Table of Contents
There are some people out there who mix Benadryl and alcohol for a lot of reasons. Maybe they might be wanting to reduce some of the hangover symptoms like coughing that they might feel later but doing that is not going to help them. Instead, it might even be counter-productive.
When you mix Benadryl and Alcohol, you might feel a lot of side effects later, and hence, mixing them is very risky. A lot of people even use abuse Benadryl because it makes some people feel dizzy and they feel like it can be a cheap substitute for alcohol but they can’t be further away from the truth.
In this article, I will discuss why taking Benadryl and Alcohol together is a bad idea, what doing that can do to your body, and all the risks it poses, and the side effects it can cause to you. It is a rather simple thing and nothing complicated, so you will easily get what I am about to tell you. So read ahead and find out.
What is Benadryl?
I am sure you know what Benadryl is already but I feel it is my duty to inform you in case you might not know. Benadryl, despite the common belief, is not a medicine but rather a brand. This brand makes an antihistamine that is called diphenhydramine which helps people with a lot of things.
Benadryl helps you with a lot of symptoms of a lot of allergies. These things include rashes, coughs, irritated eyes, throat, nose, etc. Benadryl is not a medicine that acts on the liver but it rather affects the Central nervous system.
Benadryl actually depresses the Central nervous system. Depressing the CNS is something that both Benadryl and alcohol do. You must be wondering why this information is relevant in this article. You will find out soon enough.
Like I said, mixing Benadryl and alcohol is not a good idea and the reason behind that is that they are both Central Nervous system depressants, and hence, consuming them together can have severe side effects on your CNS and the result wouldn’t be pretty.
Why Do People Misuse Benadryl?
Some people use Benadryl to help them sleep because it causes some dizziness or drowsiness in people. As I said, Benadryl is actually diphenhydramine and the generic form of diphenhydramine is often recommended to be used as a sleeping aid.
The same can be said for alcohol as people believe it makes them sleep faster or better because it makes them drowsy. So if you think that if you take Benadryl and alcohol together, you will fall asleep quickly then you are on a very wrong path.
If you consume Benadryl and alcohol together, it might have the complete opposite effect than what you had intended. Taking them together will make you feel dizzy and that will just prevent you from falling asleep quickly.
Taking Benadryl and alcohol together can have adverse side effects and sometimes some people might even get addicted to Benadryl and start misusing it. This is rare but it does happen.
Benadryl should only be used as a treatment for simple allergy symptoms like coughs and rashes. If you use Benadryl with another thing that is supposed to aid your sleeping, then that might have adverse effects as well. So be advised and do not abuse Benadryl.
Reasons You Should Not Take Benadryl And Alcohol Together
If the simple reason of not taking Benadryl and alcohol together that I gave you above did not deter you, then here are more reasons why you should not be consuming them with each other.
It Causes Severe Drowsiness
Like I explained already if you take Benadryl and alcohol, you will feel very drowsy. Sedation is a common thing when it comes to alcohol or Benadryl alone. These things disrupt your body coordination and the reaction time of your brain is reduced.
When you take Benadryl and alcohol together, all those above things get a lot worse. The side effects might increase in intensity. When that happens, it could even pose a danger to your life. When you have consumed Benadryl or alcohol, you shouldn’t be doing things like driving because accidents might happen.
You Can Lose Consciousness
Some people get easily drunk and for them, if they mix Benadryl with alcohol, the sedation level for them might be so high that they could lose consciousness. Hence, they should never be consumed together if you are doing some work that requires your complete awareness.
If you do not know how badly your body might react to consuming these things together then it increases the risk of accidents happening and you could just fall over and lose consciousness while in the middle of doing a task.
Interference With Other Medication
You must have heard about when people take certain different types of medicines together, they interact with each other and cause issues. The same goes for mixing Benadryl and alcohol together.
Even just taking Benadryl with other medicines can have side effects. When you mix Benadryl and alcohol together, they could interact with medications like stomach ulcer medicines, cough/ cold medicine, other antihistamines, diazepam, antidepressants, and other sedatives.
So if you do not want side effects like a bad stomach or vomiting, then you should refrain from mixing these two substances together and abusing them.
Loss Of Memory
Like I said, Benadryl and alcohol consumption affect your central nervous system. You must also know that Benadryl blocks the neurotransmitter that is known as acetylcholine. This acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter that is responsible for learning and your memory.
So if you consume Benadryl, it will block these neurotransmitters and that will impair your ability to learn and memorize things. You must know that alcohol is something that makes it difficult for you to remember things while you are drunk.
Hence when you mix Benadryl with alcohol, you get a disastrous mixture that can have even more severe effects on your learning ability as well as memory.
Dehydration
Dehydration is one of the minor side effects of Benadryl. You ought to know that alcohol consumption makes you thirsty as well. So when you mix Benadryl and alcohol, your risk of getting dehydrated will be increased tenfold.
When you get dehydrated, you might start feeling weak and it will cause you a lot of discomforts. Your hangover will also get worse after that.
Affects Old People A Lot
Like with a lot of other things, consuming Benadryl and alcohol together will have a lot of severe side effects on older adults as well. When people get old, their body’s ability to break down alcohol decreases by a lot.
That is the reason alcohol stays in the body of an old person much longer than in a young person. If you consume Benadryl with alcohol, the process of alcohol breakdown slows down even more. Taking them together will cause problems with motor skills because of sedation and they will obviously feel a lot more dizzy.
There Are Different Sources Of Alcohol
If you think that you can be saved from having all the issues that consuming Benadryl and alcohol together will create by just not drinking an alcoholic drink, well, you are wrong. The reason behind that is that a lot of other things contain alcohol as well.
There are a lot of medicines that contain alcohol. These medicines include cough syrups, laxatives, etc. All these medicines can have up to 10% of alcohol in them and if you take Benadryl with them, well, we are already talking about all the problems it will cause.
So make sure that whatever medicine you are taking does not have any amount of alcohol content in it.
Women, Beware
No, I am not a sexist, I am saying that women should be especially careful of consuming Benadryl and alcohol because women have less water content in their bodies than males and hence, the dilution level of alcohol is less in women than in men.
What this means is that women will have more concentration of alcohol present in them than men when you talk about the whole liquid content in the body and that will cause the alcohol to behave a bit more strongly for them.
So when women mix Benadryl with alcohol and consume it, all the side effects are much worse for them. Honestly, is there anything that is not worse than men for us women?
Dementia
If you have been consuming Benadryl with alcohol a lot then there is a greater risk of dementia for you. Consuming alcohol or Benadryl even separately for a long period will have dementia risks but if you mix them, the risk becomes a lot much worse.
Substance Misuse
As I already mentioned, some people might be using both Benadryl and alcohol as a source of sleeping aid and hence might even start abusing it. I have already said that doing so will cause a lot of problems for you, so you should absolutely refrain from doing that.
Closure
Benadryl and alcohol do not go well together. Alcohol on its own causes a lot of problems for everyone and a lot of deaths too. When you mix Benadryl with alcohol, nothing good can come out of it.
So if you want to remain safe and healthy, never consider consuming these two things together. Because if you do, then God save you from the consequences. So, that was all about alcohol and Benadryl mixing together.
If you think that I may have missed out o some point or if you have any suggestions, do mention them in the comments section.
Till then, Stay Healthy!
