{"id":492,"date":"2014-09-09T22:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T22:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i-base.info\/qa\/?p=492"},"modified":"2014-09-10T11:41:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T11:41:55","slug":"can-i-drink-alcohol-with-arvs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/492","title":{"rendered":"Can I drink alcohol with ARVs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In general, one or two drink is likely to be fine, if this is something you enjoy. There are no interactions between alcohol and ARVs.<\/p>\n<p>More heavy drinking however can lead to missing doses of your ARVs. This can cause your treatment to fail.\u00a0This means that if you have a drink, make sure you find a way to not miss any of your meds. Moderation is important.<\/p>\n<p>Two other concerns are important for people living with HIV:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Alcohol can also make efavirenz side effects worse, in particular feeling dizzy, so be careful about this.<\/li>\n<li>Alcohol can make hepatitis or other liver complications progress more quickly. Alcohol is not recommended\u00a0if you have hepatitis. See this information from the guide to HIV and hepatitis C:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/hepc\/alcohol\">https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/hepc\/alcohol<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The NHS website has a lot of information about alcohol. This is important whether you are HIV positive or HIV negative.\u00a0See:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/LiveWell\/Alcohol\/Pages\/Alcoholhome.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/LiveWell\/Alcohol\/Pages\/Alcoholhome.aspx<\/a>,\u00a0and<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/Livewell\/alcohol\/Pages\/Effectsofalcohol.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/Livewell\/alcohol\/Pages\/Effectsofalcohol.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the UK, the NHS recommendations for alcohol are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol a day. This is only 1-2 pints of lager &#8211; ie one strong drink.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/Livewell\/alcohol\/Pages\/alcohol-units.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/Livewell\/alcohol\/Pages\/alcohol-units.aspx<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units a day<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;ve had a heavy drinking session, avoid alcohol for 48 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Regularly&#8221; means drinking this amount every day or most days of the week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This question from 2008 was updated in September 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have started ART a month ago. Before that I used to drink alcohol quite often.<\/p>\n<p>Since I started ART, I try to not drink. But, I still want to.<\/p>\n<p>Can I drink alcohol?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-drug-interactions","category-recreational-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}