CBD and Alcohol: Do They Mix Well?

CBD is taking the wellness world by storm. There are countless new providers popping up with new CBD products such as oils, vape juices, lotions, protein bars, CBD gummies and many more. Recently CBD and alcohol became mixed together with CBD infused alcohol appearing on the market.

That might leave you questioning: “can you mix CBD and alcohol?”. While there hasn’t been much research done, let’s find out how CBD and alcohol interact. 

How Does CBD affect you?

Before we get to the alcohol and CBD correlation, we must first examine each of them individually. Let’s start with CBD. Everyone seems to be going crazy about CBD oil products. So there must be a reason for that. Well, there are quite a few.

Let’s talk about the effect CBD has on your body. What’s important to know is that CBD works by affecting your endocannabinoid system. This system is responsible for many of your bodily functions including but not limited to sleep, pain, mood, and digestion.

 

Sometimes your endocannabinoid system becomes imbalanced and then you might need the extra help that CBD can provide. Cannabinoids mimic neurotransmitters in that system and induce their production and this way helps the functionality of the endocannabinoid system. 

So, now that you know how CBD works on your body, let’s cover its effects you might feel. 

Could Help Reduce Inflammation and Pain

CBD oil is often used when dealing with pain or inflammation. It is believed that cannabinoids have inflammation and pain-reducing properties, and work wonders when it comes to dealing with these problems. Studies show that CBD may help treat chronic pain^[1] by impacting the endocannabinoid system.

So next time you’re reaching for pain-killers, consider trying out natural remedies such as CBD oil. Although you shouldn’t expect CBD to remove the pain completely or even treat the problem that’s causing pain. It’s only there are as an aid for managing the symptoms. 

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May Help With Anxiety Symptoms

Another one of the CBD properties is that it could help to relieve anxiety. Anxiety is a common mental health disorder that often causes a lot of distress and sometimes even physical ailments. It is said that in the USA 1 in 5 people suffer from anxiety^[2]. Those numbers are extremely worrisome and there’s a lot of research on how to alleviate the symptoms.

One of the ways that could help to do it is using CBD oil. Although it’s not psychoactive it affects receptors in your brain and this way can help with managing short-term anxiety symptoms.

Might Alleviate Nausea

Another thing CBD impacts is the gastrointestinal tract. It does that by helping relieve the symptoms caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease. It is believed that by using CBD you can make your lower esophageal sphincter less relaxed, this way reducing the probability of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Could Help You Sleep

Insomnia is another one of the common illnesses many people struggle with at least once in their lives. Getting enough and good-quality sleep is essential for our health and overall well-being. So, you definitely should take care of your sleep cycle.

One way to do it is by treating insomnia. CBD is known to work well for that. It’s said that cannabinoids interact with specific receptors that are responsible for your sleep-wake cycle. This way it helps you doze off faster and more easily.

Also, your insomnia may be caused by other ailments and illnesses such as anxiety or gastrointestinal problems. Treating the illnesses you’ll be able to fall asleep quicker and get better-quality sleep. 

How Does Alcohol Affect You?

Alcohol, unlike CBD, is a psychoactive substance. It affects your brain quite differently and has many more negative effects. The effects of alcohol you feel after consuming it, come because alcohol blocks signals between neurons, causing the feelings of intoxication, poor memory, slowed reflexes and many more. 

Alcohol and CBD are not much alike. While CBD offers many great health benefits, alcohol is often damaging to your body. Here are some effects alcohol has on your body.

Could Reduce Pain

Alcohol has been known to reduce pain for ages now. People have used it instead of anesthetics or morphine. But is it really good to use for pain relief? Chances are that if you’re self-medicating with alcohol, you’re putting your body under even more stress than the pain is causing.

Alcohol is definitely not a healthy drink to consume. But being psychoactive it numbs your body and makes you forget about the pain that you’re feeling. The relief from pain is provided by depressing your nervous system and this way preventing you from feeling pain. 

Might Affect Your Anxiety Levels

It might reduce pain, but if you suffer from anxiety, alcohol might make it even worse. Even if you don’t, consuming alcohol often might give you anxiety. That happens because alcohol interferes with serotonin, a hormone that’s responsible for regulating moods and also levels of anxiety. 

Although it’s mostly felt after your intoxication from the alcohol is gone. It may last for a few hours or even for the whole day after drinking. You might not feel it straight after consuming alcohol as alcohol is an ego-booster, that produces the exact opposite effects of anxiety.

The real problems come when the effect start to wear off. That’s one of the many differences between CBD and alcohol.

Might Cause Nausea

One more aspect in which CBD and alcohol are not alike is nausea. While you have learned that CBD might help to alleviate nausea, alcohol has a completely opposite effect on nausea. That’s one more example of how CBD and alcohol differ.

Consuming alcohol irritates your stomach lining causing stomachaches and nausea. It also increases the production of stomach acid and delays stomach emptying. It can all result in stomach aches, bloating, nausea and even vomiting. 

Reduces Sleep Quality 

Another aspect by which CBD and alcohol differ is the effects on sleep. While CBD may provide many benefits to your sleeping quality, alcohol has adverse effects. Some people believe that alcohol helps you fall asleep and they might be right. Alcohol helps you fall asleep because the brain seeks rest from being intoxicated.

But that’s the worst way to fall asleep. The sleep you get under the influence of alcohol is far from good quality sleep. Your sleep is made out of 4 sleep stages, and each of them is important.

Alcohol reduces the Rapid-eye movement, also known as REM, sleep stage. This isn’t healthy for your body and this way you might not feel as rested after sleep as you would feel if you hadn’t drunk before bed.  

Mixing CBD and Alcohol

Now that you know how both CBD and alcohol affect your body, you might wonder what happens when you mix alcohol and CBD. There haven’t been many studies conducted, but let’s draw some conclusions from the few that are available to answer can you mix CBD and alcohol.

CBD and Alcohol Could Result in Lower Blood Alcohol Level

Studies show  that when alcohol and CBD are combined, the blood alcohol level ends up being significantly lower than it would be without taking CBD^[3] along with your drink. But it doesn’t mean that you won’t feel the effects of alcohol.

It will still result in impairment, worse motor functions, worse time estimating abilities and other effects that you would feel if you’d drunk alcohol. So, while CBD might lower blood alcohol level, it will not protect you from the effects you feel from consuming alcohol. 

CBD Could Protect Liver

Another study shows that CBD could protect your liver from alcohol-generated oxidative stress^[4]. The study was conducted on rodents and it showed that they experienced less liver damage than those that weren’t given CBD along with alcohol.

We could assume that combining CBD and alcohol humans would experience the same results. Long-term binge alcohol consumption can have severe negative effects on your body, and, especially your liver. So, if you could try protecting your liver by combining CBD and alcohol. 

CBD Might Protect You From Nerve Damage

Another study shows that CBD could protect against neurodegeneration associated with alcohol^[5]. As you already know, alcohol, being psychoactive,  has a huge impact on your brain, and the impact is rarely ever positive. Your nerves could suffer greatly due to alcohol consumption.

In case you want to indulge in some alcohol, which is not advisable, but the choice is still yours, you’re better off combining CBD and alcohol.

While not many extensive studies have been carried out, judging by the results of this particular one, we can assume that consuming CBD along with alcohol could lead to better results than consuming alcohol alone.

Could Alleviate Hangover

One of the often-overlooked properties of consuming CBD oil and alcohol are that CBD could help with the unwanted side effects of consuming alcohol. And the most dreadful to many is the hangover you experience after a night of heavy drinking. 

We’ve already talked about the positive effects of CBD, and as you know it can help with nausea and pain. It comes in handy when you have a hangover because the main symptoms of it are nausea and headache. So, if you’re dealing with a hangover, you should know that you could combine CBD oil and alcohol consumption. 

Might Make You Even More Sedated

We’ve already pointed out a few aspects that answer the “can you mix CBD and alcohol?’ question positively, but now let’s talk about a possibly unwanted effect of mixing CBD oil and alcohol.

As you might know already, alcohol is a depressant that causes lots of impairments such as slurred speech, lower sensitivity and other negative effects that slow your body down. 

When it comes to CBD, it’s a mild sedative that might not affect you as much but combined with alcohol could result in a higher sedation levels than wanted. So, you should keep it in mind when combining CBD and alcohol as you might feel more sedated than intended.

Should I Mix CBD and Alcohol?

Having read all this you might see how CBD could work as an antidote for the damage that alcohol does. And you’re right here, it could help ease many symptoms that are experienced due to alcohol consumption. Some studies show the positive effects of mixing CBD and alcohol. 

While we don’t recommend drinking alcohol at all, CBD could help ease the negative effects of it. Although keep in mind that while there’s some research done, the topic is not that well-analyzed. So, you might notice some different outcomes of combining alcohol and CBD. 

Conclusions

CBD oil and its products are becoming increasingly popular nowadays. You see them everywhere in all shapes and forms. One of them is alcoholic drinks. Seeing that you might start wondering: “Can you mix CBD and alcohol?” And we answered that in this article.

Alcohol has quite a few negative effects on your health, causing anxiety, nausea and reducing sleep quality. Although it’s often used for alleviating pain. While alcohol is harmful to your organism, CBD offers quite a few benefits to your health. These include reducing inflammation and pain, easing nausea and anxiety and helping you sleep.

It’s quite easy to notice that CBD oil and its products can help ease many of the unpleasant symptoms of alcohol consumption. It could lower the damage done to your body, while also reducing the hangover. So, it seems that combining CBD and alcohol might have a positive outcome.

If after reading this article you’re interested in trying out CBD products, you might want to check out some of them. It might be hard to choose the best product due to the abundance of providers but we’re here to help you. Check out our guide on the best CBD oils.

Scientific References

1. Darkovska-Serafimovska M., Serafimovska T., Arsova-Sarafinovska Z. 'Pharmacotherapeutic considerations for use of cannabinoids to relieve pain in patients with malignant diseases'

2. Bandelow B., Michaelis S. 'Epidemiology of anxiety disorders in the 21st century'

3. Consroe P, Carlini E., Zwicker A. et al. 'Interaction of cannabidiol and alcohol in humans'

4. Yang L., Rozenfeld R., Wu D. et al 'Cannabidiol protects liver from binge alcohol-induced steatosis by mechanisms including inhibition of oxidative stress and increase in autophagy'

5. Liput D., Hammell D., Stinchcomb A. et al. Transdermal delivery of cannabidiol attenuates binge alcohol-induced neurodegeneration in a rodent model of an alcohol use disorder'