. Research provided by the drug abuse warning network or DAWN, D A W N basically indicate that methadone abuse is probably in the top ten drug related problems or deaths in some of the major cities like Chicago, Phoenix, New Jersey, Detroit. And what we're seeing is that a lot of the effect of methadone or other opiates, because it's such a central nervous system depressant, if people drink with it they're concentration or ability to be aware of what they've taken or how much they've taken is probably impaired if they're also drinking with methadone the effects could be very much intensified actually leaving the person at great risk for cardiac problems or even death. What we really want to do is look at the major problems with methadone and alcohol are because alcohol is seen as kind of more of a social drug and if people are taking methadone as far as like in methadone maintenance program, they probably have more of a lax attitude toward it which is, well it's based on a prescription and you know, it's not going to hurt if I have a couple drinks with it or whatever. But we're really not sure what type of effect you know the central nervous system will be under if we mix the methadone with the alcohol. And a lot of treatment facilities report that methadone and alcohol are or definitely the mixture of them are one of the top, one of the top combinations of drugs that produces fatalities in emergency facilities. My name's John Bosworth and I'm speaking about the effects of methadone and alcohol."