Posted on 10/27/2017 10:45:49 AM PDT by ColdOne
“could it be particularly dangerous to take opioids, drink alcohol...then go to sleep?”
I am not a doctor, but if you read my other post in this thread, you’ll see I have some, uh, experience with this :-). I’m sure the doctor can explain the mechanism far better and more eloquently than I can :-).
Yes, it can be very dangerous. Prescription pain killers typically contain acetaminophen ... taken in smaller, controlled doses, it doesn’t cause damage and helps relieve pain. It does impact liver function though.
As we know, alcohol also impacts the liver ... taken in moderation, you’re fine ... abuse it, and your liver takes the brunt of the damage.
So, yes, mixing opioids and alcohol, assuming larger quantities, can cause the liver and/or kidneys to go into failure leading to death. It could happen even if you’re clean otherwise and decide to pop a few pills ... once your kidneys and liver get out of whack, the vicious cycle can cause you to go into failure and kill you.
What makes it crazier is that if the victim enters failure, the symptoms almost make it appear as if the person is kind of drunk (this is due to the toxic buildups since your body’s filters aren’t working) ... that’s why sleeping it off usually results in death.
Mr. Bolling’s son from what I read was in a fraternity at a university in Colorado. Many fraternities these days are havens for alcoholism and drug abuse. I unfortunately think that this kid knew exactly what he was doing, and Eric Bolling had no idea how dangerous a place his son was at living in that fraternity. A local girl recently came back from college in Colorado to warn current high school students in our town about the rampant and out of control drug use on college campuses. My daughter is a freshman at IU, she stays away from the party scene and states that she hears the ambulance sirens on campus all weekend long. Want to know where the opiod and drug use problem is...our nations colleges... they aren’t just smoking weed and doing keg stands anymore.
Yes it is a lie. I am married to a physician and can also tell you as a patient with back pain, I never asked for opioids, nor was I offered any. The opiod crisis if anything has made it harder for people with legitimate pain to get medication to help.
Around here it is known that high school students raid their parents medicine cupboards for whatever they can find. So typically a parent gets prescribed a medication for a legitimate problem and they take 1 or 2 of the 5 or 6 tablets prescribed to them and their teenager raids the cupboard and the parent is none the wiser. These same kids then all attend parties where fish bowls are filled with prescription pills and street drugs and kids reach in and scoop out pills without even knowing what they are taking...great fun.. God help us.
While I’m sure there are some innocent victims , most are not. My wife and I both were involved with adult probation....I assure you they were neither innocent nor victims! Some were predators!!!
I remember Eric Bolling showing pictures of him with his son when he was starting college....so sad!!
What,the son didn’t do the posts.
I just wanted toc clarify, I was never a druggie, but I was known to occasionally have a glass of wine or have spirits ; )
Oh, baloney! Nearly ALL opioid pain medications are generic. It is extremely rare for a doctor to get a kickback from a generic drug manufacturer. The doctor involved in the fentanyl scam was prescribing a brand name product. Generic drugs that have been on the market for years are usually inexpensive. And as an RN, I’ve rarely seen doctors insist on brand name prescriptions for their patients, the rare exception being some neurological meds.
Oh, baloney! Nearly ALL opioid pain medications are generic. It is extremely rare for a doctor to get a kickback from a generic drug manufacturer. The doctor involved in the fentanyl scam was prescribing a brand name product. Generic drugs that have been on the market for years are usually inexpensive. And as an RN, I’ve rarely seen doctors insist on brand name prescriptions for their patients, the rare exception being some neurological meds.
>>Clearly, you are either not interested in hearing that or you just don’t understand the chemical process in the brain.
It’s not that clear and I’m not stupid.
Opioids are used to treat real pain problems. For some reason, people with real problems have a very hard time getting them, but junkies like Bolling’s kid can find a way to get them in adequate quantities to get addicted.
The War on Drugs has taken away our privacy. It has militarized the police. It has created fascist seizure laws. And every generation finds new drugs. Now we need to limit access to prescription drugs so only people who know how to game the system (criminals and junkies) can get them.
Meanwhile we now addict our kids to coffee at very early ages to keep them alert for the structured childhood that is “essential” for success. We drink our alcohol and tell them that they can’t drink it YET but it sure is good when you can!
So, call me stupid for not understanding chemical processes but I understand SYSTEMS and our social system is programming kids to take drugs so they can grow up and be controlled by our out of control justice system.
>>Anyway, she was acting strange and fell very ill. I took her to the ER. They noticed her kidney functions were a bit off and wanted to keep her for monitoring. About two days later, her liver started failing. She was about 8 hours away from total liver failure and they rushed her to the ICU. I’ve never been so terrified in my life ... and I’ve been terrified before.
All the Vicodin type drugs contain Tylenol. The opioid didn’t almost kill her. The Aceteminophen did.
You should have left your ignorance a secret. Now ‘’tis on display for the world.
What everyone is completely ignoring is the fact that other drugs were also involved. Instead, the Drug War fascists are focusing on the opioids to continue their “Opioid Crisis” narrative.
Thanks to the fascists, patients who truly need these painkillers are being denied relief and are forced to suffer or resort to illegal means to get their meds. Which, in turn, makes the situation worse.
It’s practically impossible to acquire pain meds through one’s doctor, thanks to the Drug Warrior Fascists. After all, the government knows best, correct?
It’s coming to the point where, if you have surgery, you will receive nothing more than an aspirin. Insanity.
Let the doctors do their jobs and the government can mind their own business.
Great post. People are conviently ignoring the fact that there were OTHER DRUGS in Bolling’s system but they focus on the opioids.
He could have mixed the opioids with alcohol or benzodiazepines, which are a deadly combination.
A tragedy
Tylenol (acetaminophen) is toxic to the liver. Years ago, Tylenol was a prescription drug, then, of course, it was downgraded to over the counter status. Rheumatologists were prescribing/advising patients to take it practically by the handsful, because it’s dangerous toxicity was not realized, it seemed to relieve pain with little or no side effects, and it did not cause gastric bleeding the way aspirin did when taken in large enough doses to relieve pain. Then, patients started presenting with liver failure, from which many died. Even after years of that, the public was not cautioned until about ten years ago, not to take more than 4,000 mg. of Tylenol per day. That has now been reduced to no more than 2,000 mg. per day. A lot of patients don’t realize that an over the counter medication can be just as harmful as a prescribed medication, especially if taken in large amounts. Many opioid pain killers already contain tylenol, so thinking you can boost pain relief by adding in some Tylenol, can be very dangerous.
>>You should have left your ignorance a secret. Now ‘’tis on display for the world.
I know. It’s funny how seeing a complex system as a complex system makes the Idiocracy so angry. They say, “You’re so dumb because you don’t just react like we do.”
“Does going to sleep increase the danger of mixing these drugs with alcohol?”
Maybe mixing drugs and booze makes it more likely that a sleeping (passed out) person would aspirate and choke. I don’t know; just a thought.
Your daughter had a great head on her shoulders. Kudos to both you and your spouse.
Didn’t know it was that bad on campus these days. Looks like it’s not only political correctness that is causing colleges and universities to self destruct.
Both opioids and alcohol are nervous system depressants, taken together in toxic amounts they can suppress the the respiratory drive and the person stops breathing, no aspiration necessary.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.