Imagine lying in bed the morning after a
binge as you reconstruct the night. Oh
right! Now you remember going from the first party to the second. You
remember the drink that put you over the edge. And you barely remember ending
up in a bedroom, your clothes falling away. What
did you do? Some binge drinkers aren’t this lucky; they know even that
night in the haze of many drinks that what’s happening in the bedroom isn’t
right – what they’re doing or having done to them is forced or unsafe or not
anything at all that they want.
Drinking leads to sexual consequences ranging
from reckless and risky behavior to sexual assault and rape. Here are four
proven ways to keep yourself or the people you care about safe from the
negative consequences of sex while drinking.
1. Sober Companion
We all know about designated drivers. Drawing
straws to see who drives can keep you from making the ultimate bad decision to
put your life and others at risk by driving under the influence. But what about
all the other bad decisions you can make while drinking? The fact is, past a
certain threshold, you can no longer trust yourself to make good sexual
decisions. A sober companion can not only be keeper of the car keys, but can
help you know when it’s not okay to “just go upstairs for a couple minutes” or
can help you see when that special someone is drunk past the point of being
able to offer consent. A sober companion can keep you safe. For example, this study shows that people were more
likely to leave clubs with manageable blood levels of drugs and alcohol when
they were with sober companions. Let your trusted sober companion keep you safe
not only from crashing a car, but from crashing into sexual behaviors you will
regret in the morning.
2. Stop Short of Blacking Out
By now you probably know your limit. But
unfortunately, this study shows that many problem drinkers
consider their limit to be the point of sickness or blacking out. For women and
for men of all sexual orientations, blacking out is a major risk factor for
dangerous sexual activity, be it unprotected or non-consensual sex. If you know
you’re prone to drinking until you pass out, there are many strategies you can
use to cap your drinking: consider supplying yourself with a limited number of “drink
tickets” before you start the night – these can be as simple as rubber bands
around your wrist. Or avoid pre-drinking and choose to drink slowly. If these
basic strategies fail to keep you from drinking until you black out, consider
seeking help for your drinking problem before it results in real, irreversible
sexual consequences.
3. Stick Together
Even if your group doesn’t happen to include
a sober companion, simply making the decision to stick together can help keep
you safe from sexual consequences. When you go from the first party to the
second, take a head count. You know that you wouldn’t want to be the person
left behind and so you can make the decision as a group not to leave anyone
behind. This study shows that not only are people
in groups naturally protected against risky sexual behaviors, but the culture
of most social groups includes the idea of taking care of people who are most inebriated.
Groups generally take care of their drunkest members. If you’re on the giving
end of helping to take care of your friends, expect to be on the receiving end
of this care when you need it most.
4. Know When to Doubt Your Decisions
Drinking makes your brain physically
incapable of making good social decisions. This
article on early view at the journal Addictive Behaviors shows that alcohol
decimates your ability to judge if someone has good or bad intentions, and even
affects your ability to recognize social cues like sarcasm. With alcohol, you
lose the ability to make judgments based on facial expressions and body
language; you stop being able to place social cues in context and to imagine
the consequences of your actions; this blunt edge to your ability to be “on
your game” leads to real-world sexual consequences. You may truly think you can
trust a person who seems to be so into
you, when really you can’t trust this person at all. Most important, when
you’re drinking, know that you can’t trust yourself.
If you’re going to drink, use these
strategies to keep yourself safe. But on a deeper level, they key to staying
sexually safe is to address and manage problem drinking behaviors themselves.
It’s like walking a tightrope; no matter how well you manage the risk, if you
do it enough times, eventually you’re going to fall. If problem drinking or
addiction puts your sexual health at risk, consider seeking treatment. With
help you can finally get off the tightrope that puts you in danger.
--
Richard Taite is founder and CEO of Cliffside
Malibu, offering evidence-based,
individualized addiction treatment based on the Stages of Change model. He is
also coauthor with Constance
Scharff of the book Ending
Addiction for Good.
