How long should alcohol be out of my system before I can take vicodin?

Alcohol after surgery is an extremely bad idea. It can lead to bleeding problems and also impairs your body’s ability to heal. Now, don’t get me wrong… I love alcohol! There is just a time and a place, and after surgery isn’t it! Your body can process, on average, one drink per hour. Use that to figure out how many hours you need to wait, based on what you were drinking, before you start taking the vicodin. You can drink lots of water to reduce your blood alcohol level as well (which is also a good idea when on pain killers, anyway, especially if you are prone to constipation). Good luck with your recovery!

I would wait at least 24 hours to be on the safe side. I guess you’ve found out the hard way tha alcohol isn’t a very good pain medication. I hope you feel better soon. Welcome to fluther!

There is definitely a reason doctor’s stopped using whiskey for surgery about 100 years ago! It isn’t effective and it is very dangerous to surgical patients!

Alcohol as a pain reliever only works in cowboy movies. Vicodin with alcohol will intensify drowsiness, so make sure you take the minimum dosage. Also, mixing vicodin with alcohol can lead to liver and kidney damage.

12 hours. The alcohol should clear your system before then, but it would be safer to wait as long as you can.

I did all kinds of things while on Vicodin when I was on it for 6 months straight for my stupid foot, but its not something that you want to do. It wasn’t very smart, but it is possible to do both without killing yourself. The rule of thumb is that it takes one hour for the alcohol in one shot to clear your system, the same with one glass of wine or one beer. If you know how much you drank, you can figure it out… Then add an hour to be safer. But even if you took it sooner, its unlikey to kill you. Hurt, maybe, kill, probably not.

Drink a lot of water, and wait at least 10 – 12 hours, longer is better.