Why Is Mixing Opioids With Other Drugs And Alcohol So Dangerous?

0:00Why is mixing opioids with other drugs or alcohol so dangerous?

0:06I'm going to tell you.

0:07I'm Dr. Rodriguez from Healing Sky.

0:10I'm also the medical director of the Dari Center for Healing and today we're going to

0:13talk about why mixing opioids with other drugs and or alcohol is so dangerous.

0:21Opioids by themselves already are dangerous and have a high risk of overdose.

0:26It does not take much, especially if your body and brain are not used to taking opioids.

0:33It does not take much to overdose on an opioid.

0:36It can suppress your breathing, you can stop breathing, it can stop your heart and you

0:40can die.

0:41It really does not take much.

0:44Now mix in there some other effects from other drugs or alcohol and you start reaching other

0:52receptor areas, other receptor types.

0:56The opioids act on the mu opioid receptors predominantly for our purposes, but if you

1:02start adding benzodiazepines or other sedatives that act on the GABA receptor system or worse,

1:08mix in their alcohol, then you're suppressing breathing with different receptor systems

1:16and that effect can be compounded dramatically.

1:20So somebody who might have been on the brink of an overdose with an opioid mix something

1:26else in there and they will be deep into an overdose and a dangerous one because it

1:31might take more than just naloxone or Narcan to pull them out of it.

1:36They might need naloxone or Flumazenil or both from a hospital, otherwise their breathing

1:42will stop and it's not going to come back until it is chemically reversed.

1:46So mixing opioids is exquisitely dangerous.

1:50The risk of overdose is very high.

1:52A small amount of opioids, if you mix it with the wrong thing, mix it with a benzodiazepine

1:59or mix it with alcohol or worse, all of the above, and you can have an unexpected surprise

2:06yet severe overdose.

2:09It doesn't take much at all, especially if you mix them with something else.

2:13It is probably the worst thing that you can do is mixing different types of drugs.

2:20Doing drugs as bad as it is, mixing them is even worse and it's just very, very dangerous.

2:26I discourage it highly.

2:28If you find yourself mixing drugs, you have a problem and you need help for this.

2:33I can't even pretend that this is just recreational use.

2:37Usually you see that in somebody who has more advanced drug use and that does constitute

2:42a problem.

2:43I would recommend that you please seek help.

2:46If you would like help, you can find a lot of providers here on Healing Sky that can

2:50help you.

2:51If you would like help from me, I can help you.

2:53You can reach me at DariusSensory.com.

2:56If you would like to learn more about addiction and addiction treatment and recovery and relapse

3:00prevention or any other mental health topic, you can like, follow and subscribe to me on

3:04Healing Sky or you can look for my podcast here on Healing Sky starting in the fall of

3:112026.

3:12Thank you.