I hope you take what Misery Business wrote to heart.

From my experience, alcohol abuse is one of the worst things to do. Period! Especially with bipolar disorder. First, if you are drinking with psych meds still in your system, you could die. I know people who have died on that combo. Or if you don't die, you could accidentally kill someone if you drive drunk. Blackouts are much more common when drinking on meds. Meds are not completely out of your system for days. People do stuff out of their control when really drunk, but the consequences still apply.

From my experience, using alcohol to self-medicate bipolar disorder, even off meds, tended to lead to more mixed episodes. Mixed episodes are dangerous and painful and lead to horrible things, again often death. There is little benefit, in my view, in choosing alcohol over meds. With meds, you can have them modified/changed to improve quality of life. Thinking alcohol will be a "better friend" is insanity. Even if some moments seem good when drunk, that relationship is like making a deal with the devil. It ends quite badly.