April 20th, 2016
Alcoholism can greatly affect the quality of your sex life. It is believed that small amounts of alcohol can actually help in getting you in the mood by reducing anxiety and stress levels, but if you consume large quantities of alcohol, your sex drive, libido and sexual performance may get adversely affected. It is very important to know when to say no more!
Alcohol consumption impairs judgment and decision making. For example, it has been observed that heavy alcohol consumption makes a person more vulnerable to make wrong decisions.
In 2014, an ipsos-MORI survey of young people was carried out by the Family Planning Association. The investigators reported that one out of ten young survey respondents agree that they don’t remember with whom they have sex and what sort of sex they have after getting drunk. In addition, 28% young adults confessed that because of alcohol they had sex with people whom they don’t normally fancy. Furthermore due to effect of alcoholism many people forget to perform protected sex. Another 70% respondents agreed that they regret having sex and said that getting drunk was the reason.
‘Beer goggles’ is a term that is used to describe the distortion of vision and having wrong perception when you are heavily intoxicated. Heavy drinking greatly affects your perception capacity and makes you think that the opposite gender sitting next to you is very attractive and perfect to have sex with; but the next morning after the hangover, situation seems to be completely opposite! Although, little amount of alcohol can actually have good effects on your sex life but excessive drinking can ruin it.
It is imperative to mention that no amount of alcohol is safe for women who are looking to get pregnant any time soon. According to Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, drinking alcohol during pregnancy can aggravate the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome along with other complications such as early fetal demise, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and premature labor. Therefore, healthcare providers advice women not to drink alcohol especially before getting pregnant or during first three months of pregnancy.
Effects of alcohol on sex life can be categorized as ‘good effects’ and ‘bad effects’.
‘Good effects’
‘Bad effects’
1. Kahler, C. W., Wray, T. B., Pantalone, D. W., Kruis, R. D., Mastroleo, N. R., Monti, P. M., & Mayer, K. H. (2015). Daily associations between alcohol use and unprotected anal sex among heavy drinking HIV-positive men who have sex with men. AIDS and Behavior, 19(3), 422-430.
2. Ferris, J., Devaney, M., Davis, G., & Mazerolle, L. (2015). Reporting of Problematic Drinkers and the Harm They Cause: Assessing the Role of Alcohol Use, Sex, and Age of Those Affected by a Problematic Drinker. Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology.
3. Thompson, R. G., Eaton, N. R., Hu, M. C., Grant, B. F., & Hasin, D. S. (2014). Regularly drinking alcohol before sex in the United States: effects of relationship status and alcohol use disorders. Drug and alcohol dependence, 141, 167-170.