Sex File: My sober summer is affecting our sex life

How can my husband and I recapture some of our past - slightly wild - passion?

After seven months of not drinking, you know that you don't need booze to feel confident or have a good time. Picture: iStock

Mon, 27 Jul, 2026 - 02:00

Suzi Godson

I gave up drinking in January, so this is my first sober summer. I feel better than I have for years, but I miss the slightly wild, tipsy sex my husband and I used to have after a few drinks in the sun. How can we recapture some of that spirit without the alcohol? He still drinks a little, but much less now that I've stopped.

Alcohol messes with your head - literally. Those summer drinks release norepinephrine and dopamine which speed up your heart rate and reduce self-consciousness, facilitating tipsy sex in the sunshine.

Humans use alcohol for all sorts of reasons but mostly we drink because we love that feeling of disinhibition that it provides. Unsurprisingly, the more inhibited or socially anxious a person is, the more likely they are to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. For people who feel self-conscious, alcohol is a legal form of self-medication, a way to temporarily replace anxiety with perceived confidence. Other people use alcohol as a social lubricant. They drink to increase positive feelings, enhance social experiences and feel more relaxed and outgoing. It works, but the downside is that when a person relies on alcohol for social confidence, they often misattribute the fun that they have to the fact that they were drinking rather than to their own charisma - and that can end up creating a cycle of dependency.

After seven months of not drinking, you know that you don't need booze to feel confident or have a good time. You look better, you feel better and, if you stick with it, your sex life will be better too. Because you haven't had a drink since January, your tolerance for alcohol will be back to zero. That means you will be more susceptible to the naturally occurring disinhibition that occurs during sexual arousal.

From a chemical perspective, sexual arousal creates changes in the brain that mimic the effects of alcohol. When you become sexually aroused, that feeling of euphoria and excitement is your brain flooding with dopamine and norepinephrine. Even a couple of drinks can dull sensory perception and dampen tactile sensitivity, which can make it harder to achieve orgasm. In contrast, sober sex makes you much more aware of what you are feeling: it is a much more raw experience, all your senses are heightened. You tune in to touch, taste, smell and sound in a way that is much more acute.

If you add novelty to this equation, you can intensify the experience exponentially. One of the reasons tipsy sex feels so exciting is that it often happens more spontaneously, which is why alcoholic disinhibition can make sex in unexpected places seem like such a great idea. That option is available to sober people too. Switching from indoors to outdoors, for example, can radically change the way you experience sensation. Feeling a warm breeze or the sun on your skin adds another dimension to sex. It allows you to feel present in your body, and it heightens sensitivity. It is also true that even being outside can trigger the release of adrenaline, which can also increase sexual arousal.

Ultimately, the human brain is designed to reward behaviours that benefit genetic reproduction, which is why sex is and will always be an even more powerful drug than alcohol.