It’s Saturday night and you’ve been out with friends, hitting up a few bars.
Thankfully, you’ve left your car at home with the anticipation of drinking more than 2 alcoholic beverages.
After what seemed like an eternity, you finally order an Uber and make your way home.
Feeling wasted, exhausted, and ready to crash, because now you have a headache, you reach for your bottle of CBD oil.
Without thinking, you take your nightly dose and drift off to la la land.
It’s no surprise that we do a lot of stupid and questionable things when we’re drunk. But there’s one question on many people's minds:
Can you take CBD and drink alcohol together?
There’s a lot we don’t yet fully know or even understand about CBD. While we know it contains pretty powerful medicinal properties, how it interacts with other substances is still being researched.
One of the ways scientists and researchers have discovered the mechanisms of how CBD works is through our own Endocannabinoid System (ECS).
In short, our ECS is responsible for maintaining our internal balance of our overall health. And scientists theorize that endocannabinoid deficiencies could be the root cause of some diseases and chronic inflammation.
But when CBD enters our body, studies show that it can help reintroduce balance back to our ECS, which ultimately promotes balance throughout our entire body.
More studies are needed to prove this theory, but the scientific data surrounding CBD’s therapeutic properties are thought provoking and undeniable.
There is one thing that scientists know for sure about CBD: the human body metabolizes CBD in a complex but very distinct way.
In fact, CBD is metabolized by the same liver enzymes that metabolize alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs.
Because of this, combining CBD along with other substances like alcohol could alter and affect how your body processes alcohol altogether. In other words, it may slow the metabolism of alcohol way down or increase it to the point that you feel you need to drink more to get tipsy.
It’s been shown that higher doses of CBD can cause a sedative-like feeling. And while we already know that alcohol can be very sedating, combining the two substances could produce even higher levels of sedation. But these sedative-like feelings can take effect regardless if you combine CBD with alcohol.
According to James Giordano, professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center, CBD can still interact with alcohol even if they’re taken 4 to 8 hours apart from each other.
For example, let’s say you have a couple of drinks at dinner and then decide to take a dose of CBD oil or eat a CBD gummy. The calming effects of CBD and sedative-like effects of alcohol could make you feel much more chill or pass out completely.
James Giordano stated, “On CBD, you’re very chill, very lighthearted, mellow. The alcohol will make that more intense… For some people, it makes them very, very sedated.” And this can be an issue.
He continued, “Like anything else, as doses increase of either or both, you get yourself more into a problem… The more you drink, the more CBD you’re taking, you get a potentiated effect that's greater than the effect of either alone. The level of intoxication is going to be greater: greater loss of control, inhibition, motor coordination, and that becomes problematic.”
So it’s still unclear whether we can safely take CBD and drink alcohol together, but there are some studies that suggest CBD oil may mitigate the horrible effects alcohol has on the liver.
Alcohol liver damage and CBD
Scientifically speaking, when we drink alcohol, our liver metabolizes it by first turning it into ethanol. It then becomes acetaldehyde –– a toxic molecule that causes hangover symptoms.
Thankfully, our liver contains natural antioxidants like Glutathione, which help break down acetaldehyde. But the more we drink, the more acetaldehyde floods our liver, thus disabling it from filtering properly.
It’s like a clogged drain: the more you try to pour liquid into the drain, the harder it has to work to filter it. Soon it’s unable to keep up with how much you're pouring and now you have a mess on your hands.
The overflow of these toxins can throw the entire body out of balance and even cause damage to our brain cells. In a nutshell, drinking alcohol is like drinking poison.
Now we’re not saying you should never drink. Acute alcohol drinking — while it still causes intoxication and can induce a fatty liver — can be reversible, depending on how often you drink.
However, over time, consuming alcohol can cause severe damage to the liver.
According to Soyona Rafatja, a functional and integrative family medicine physician in New York, “Alcohol decreases autophagy [degradation of damaged cells] in the liver, causing fat to accumulate in the liver and therefore cause fatty liver, inflammation, and hepatitis…”
But studies show that CBD may be able to do the exact opposite.
In one study conducted by Free Radical Biology and Medicine, a group of rodents were administered CBD just 30 minutes before they consumed alcohol. Another group of rodents did not receive any CBD.
Amazingly, researchers found that the group of rodents that received CBD actually experienced less alcohol-induced oxidative damage to their liver. Whereas, the group that only received alcohol did not.
This study confirms that CBD oil may alleviate steatosis, otherwise known as fat accumulation in the liver.
Other studies show that participants who consumed CBD and alcohol had lower blood alcohol levels than participants who consumed alcohol alone.
And in a more recent study, researchers found that medical-grade CBD gel and injections helped decrease the rate of neurodegeneration in rodents who consumed alcohol.
So if all these studies show that CBD can actually help reduce the damage of alcohol, could it be that CBD might help with alcohol addiction withdrawals and even reduce alcohol addiction altogether?
CBD for alcohol withdrawal
We all know that excessively drinking alcohol can lead to multiple health problems, violence, and avoidable injuries. Not to mention, it can cloud your judgment thus enabling you to make some pretty questionable decisions, like:
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Having unprotected sex
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Drinking and driving
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And more
The standard alcoholic drink contains 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol. This amount is typically found in the following alcoholic beverages:
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12 ounces of regular beer –– usually about 5% alcohol by volume
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5 ounces of wine –– typically about 12% alcohol by volume
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1.5 ounces of distilled spirits –– about 40% alcohol by volume
While one of these beverages may not be enough to cause harm to the average healthy person, it can be harmful if you go well beyond 2 or 3 drinks.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture, for women 1 alcoholic beverage per day is considered moderate drinking, and for men, it’s 2 drinks per day.
But the truth is, not many people follow these recommended drinking guidelines.
In fact, a lot of people fall in the category of problematic drinking:
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Binge drinking (drinking more than 4 or more alcoholic beverages on the same occasion)
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Heavy drinking (drinking alcoholic beverages more than 5 days in the past month)
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Alcoholism (unable to stop drinking once you’ve started)
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Alcohol dependence (craving alcohol daily and unable to control their drinking habits)
Problematic drinking is also known as Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), or alcoholism.
Over 18 million adult Americans struggle with alcoholism, which means they suffer from horrible withdrawal symptoms when they aren’t drinking.
Symptoms include:
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Anxiety
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Depression
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Fatigue
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Irritability
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Jumpiness
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Mood swings
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Nightmares
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Mental fog
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Clammy skin or sweating
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Enlarged pupils or dilated pupils
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Headache
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Insomnia
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Loss of appetite
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Nausea and vomiting
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Pallor
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Rapid heart rate
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Tremors of different body parts (hands, arms, feet, legs, etc.)
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Agitation
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Fever
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Hallucinations
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Seizures
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Severe confusion
But according to Dr. Melanie Bone, a medical marijuana specialist and board certified OB-GYN in West Palm Beach, Florida, “CBD can be part of a harm reduction strategy to reduce problematic drinking. By reducing cravings and amplifying the body's defenses, CBD may help individuals minimize the harms associated with alcoholism. For instance, CBD is shown to reduce liver toxicity associated with alcohol in mice.”
In one study, CBD helped decrease alcohol intake in alcohol-addicted rats. It also prevented relapse and reduced their motivation to consume alcohol.
Other studies involving animals show that CBD helps reduce symptoms of alcohol addiction and alcohol withdrawals.
As for studies involving humans, there haven’t been any regarding alcohol addiction. But some researchers have found one study to be promising.
This study involved 24 smokers who either received a CBD inhaler or a placebo inhaler. For one week, they were instructed to use the inhaler anytime they felt the urge to smoke.
The smokers who received the placebo inhaler showed no signs of improvements, and they continued to smoke the same amount of cigarettes. As for the smokers who received CBD inhalers, the CBD significantly decreased the amount of cigarettes they smoked by 40%.
This study proved that CBD oil could be a potential treatment for addiction, but further research is still needed.
Still, alcohol withdrawal is a serious undertaking. The more you drink, the more your body depends on alcohol, and breaking the addiction is no easy feat. Without proper medical care, alcohol withdrawal can be life-threatening.
CBD and alcohol
There’s just not enough scientific research to determine if mixing CBD and alcohol is safe. Nor is there enough evidence to show that taking CBD oil or other products infused with CBD like gummies or capsules is safe to consume within 4-8 hours after drinking an alcoholic beverage.
There is, however, some thought provoking evidence that shows CBD oil may help combat alcohol addiction symptoms and the damage it causes in the liver.
But these studies suggest consuming only high-quality CBD oils at a higher dose.
That’s not to say that you need to drink a whole bottle of CBD oil to help kick alcoholism. If anything, we suggest that you start slow and increase your CBD dosage over time.
This is especially true for those who have never consumed CBD before.
According to James Giordano, “People who don’t drink or do CBD regularly, if they drink and do CBD together, good luck—that’s really going to be unpredictable… If there’s any prediction at all, that prediction is, that person’s going to be pretty stoned.”
If you’ve tried CBD before or are currently taking CBD, it’s important that you consume high-quality CBD products from reputable companies.
The truth is, you’re just not going to get all the therapeutic benefits from CBD if you’re not purchasing and consuming premium, organic CBD products.
And even then, we don’t recommend you to mix your CBD in with your beer or alcoholic beverages. This is because CBD uses the same liver enzymes that break down prescription medications and alcohol. So, it’s best to consult with your doctor first before mixing CBD with any other substance.
But this doesn’t mean you can’t consume CBD oil at all. It just means you should perhaps wait a while after you drink before you consume CBD.
The real lesson here is to steer clear from combining alcohol with THC. This is because alcohol actually increases the THC levels in your blood, which can increase physical impairment.
And because everyone responds differently to CBD, we advise you to use caution, especially if you consume a full spectrum CBD product.
Full spectrum CBD products, while not psychoactive, do contain 0.3% of THC. And for that reason, it is best to consume CBD products that contain no THC, or else wait at least 10 - 12 hours before you consume full spectrum CBD if you’ve already had an alcoholic beverage.
In the end, if you do decide to mix CBD in with your alcohol, be sure to only add a small amount (two to three drops at the most). That way you can reduce the possible risk of negative side effects.
