But of all the things that people ingest, there are few combinations more life-threatening than alcohol and benzodiazepines—the class of sedatives that includes Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin.
“What I think is the most tragic aspect of this combination is that you can get amnesia. So not only is it additive in terms of the respiratory effect, but the amnesic effect is additive,” Miotto says. “You can get people who die accidentally in the truest sense of the word. They don’t remember how many drinks they had, or how many pills they took.”
Any benzodiazepine is highly dangerous in combination with alcohol, but Xanax is perhaps the most dangerous, because it is more fast-acting than the others. Because xanax and alcohol both work on the brain at a rapid-fire pace, their mutually enhancing effect is bolstered compared to slower-acting benzodiazepine like Klonopin, which peaks in the brain more slowly, after the effect of the alcohol may have already begun to decline.
In fact, it is this same rapid action that makes Xanax the most addictive of the benzodiazepines, many neuroscientists believe, providing the sensation of a high more so than other drugs of its class.
Xanax isnt illegal if you have a prescription?