Alcohol and Drugs Used for Dutch Courage

Couple on a date in martini lounge uid 1343829 Young people are intentionally taking drink and drugs for better sex








Despite these perceived sexual “benefits”, drunkenness and drug use were strongly associated with an increase in risk taking behaviour and feeling regretful about having sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Thus, participants who had been drunk in the past four weeks were more likely to have had five or more partners, sex without a condom and to have regretted sex after drink or drugs in the past 12 months.

Cannabis, cocaine or ecstasy use was linked to similar consequences.

“Trends in recent decades have resulted in recreational drug use and binge drinking becoming routine features of European nightlife,” says lead author Mark Bellis, from Liverpool John Moores University. “Millions of young Europeans now take drugs and drink in ways which alter their sexual decisions and increase their chances of unsafe sex or sex that is later regretted. Yet despite the negative consequences, we found many are deliberately taking these substances to achieve quite specific sexual effects.”

Individuals were significantly more likely to have had sex under 16 years if they had used alcohol, cannabis, cocaine or ecstasy before that age.

Girls in particular were as much as four times as likely to have had sex before the age of 16 if they drank alcohol or used cannabis under 16.

“Sexual activity accompanied by substance use is not just incidental, but often sexually motivated,” says co-author, consultant psychiatrist Amador Calafat. “Interventions addressing sexual health are often developed, managed and implemented independently from those addressing substance use, and vice versa. However, young people often see alcohol, drugs and sex all as part of the same social experience and addressing these issues requires an equally joined up approach. ”

Sexual uses of alcohol and drugs and the associated health risks: a cross sectional study of young people in nine European cities by Mark A Bellis, Karen Hughes, Amador Calafat, Montse Juan, Anna Ramon, Jose A Rodriguez, Fernando Mendes, Susanne Schnitzer and Penny Phillips-Howard; BMC Public Health.

Article available here free at BioMed Central

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