How does alcohol affect the disease and/or the medications used in treatment? My daughter is hiding in alcohol. It's hard to tell which symptoms are from HD (she hasn't been tested yet) or from drinking.

Alcohol and HD do not mix for many reasons. One is that alcohol is a depressant, people with HD are often depressed and on meds to help the depression - alcohol will interfere. If someone with HD is an alcoholic they should be sober because as the HD progresses the ability to control impulses will deteriorate. Drinking kills brain cells and the HD brain needs every healthy cell possible. My husband is an alcoholic with HD. He has been able to control his drinking over the last couple of years but before that time when he would drink his HD symptoms were much much worse.


Is she drinking because she thinks she has HD? My husbands drinking got bad when he began to think he had HD.

She's had a problem with alcohol for several years now, but I thought she had it under control until the last few months. I can only imagine how afraid she is and alcohol makes a good hiding place, I guess. We don't live in the same town so I don't see her every day and trying to talk to her over the phone is very awkward. I'm still trying to get her to be tested but no luck yet.

Thanks for the input.