Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Shocking Truth_ Ambien and Increased Mortality Risk | The Real Reason You’re Not Sleeping

4 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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0:31

Short YouTube transcript excerpt (Aaron Hartman, MD) describing a personal anecdote about mixing Ambien (zolpidem) with alcohol: he recounts that his wife took Ambien on an international flight after consuming wine, experienced six to eight hours of amnesia and disorientation (spilled things, woke frightened), and uses this to warn against combining Ambien with alcohol due to sleepwalking/blackout-like episodes.

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If you take crazy. So how many of our patients have been on them daily for years? Yeah, you mix it with a little bit of alcohol, and all of a sudden you have these episodes that people can walk and do things they don't remember. It's almost like a roofie. Yeah. This actually happened. My wife and I, we were going on a honeymoon on the plane, you know, we just got married, all excited. You get your free, you know, glass of wine on international flight and took our little ambient because you want to sleep. And she didn't remember the next six or eight hours. Yeah. Spilled stuff in her lap, woke up, freaked out. She's like, someone could have done something to me. I'm like, you're here with me. But that was the first time I actually experienced, like, wow, you do not mix these things.