Drink, drugs and why not

It gets a line on a dozen pages here and it deserves its own, because it is the single easiest way to turn an evening that would have been fine into one that is not. Nothing on this page is puritanical. It is about which faculties you need and which ones a drink removes first.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Two adults, both over 18, both sober. That is the whole rule, and the rest of the page is why.

I want to be clear that this is not a moral position. I like a drink. What I will not do is drink before or during a session, or play with somebody who has, and after a good many years of this it is the rule I hold most rigidly.

What a drink actually takes away

Think about what this activity requires from the two people doing it. Somebody has to judge how hard to hit, notice where the last one landed, keep a number in their head, watch a body for changes and decide when to stop. Somebody else has to track how they are doing, notice pain that has changed character, and speak up while their instinct is to endure quietly.

Alcohol degrades every item on that list, and it degrades them before it makes anybody obviously drunk. Two glasses of wine will not have either of you slurring. They will have blunted the fine judgement of force, slowed the noticing of a stroke that went wrong, and made the decision to interrupt feel like more of an imposition than it did an hour ago.

The dangerous zone is not falling over. It is being slightly less able to notice, in an activity built entirely on noticing.

There is a physical side too. Alcohol dilates blood vessels, so bruising is worse for the same force, which is covered at marks and bruising. It also raises pain threshold in a way people experience as being tougher, and being able to take more without registering it is not an advantage when the reason you would stop is that damage is being done.

Consent, and why the state of it matters

A safe word from somebody who has been drinking is not a reliable instrument. Neither is their agreement beforehand, or their assurance that they are fine, or their enthusiasm for something they turned down last week.

This runs in both directions and people usually only think about one of them. A person who has been drinking may not stop something they should stop. A person who has been drinking may also agree to something they will feel differently about in the morning, and the person who acted on that agreement is left holding a situation that neither of them chose.

Read consent and coercive control and if the law gets involved for where that ends up. The short version is that an allegation involving alcohol is far more likely to be made and far harder to answer, and the person who was holding the implement carries it.

Why it matters most with somebody new

With a partner of some years, you have thousands of data points. You know what her voice sounds like when she has had enough, you know the difference between her breathing changing because it is working and because something is wrong, and she knows she can interrupt you without it costing anything.

With somebody you met three weeks ago, you have none of that. You are reading a stranger's body in a language you have not learned yet, and she is deciding whether this is the kind of man who takes an interruption well without any evidence either way. That is already a demanding situation for two sober people. Adding alcohol to it removes the only tools either of you has.

So the rule for a first session, and I would not bend it: nothing at all, either of you, before or during. Not a glass to take the edge off, not one while you talk it through, not one waiting for you when you arrive. See your first time and meeting safely.

The nerves problem

The commonest reason anybody wants a drink before a first session is nerves, and the request is entirely understandable. It is also the exact case where the drink does most harm.

Nerves are not a malfunction to be treated. They are the part of you that is paying attention, and if something in the room is wrong, they are what will tell you. Removing them chemically means you arrive at the same evening with less equipment. The nerves settle on their own about twenty minutes in, once there has been some tea and some conversation and the person in front of you has become a person rather than a profile.

Drugs, briefly and firmly

No. Not before, not during, and not with somebody who has.

The reasoning is specific rather than moralising. Stimulants raise blood pressure and heart rate and dull pain, so somebody can take a great deal more than their body should and feel splendid about it at the time.

Sedatives, benzodiazepines and opioids suppress pain and breathing, and destroy the reliability of anything said or agreed. Cannabis alters time perception and pain perception, which makes an agreed number or an agreed duration meaningless. Anything that drops blood pressure sharply is a fainting risk in exactly the standing positions this site warns about on standing against a wall.

Underneath all of that sits the plain point. This activity involves one person voluntarily becoming unable to defend themselves and trusting the other to monitor them. Every substance on that list interferes with monitoring, with reporting, or with both.

Where a drink is fine

Afterwards, with somebody you know, in moderation. A glass of wine an hour later while you sit on the sofa is a normal part of an evening and I would not tell anybody otherwise.

Two caveats even then. Alcohol on top of the hormonal comedown tends to make drop land harder a day or two later, so keep it modest. And if either of you is driving anybody home, the rule is the ordinary one.

Munches are a different setting again and are usually held in pubs, where a drink is part of the furniture. That is fine, because nothing is happening in a pub. The rule is about play, not about socialising, and the etiquette side is at munches.

How to say it

Put it in the negotiation rather than discovering it on the night. One line does it: neither of us drinks beforehand, and if either of us has, we postpone and do something else. Agreeing that in advance means nobody has to make a judgement about somebody else's breath at the front door, which is a horrible conversation to have to start.

And treat postponing as unremarkable rather than as a rebuke. Somebody who had a drink at lunch with their sister has not committed an offence. The evening moves to Thursday, and both of you get a better one. See negotiation.