Patients who arrive home several hours after outpatient surgery may drink alcohol. The extent to which residual drugs used in outpatient surgery interact with alcohol is not known. The purpose of this study was to determine if two i.v. drugs commonly used together in outpatient surgery, midazolam and fentanyl, have residual effects which would interact with alcohol drunk 4 h after injection. Twelve healthy male volunteers participated in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled and cross-over study. Subjects were studied four times successively with a period of 1 week between trials. On each day of testing, the subjects received randomly, by slow i.v. injection (30 s), either saline followed immediately by saline, or midazolam 0.1 mg kg-1 followed immediately by fentanyl 2 micrograms kg-1. Four hours after the injection, the subjects consumed a beverage which either did or did not contain alcohol 0.7 g kg-1. Before and 1, 3, 5 and 7 h after injection (and before and 1 and 3 h after consumption of beverage), psychomotor performance and mood were assessed. While both the combination midazolam-fentanyl and alcohol had independent effects on the dependent measures in this study, there was no interaction between midazolam-fentanyl and alcohol (no potentiating of effects of alcohol by i.v. sedation). We conclude that the effects of benzodiazepines and opioids that are short-acting and used in outpatient surgery have probably dissipated by the time a patient arrives home, and that effects from alcohol ingested at home will probably not be affected by recent administration of these drugs.