Getting drunk and stoned at the same time is sometimes referred to as getting crossfaded. But while most people drink and smoke pot at the same time to enhance their buzz, mixing the two drugs isn’t always a pleasant experience. If you are concerned about your level of alcohol or cannabis use, seek treatment from a mental health provider who works with substance use issues. This treatment may include formal treatment, such as rehab, and community resources, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA).

What Really Happens When You Mix Alcohol and Weed?

While one person might feel relaxed while drunk, another might feel restless. Sure, research on the topic is ramping up a bit, but there’s still a lack of large, long-term studies. In the ever-evolving world of cannabis, consumers are faced with a wide array of choices, each offering a unique alcohol and acute ischemic stroke onset experience. Among these options, the distinction between hash and weed has been a topic of ongoing discussion and curiosity. So, not only are you consuming more of the harmful combination but you’re probably wasting more money trying to keep up with your newly developed tolerance.

Drink or smoke first: Does ‘weed before beer everything clear’ really matter?

That may change in the future, but for now, there are a growing number of THC-infused beverages without alcohol. Talk to your doctor or reach out to a mental health professional to discuss your options. If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol or marijuana addiction, help is available. BetterHelp offers affordable mental health care via phone, video, or live-chat.

Other Risks

Cannabis and alcohol alone significantly impaired performance in the driving tasks, and the combination of cannabis and alcohol impaired driving performance to a greater degree. Subjects completed three alcohol conditions intended to sustain steady blood alcohol concentrations (0, 0.5, and 0.7 mg/ml) over 5 h. Three hours post-alcohol administration onset, participants were administered cannabis (400 μg/kg). Alcohol significantly impaired driving-related skills including critical tracking, divided attention, and stop-signal performance. While cannabis alone had minimal effect on performance, again the combined impact of cannabis and alcohol on divided attention were greater than those by alcohol alone. Recent research has employed advanced simulated driving methods to assess the effects of cannabis and alcohol co-use.

More laboratory work is needed to examine how cannabis affects motivation to use alcohol and vice versa. Findings from preclinical research support the existence of potential cross-tolerance between cannabis and alcohol that may have important translational implications for clinical research. With driving under the influence for example, blood THC concentrations obtained from drivers may be lower than set limits despite greatly exceeding them while driving.

1. Once more alcohol enters your system, you may experience nausea, vomiting, slurred speech, changes in hearing, vision and perception, loss of coordination, and even loss of consciousness.
2. Both Alcohol and weed are known to have a negative impact on mental health when used excessively.
3. Their combined use can cause blackouts, memory loss, and an increased likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors.
4. Talk to your doctor or reach out to a mental health professional to discuss your options.
5. This can increase your risk for developing a dependence on alcohol, weed, or both.
6. While there are little to no restrictions on the possession of alcohol, the same cannot be said of cannabis in some parts of the country.

Medicated Edibles 2

If you’re old enough, you may remember hearing in the anti-drug class at school that when taken together, alcohol and cannabis double the effects of one another. While there is no evidence of a doubling effect, the research does indicate that the two substances do augment the effects of one another. Drinking alcohol and getting high at the same time – sometimes known as “crossfading” – can enhance the effects of both and potentially lead to some real side effects. Individuals who are drinking alcohol and consuming edibles should carefully monitor what they consume.

When mixing alcohol and marijuana, the results can be more than having a feeling of ecstasy. There’s also this perception that it’s extremely rare to get addicted to marijuana, but that’s a myth. There’s research to show that 30% of people who use marijuana are going to develop an addiction problem. Addiction is not about the amount of a substance that you drink or smoke.

It’s about what it does to your life and the consequences you deal with because of that behavior. One argument I often hear is that many more people end up in the emergency room after drinking alcohol than smoking pot—and that’s true. But the reason for that fentanyl and xylazine test strips is because many more people in this country drink alcohol than smoke pot. The first step in recovery from a cannabis and alcohol addiction will be to stop both substances safely. A medical detox is clinically recommended as the safest way of achieving this.

THC’s chemical makeup is very similar to that of a neurotransmitter chemical found in our brains, anandamide. By sending chemical messages between nerve cells, anandamide influences how to rebuild a healthy life after addiction pleasure, memory, thinking, concentration, movement, coordination, the senses, and time perception. THC enters your bloodstream when you smoke and makes its way to your brain.

Compared to placebo, the combination of a low cannabis dose (2.53% THC) and low alcohol dose (0.35 g/kg) increased the number and duration of positive subjective effects, and resulted in higher plasma levels of THC. The effects of alcohol and THC were evaluated alone, and in combination, across separate sessions, in a within-subjects, randomized, double-blind design. The authors reported no evidence for synergistic effects of acute combinations of very-low-dose alcohol and THC on subjective or physiologic response, or on cognitive performance. An interaction between ethanol and THC was observed, however, on ratings of desire to consume more of the administered drug. THC, when combined with ethanol, decreased the elevated ratings of wanting more ethanol after ethanol administration. Consequently, THC may either dampen ethanol’s effects or replace desire for more.