Alcohol vs THC for anxiety
Short answer: For anxiety, more users report improvement with Alcohol — 73% of 52 reports, versus 33% of 96 for THC.
THC has 249 meta-analyses and 488 randomized trials on PubMed; the other has not been graded.
Based on 189 reports about Alcohol and 434 about THC. Not medical advice.
| Alcohol Substance | THC Substance | |
|---|---|---|
| Users say it helped | 19%helped142 reports · high confidence | 26%helped295 reports · high confidence |
| Verdict | Mixed | Mixed |
| Research | Not graded | AResearch: Strong |
| Meta-analyses / RCTs | — | 249 / 488 |
| Mainly used for | ||
| Anxiety % reporting improvement | 73% (52) | 33% (96) |
| Sleep % reporting improvement | 10% (29) | 59% (95) |
| Mood % reporting improvement | 60% (30) | 64% (58) |
| Focus % reporting improvement | 73% (11) | 38% (40) |
| Memory % reporting improvement | 17% (6) | 7% (27) |
| Common side effects | hangover, insomnia, poor sleep, heart palpitations | anxiety, brain fog, vivid dreams, paranoia |
| Typical dose reported | 0.5-0.63 g/kg | 7 mg / once a week |
“taurine (2–3 g daily) and alcohol are the only substances that have seemed to calm my body’s stress and anxiety.”
Cannabis use was also associated with increased relapse rates, more hospitalizations and pronounced positive symptoms in psychotic patients. We make recommendations about the type of research that is required to better characterize the relationship between cannabis use and the development and outcomes of psychosis.
Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci, 2020 ↗“once a week I smoke a little weed before the gym (sativa Pre-roll sour diesel from medmen) and it actually made me feel normal.”
Related comparisons
Percentages come from first-hand user reports and are not clinical outcomes. Talk to a doctor before starting, stopping or combining anything. How we rate