E258: Weed, Alcohol, and Sex: What's Actually Happening to Your Body and Desire

habitual usage around sex can create dependence on substance to feel intimate. Like a lot of people say, you know, yeah, I need to have a glass of wine. I need to have a cocktail before we have sex. Like, and it gets to the point where you feel like you can't have sex unless you've had that. Like you really become reliant on, I need this thing to take that edge off for me. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours. Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Okay, we're back at it. We've been releasing episodes every week, but you and I have not sat down and recorded a podcast together in a month. God, I actually hadn't thought of that. I haven't. Yeah, it has been a month. That's wild. I feel a little rusty. Yeah, do we have it still? We'll see. Give us a few minutes. Yeah, Xander was on a surf trip. You had just like the bougiest last couple of weeks possible. He was on a surf trip and then he met me for a couples vacation. So you had two vacations back to back. What a life. True, though, I mean my cabin on the boat was not particularly bougie. No, it was not. It was a very functional trip. It was about surfing a lot, which we did and it was awesome. Bougie in the sense that you had two vacations back to back. That's never happened before. True, that is true. That is true. We wanted to do something together as well. And our plans for that second trip had to change last minute due to certain world events that have been happening, which was also kind of stressful and wild. But we made it happen and we're back. It happened and now we're back to the podcast. And we are covering a topic today that has been hotly requested and that I will admit I have been a little hesitant to cover. Yeah, we'll get into it. Understandably, we have a bias, which we'll talk about. Yes, we do. OK, so today we are talking about sex while intoxicated. We're talking about the legal stuff here. So alcohol, weed in the states that it is legal. It's not legal everywhere, right? I don't think it is. It's legal everywhere. And I mean, we're talking about the US here. It's legal in California. It is legal in many states now. I feel like it's the majority, but I could be wrong. But it's in varying way. You know, like it's like legal if it's medicinal in certain states and legal for medicinal and recreational and their tax differently in all kinds. It's a it's a whole it's like the Wild West here. But I mean, if you drive around LA, for example, like there are like there are probably more weed bill billboards than there are anything else other than accident lawyers. Well, even here in Santa Barbara, where we live, like it's not a particularly it's not a big city or anything. But I'm like shocked by the number of dispensaries for how small. I mean, are you shocked by the number of liquor stores, though? Like that. But that's interesting because liquor stores just blend into what you expect going around like a neighborhood or a commercial area. Right. Like it's just like, oh, yeah, there's always a liquor store every couple blocks. So why would you not be surprised if there's a dispensary every couple blocks? OK, so today we're going to be talking about like what science and research says, what people's experiences are about desire, touch, communication, orgasm while under the influence. Yeah, really mostly about sex. Like not we're not talking about whether these things are generally good or bad for you. I know there's a lot of talk about that. There's a lot of other people's podcasts that go into a lot of detail about this, especially when it comes to alcohol. We're not talking about that element of it today. Oh, and since we have not recorded in a while, we should also say we would be so grateful if you could do us a super quick favor. Could you subscribe to Pillow Talks? So if you're listening. Yeah, don't even stop listening. Just hit the subscribe button. Yeah, there's just a little tiny button. Just tap that. I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it truly makes a really big difference. Yeah, we are not one of the like enormous podcasts that's raking in a ton of dough off of this. It's a passion project. Yeah, it's a passion project. It might pay like one couple bills. Maybe. Yeah, so little things like this really, really help support the podcast. I mean, if you listen regularly, you're probably like, oh, why would I need that? I know that every Thursday morning I have an episode, but just hit the follow button. It's so easy. Then like in case you forgot, because maybe you go on vacation for a couple of weeks, then you'll remember. And if you're feeling like you want to go even above and beyond leaving a little review or a rating, it depends on what platform you're in. On Apple, you can leave like a written review or a star rating. And do it wherever you can. On Spotify, you can leave, I think just a star rating, but that really helps as well. So yeah, thank you in advance for your support of Pillow Talks. We really appreciate it. Okay, so let's talk about our bias going into this. And I'll kind of share like why I've been hesitant to talk about this talk. It does feel like a pretty loaded, sensitive topic. I think that there's so our bias is that we are both sober and have been for a while. Yeah. A number of years. Many, many years. So Xander is sober because he dealt with addiction issues. Yup. We have some podcast episodes about that if you're curious to hear a bit more about his story. And I got sober like both in support of you, but also because I was realizing that while I didn't, I wasn't struggling with any addiction issues, alcohol was really impacting me negatively. It actually took maybe about like 10 years where I was slowly like, okay, now I can't do hard alcohol anymore. Okay, now I can't do red wine anymore. Okay, now I can't do white wine. And you know, it was like slowly having to cut things down, but I was dealing with things like my sleeping really disrupted, bad headaches, really bad like stomach issues from it. And I just kept getting to this point of like, this is torturous to my body. My body very clearly does not like alcohol. And so I, you know, I kind of stopped on my own. And then with weed, like I've never, I've never been into weed at all. So that was, that's like, you know, it was like never even really a thing. Have we even, have we had sex while we were smoked weed? I'm sure that we have or like eaten an edible or something. Yeah, very rarely. I'm sure that we have, but no, you and I together have never used a lot of that together. I, as a, as a, like when I was like 18, 19 in the beginning of college, I smoked a lot of weed. Fortunately, we hadn't met each other. And actually I, I would not have been into you. No, I'm sure you wouldn't. But the interesting thing was I actually, I actually stopped smoking weed, like probably when I was like 19, 20, because I like, you know, like you were describing with alcohol, what started happening to me was, and then because this was also before the era of like there was no such thing as a vaporizer. And there was like, you couldn't do edibles unless you made them yourself. There weren't these, you know, nice, like chocolate blueberry things. And I got to the point where like, anytime I smoked, I would just start hacking up a lung. And the more I coughed, like, like my like throat would hurt and I would start to get all paranoid and like feel crappy. And I remember distinctly thinking, how am I, how am I ever going to like talk to girls? That's the concern. If this is my, you know, if this is my, I was like, look at like, how much am I, I'm like, I'm using weed like all the time. And like, how am I going to talk to you? How am I going to like hook up with someone like this? Or, you know, I'm just going to get, I'm just paranoid. So I was like, I got, I got a stop because I was single then I wanted to not be single. I was like, I'm going to be fucking single forever if I keep this shit up. So, you know, that was, that was, that was mostly that for me. Yeah. So I mean, I've, you know, because of your sobriety and because of my own experiences of alcohol, like just really messing with my body and even weed, like feeling like it really messed with me. I feel like over time, I've developed more and more negative views of these substances. And I think that we're seeing that happen culturally a lot more too. Like people are way more sober than maybe they've ever been before. Or like, I don't know. I don't know all of history, but like we're very sober right now. The percentage of people who say they don't drink is really high. And like you were alluding to like all the, all these studies are coming out now showing even, you know, I think we like when we grew up, I remember thinking, oh, red wine is so healthy. You know, like you just have a couple of glasses of red wine and that's like how you live longer and it's good for your heart. And so, and now we're seeing all of this research come out saying even moderate amounts of alcohol are really bad for your body, for your brain, for your, you know, for so many different reasons. But I also think we're getting like people who do continue to drink. I think there's more defensiveness coming up too around, you know, feeling judged for it, seeing all this stuff come up. And you know, like if I was still drinking right now and I'm seeing all these studies, like I would, I would feel defensive. I would not really want to acknowledge all of that. I would feel frustrated by it. Yeah. So I guess I've been, you know, I want to be clear in saying we are always, the perspective that we always take is everybody's got to make their own decisions for their own lives. I'm never going to be the kind of person who says like everybody should do this. Nobody should do that because I'm doing it in my life. That means it's going to work in your life. So I want to be really careful in saying like people got to make their own decisions and we're, you know, totally fine with people making their own decisions about whether or not they want to take any sort of substances in the first place. But I think it's, yeah, I just feel like a little, I feel a little wary waiting into this top. I have felt, obviously now we're choosing to do it. So I'm like, I've gotten over it, but I have felt a little wary of like, yeah, I don't want to, how do I talk about some of these challenges and concerns without it coming across as judgmental? And I never, I never want anyone in our audience to think that we're being judgmental. Well, I think on top of all of that, I think that there's an even bigger bias too, which is we wrote a book about how to talk about sex. And most of what we do is focused on like how to talk about it, how to do it, how to feel more comfortable doing it. And as we'll get into a lot of the reasons that people use substances to have sex are to short circuit or almost to get around issues that they might be having with either, you know, feeling like they need something to jumpstart their desire or they need something to be able to make it feel less awkward or to get out of their head. So we clearly have a bias in that much of what we talk about our content area, our business is built around helping people be more comfortable. Now, like we don't say, you know, our business is not like, oh, we're helping you have better sober sex. But like the reality is if you follow what we do, I don't think anyone is anyone who actually takes our advice and buys our courses and our guides and does all this work on their sex life is going to come away feeling like, oh, man, I really need, I really need an edible in order to have sex. So I think there's also that bias too in terms of just what we do is a bit at odds with, you know, this, oh, yeah, like just eat this, just drink this in order to want to have sex all the time. I will also say some of the worst sex we ever had has been while we were intoxicated. Yeah, like early in our relationship. I mean, all throughout. Well, actually, yeah, that's the outtrue. Any time that we had have had bad sex, the chances are high that one of the main reasons it was bad was because we were intoxicated. Yeah, and or got into some kind of argument in the middle of our following sex. Yeah, absolutely. So that's another bias. Okay, yeah, I know what you're talking about, the beach, right? Oh, no, no, I actually wasn't even thinking of that. Oh, really? Oh, you want to tell that story? I'll throw myself under the bus. Yeah, one of the rough ones. I've really locked that out of my memory. One of the worst fights that we ever got into was over drunk sex that didn't actually even happen. So we were living in San Francisco. Wasn't even close to happening. It might have been closer. You probably thought it was a lot closer than I did. We were living in San Francisco at the time and we'd gone to the bunch of friends all the way out to Ocean Beach to have like a bonfire at night. And I think something had happened that day where we were out way longer than I thought we were going to be. I had not eaten all day and that was at the time where I was still drinking hard alcohol. And I was a whiskey girl back in the day. I was pounding whiskey and I got so drunk. I've never seen you that drunk before. I never have gotten that drunk since that day. I think that was probably the day that I said I can't do hard alcohol anymore. I was extremely drunk and I'm like five feet tall. It's you know like I get drunk pretty quickly and easily. And I got the idea in my head that I want. And I want to. I love hearing you tell this story. I also love hearing you say one of the biggest fights you ever got into because for me this doesn't even make the list of the biggest fight because for me my entire experience was I've never seen you. I was not nearly on the level that you were drunk wise. And I'm pretty sure I was like I was basically sober enough where I was just like I kind of was just like she's fucking shitfaced like she's she's just on her own journey here. Like all like you see whatever she can be upset with me. My job at this point is to get her home safe and bed. I also like it's a fight from her perspective. It's not a fight from my perspective. I also want to say too that I like I always prided myself on being able to stay in control. Like I grew up being so afraid of drugs and alcohol. My grandpa was an alcoholic and he died of alcoholism. I was the dare essay contest winner in sixth grade. Like I was such a little goody two shoes about this kind of stuff. And so even when I did you know start drinking it was like I don't want to get drunk. I'm very like measured and controlled with it. I know I can't even take that much because I'm a small person. Yeah. So this was one of like probably five times in my life that I could even less than that that I can think of that I was like out of control. And anyways I got the idea in my head that Xander and I should have sex on the beach. Even though there were tons of people around including our friends like it was dark. It was night like I thought we could have like snuck away. In front of the bonfire. So Vanessa leads Bonfire. Vanessa leads me away to this area that's maybe 20 feet away from where our friends are in a circle around a bonfire. And it's like I think that you were wasted and you thought that they were like big sand dunes. It was like a little tiny like a little tiny rise or a dip with some of that like ice plant stuff in it. And you were like no no one can see no one can hear. And I'm like Vanessa they're they're right there. There there's. So embarrassing. And you were yelling you were like yelling like come on let's do it. Oh yeah. Let's do it no one can see us. I'm like they can they can hear you screaming right now. So you would not have sex with me on the beach. I got really upset with him and yeah that was it. So that was our worst fight intoxicated fight around having sex. But yeah we had plenty of other times where it was like there'd be performance issues or we'd have some sort of miscommunication or we'd start bickering or like you're on different levels of intoxication and it just doesn't feel good and you're disconnected. It like we just had a lot of yeah I would I would really venture to guess that any time that we had bad sex there was probably a 90% likelihood that yeah you know one or both of us was intoxicated. So that's our bias going into this. But we did I mean yeah we did ask our community to share stories and questions with us so we could share you know more unique perspectives about it. Yeah I mean at the end of the day I think most people listening to this episode are not listening to this because they're like they're like yeah I love having not sober sex and I'm really hoping someone's going to tell me like hell yeah this is the best way to have sex. This is the only way to have sex. Well yeah if that was your perspective coming in you should probably turn off the episode right now. I love when we tell people the gnaw isn't to our podcast. Like yeah I don't listen. Okay. I mean if you made it this far with that perspective like I'd be shocked like what what were you expecting to happen but I mean no I mean this this this isn't this episode isn't about like you being a horrible person if you've had a good time. No not at all. Because yeah. No judgments. That we're all about zero judgments. Do have good times. Okay so let's talk about why people use substances why people get intoxicated for sex. One of the main things that we hear is that it reduces anxiety so makes people feel more relaxed less less self-conscious that feeling of like you know I just want to have the have a drink at the end of the day to like unwind after a long day. Yeah take the edge off. Exactly. I would say though probably the most common reason is lowered inhibitions. People say like oh I just feel like more confident. I feel like kinkier. I can like allow myself to like be more open to sex and like less closed off or less prudish like it it makes me feel a little more wild. So that can feel really appealing to a lot of people. I think the vast majority of us struggle with feeling confident around sex like we feel some amount of embarrassment shame you know self-consciousness and so to have something that can like take that edge off and make you feel more confident like of course that's going to seem appealing to a lot of people. Also obviously some people are in it for like the altered sensation. Some people say like you know touch and I think this you get this especially like with weed. Some people will say like oh sensation feels like heightened for me. Time feels like it kind of slows down. So it just like feels you know physically like a different experience. Yeah I don't think anyone is saying that alcohol makes things feel better because it's a depressant and it basically can't like in really only like numb what you feel. But that being said I do think that there are probably some men specifically that would probably who you know might struggle with premature ejaculation that might say oh yeah I know once I've had a couple of drinks I can actually last longer the issue there is yeah you can last longer at the expense of having a worse experience basically. So you know it's like you're covering up another issue. It was like you know if you're if you're struggling with you know coming too fast and let's talk about how we can solve that problem with you still experiencing the same amount of pleasure rather than being like oh yeah let's just cut the pleasure in half so that I can last longer. And here are a couple of quotes that we got from people in our community. Someone said after eating a gummy all we could do was laugh. We kept trying to be intimate but there was just too much laughing. I appreciate the dedication. We kept trying. That that would be like I feel like that you know it's been so long but like going back to you know what it would be like for me if I was if we were doing that I feel like that would be one of those things where I would be like get really in my head and be like oh god I know that we said that we wanted to have sex but like I'm in no position to like I sure hope she doesn't I hope hope she's not expecting it because now I don't but I don't want to say anything about it. So good for them that they kept trying. Another person said I cannot orgasm after drinking. I can't even get wet. My body just doesn't work. I feel like we hear about that for a lot of women say alcohol really just completely shuts down their ability to have to orgasm. Yeah out. I do not enjoy sex with my partner while intoxicated in any way. But then on the other hand we heard a little weed gets me out of my head and into my body more and we also heard somebody else say weed helps me be more in the moment and feel more during sex. So let's talk about some of the dangers and challenges of having sex while intoxicated. So I want to start with impaired judgment. Obviously like when we are intoxicated it's harder to make decisions because you're not in your right mind. Your brain's just not functioning the same way that it normally does. So I think most people have had experiences of doing something while intoxicated that they regret later. Yeah so you know if say I had been just as drunk as you that night and I had been like oh hell yeah no one can see us. Why would you be talking like that. Because I'm wasted. That's your voice that you use when you're like trying to be a creepy horn dog. Oh sorry. You're not a wasted voice. I was doing more of the Californians voice. Oh yeah let's do it. That's a deep cut. I don't think most people are going to recognize that right friends. That's an all the Californians. I mean I'm born and raised in California. I definitely have a California draw. That's true but no I mean let's say we had done it. I have the benefit of not being that drunk that night knowing that if we had done it then you know we would have had sex in front of all of our friends. And you very well might have regretted that decision. Oh absolutely. I probably would have been mortified. Like oh my god who saw who heard. Are they going to make fun of that. I mean people might have heard anyway. Oh my god yeah. But that whole situation. But yeah I mean I made a decision that I regretted later while intoxicated. You could have made a decision you regretted a lot more yeah. But yeah I mean in my sex life before you I definitely made plenty of sexual decisions while drunk that I regret. Oh yeah me too. I had so much sex that I would not have had if I had been sober. Oh yeah I mean I think a very good portion of my you know kind of like hookups or one night standish situations probably would not have happened if I wasn't drunk. Because yeah for me I you know I didn't know this until recently but yeah I am a I want to feel a certain level of emotional connection before I feel comfortable. Having sex when I'm sober. You know when I was drunk all of a sudden that kind of no that discomfort would go away. And it would just be like oh yeah like yeah I want to do it this is a great idea. And so you know pretty much all of my hookups it would be like really exciting in the moment. And the next morning I would wake up and be like oh I kind of wish I hadn't done that. I don't know that person at all. And now I'm going to like see them around and like I don't know what to do or say. I don't feel like close enough to talk about this. Yeah so I mean that's yeah but I've lived that one. 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And because they know you just have to sleep on a mattress to really get a sense and a feel for it, they offer a 120 night risk free trial so you can see if you love it. But seriously this is such a comfortable mattress and the fact that it's made out of natural and organic materials honestly makes such a huge difference. And birch has an incredible offer for you. Birch is having a flash sale for sleep awareness month so you can go to birchliving.com slash pillow talks to get 27% off site wide. This is exclusive for listeners of pillow talks. That's birchliving.com slash pillow talks. The biggest danger of sexual intoxicated is around consent. Like consent gets very murky when substances are at play. And I think there's even an argument to be made that you can't consent while intoxicated because we're at a certain level of intoxication but there's no line like oh yeah once you're blood out. Where do you find that line exactly? Like there's no specific point and if you're two intoxicated people that makes it even blurrier too where there's not one person to kind of check in like hey are you sure about this? I can't quite tell you're not fully all there. Yeah we're at the very least whether it's full on like lack of consent is unclear to a less extreme version of that but just like misreading signals. That can be very real and I think that in terms of the dangers that makes a lot more sense if you're thinking about people that aren't in long-term relationships but I would actually argue that this is one of the more complicated and tricky things is you are in a long-term relationship. You are in a marriage and I think a lot of us kind of once we've been with someone for so long it's like you know you assume yeah like I've given blanket consent to this person and so it can be really hard if you have an experience where you're like oh I kind of regret that or I feel weird about that but like that's not appropriate for me to feel weird or bad about that because that's my partner. I love them like we have sex all the time like why would I not be okay with something that happened between the two of us and I think that that can be something that can really eat away at us and kind of erode a relationship or even shut down our own desire or or sexual identity when we are struggling with like this idea that maybe oh god I wish I didn't do something I wish I had said no or I feel like maybe I did kind of send some signal whether it was a full on no or a partial no that my partner didn't pick up on and something still happened but like yeah not not those are those are real tough. Yeah absolutely like consent consent still does exist in long-term relationships and it absolutely can get really tricky when you're you know when substances are in play too I mean we've heard so many stories of people who just had really complicated challenging situations that they're you know trying to navigate the morning after can be really scary and tough. There's also there's something about like not being on the same page too like that night at the beach you know like I was I was really into it you were not I think also sometimes they're you know one partner wants to get intoxicated the other partner doesn't or your different levels of intoxication it's just like these are kind of all under the umbrella of just you know not being on the same page misunderstanding misreading each other and misreading the situation and it can just lead to a lot of a lot of challenging circumstances. 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I have a ton of stuff from Quint they not only make clothing but they also have tons of home goods I mean they're always adding new categories every time I go on their website I'm like wow I can't believe they sell this too and everything that we've bought has been high quality but very very affordably priced everything is 50 to 80% less than you would find at similar brands because they work with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so premium materials without all of the markup refresh your every day with luxury you'll actually use head to quints.com slash pillow for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns I've never seen a return policy like that yeah that's great that is Q U I N C E dot com slash pillow for free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com slash pillow substances can also lead to emotional flattening I remember that was I remember having experiences like that with you where I would feel yeah I feel this sense of like kind of flatness with you and and like there were times where I would want to be like feeling really connected or maybe feeling really like adventurous or something and like yeah just feeling that sense from you and I've experienced that myself sometimes too of like it just feels like it you know it takes the edge off but it also then you're not all there with you yeah and so it can be this strange experience like feeling that in yourself and feeling that from your partner too yeah it's like you want a certain thing but then you when you actually get down to it it's like like our one or both of you actually capable of that of connecting on that level. There's also mood swings obviously that was that was my issue on the beach and that was something that would come up for me a lot you know when I was drinking in the past too is like my mood could change really quickly in general I tended to be oh this is actually something that we didn't even put on the list but you know like some people are happy drunk some people are angry drunk some people are sad drunks so you can be on very different pages in that regard too I tended to mostly be a pretty happy drunk but I would also I think it would just I don't even describe it I would feel a lot like it'd be a lot easier for me to snap at something and get irritated or angry or frustrated your tolerance yeah my tolerance is much much I don't think I don't I don't know if anyone turns into a tolerant drunk yeah I don't think so um poorer communication yep yeah like you just you oh my god this is one of the challenges about being sober is hearing people get drunk and try to communicate like yeah people are sick oh my god they just don't hear each other people can be so annoying when they're drunk and I I'm saying that with zero judgment because I'm sure yeah I am sure if I could go back in time and listen to some of the things that I said and some of the conversations that you and I had while drunk like I would have been so embarrassed like you're just you're kind of a people can be kind of a nightmare yeah just just like you shouldn't be operating a motor vehicle you shouldn't be operating a a relationship like you shouldn't be operating a emotionally charged conversation okay then let's get into like the physical aspects of it too alcohol in particular can really blunt your sense of pleasure like again it's that we'll take the edge off thing but then you can also feel very blunted so the vast majority of people say that when they're drinking they don't feel nearly as much sensation and so that can lead to like for men it can be a lot harder to get erect there's a whole phrase whiskey dick you know of like you want to you're there you're really wanting to go but like you just just not happening yeah it cannot get you cannot get an erection or you got an erection and then you struggle to keep it or you get an erection and you can't come yeah you're like oh I'm almost there I'm almost there I'm almost there your partner's like I'm done yeah we hear about that a lot from women like after my partner's been drinking like you know it's just going on forever and I feel like I'm being rubbed raw and I like want to stop but I don't know how to and you know it's just yeah it can be extremely challenging it can also lead to issues for women and vulva owners too like it's a lot harder to get wet too a lot of us it's like much harder to orgasm it can feel even impossible that was definitely something that I struggled with like orgasm just felt so much more challenging and I think the orgasms themselves even when I would orgasm like it just doesn't feel as good yeah the sensation just isn't anywhere near as good and let's talk about some potential long-term implications too you know habitual usage around sex can create dependence on substance to feel intimate like a lot of people say you know yeah I need to have a glass of wine I need to have a cocktail before we have sex like and it gets to the point where you feel like you can't have sex unless you've had that like you really become reliant on I need this thing to take that edge off for me yeah I mean it's interesting like we talk about you know how a lot of people can feel like oh I have this huge to-do list that's constantly running in my mind and I can't possibly have sex until I check all the things off the to-do list so it's like weird it's like on the one hand we're like oh yeah I know like having a drink or having a smoke or whatever like helps me get over that but then it's like really what you're doing is you're actually adding one more thing to the to-do list like in order for me to be able to have sex I need to add the substance so it's like is it I know it feels like you're taking like you're taking away the to-do list but you're actually adding to it there can also be like trust and even safety concerns if there have been like boundary violations or misread signals or being on different pages like we do hear we often hear this the most from women saying you know my partner gets drunk and like really pressures me to have sex and then you know the next day or pushes for some activity that maybe like like anal yeah it's always anal he gets he gets drunk and he's like really pressuring me and then won't drop it yeah drop it won't leave it alone and then the next day he'll be like oh I was drunk you know no just messing around yeah as a way to kind of like get out of it or not have to take that culpability then yeah if you feel like you're you know you're having this cycle over and over again like obviously that can really lead to some longer term implications in your relationship and then there's the big issue of avoidance you know a lot of people use substances to escape relationship problems rather than addressing them and there's also like I think the if you feel like intoxicated sex is very fun for you that fun can mask deeper problems that you might have with substances where you're able to kind of keep telling yourself like oh I'm just I'm just doing this to like have some kinky sex I have some wild sex and it's not you know you're not able to see that there might be a deeper issue there for you or at the very very least you might be avoiding any kind of red flags around your own sex life or your own desire like oh huh I am struggling with desire or I am struggling with initiate I know that I should be initiating with my partner but I'm really struggling with it but you know what helped once I've had a couple drinks I got no problem initiating like you know so it's like am I actually avoiding deeper issues or you know oh do I have a lot of you know shame that comes up that is depressing my desire or keeping me from like making me feel super anxious about doing certain things or even having sex at all and yeah so yeah I know that it can feel like a quick fix you know it's kind of like putting a bandaid you know bandaid on a flash wound right where is that or no a bandaid on a bullet hole what is that oh my god bandaid on a flesh wound a flesh wound is not so bad I don't I mean it's you know it's it's like putting a bandaid on something when you when yeah when what you really need is maybe you know a bandage a surgical procedure oh a surgical procedure is bad you need you know you need where are you going you need to see an actual doctor not just throw a bandaid on I mean it's it also could be like avoiding deeper intimacy too yeah like you know I don't I don't want to allow myself to open up in front of my partner or you know yeah I have to use this as a crutch in order to like feign intimacy with my partners yeah obviously a lot of different a lot of different dynamics can come up yeah I mean actually the kind of reminds me is an interesting comparison to you know the advice that you give women when you know women ask hey I struggle with orgasm with my partner but I can use vibrator no problem so like I masturbate with a vibrator a hundred percent of the time is is that a problem and the general advice is well it's not a problem if you're fine with that being the only way that you're ever gonna orgasm but I'm pretty sure that that's not fine because you're saying hey I'm struggling down orgasm with my partner I would like to be able to experience that with my partner my partner would like to experience that with me and so you know the answer is if the way that you make yourself come 100 percent of the time is a certain way you've trained yourself to only be able to do it in that way and I think the same can be true can be said about any kind of substances if you are finding that the only way you feel comfortable doing something is by adding a certain substance or the only way you feel comfortable initiating or the only way you feel comfortable like or you know being able to like get the anxiety to go away or get the to-do list to forget about the to-do list or whatever then you are creating a situation where you are completely dependent on that and you know so yeah like you don't want to be in a situation where the only way that you can do something is a very specific way so if you find that hey it's fun to have an edible arena and then and have sex great hell yeah keep doing it like I'm whom I tell you not to do that if you're finding that hmm man it's really I really struggle to be open to sex at all unless I do this that's an invitation to look at hey instead of using this temporary solution maybe it's an invitation to address what is the underlying issue because I promise you there are real solutions to every single one of the things that you think that the alcohol or the the weed or whatever drug is helping you with there are real solutions to be able to have that same experience if not better sober yeah I think you you really hit the nail on the head there that it's it's the moderation issue you know like the yeah for some people not for me sadly anytime but for some people it definitely can be an enjoyable experience and you know maybe something that you do every once in a while and it you know it feels fun and it's a little bit different and it says yeah different kind of experience but if it is something that you feel like you can't have a good sex life without it or you find yourself like yeah turning to it over and over again that it is an invitation I'd say if you're finding yourself needing to do this over 50% if you're approaching 50% of the time that's pretty high I mean I'm I don't know I'm trying to make this you know but you know if you're finding that more often than not you need XYZ in order to do ABC that's an invitation to hey let's let's try to figure out if I can you know solve this problem all right guys we got to talk about something and that is buying seafood I'm really curious when is the last time that you really trusted the seafood that you brought home with you from the store I know that that is something that I have struggled with it's really hard to tell at the store like is something fresh was it frozen before how many days has it been since wherever it is supposedly coming from now those were the kind of questions that we used to struggle with before we found the wild alaskan company the wild alaskan company is the best way to get wild caught perfectly portioned nutrient dense seafood delivered directly to your door trust me you have not tasted fish this good all their seafood is 100% wild caught never farmed and sustainably sourced wild caught in Alaska when we got our first box of wild alaskan I was so impressed like it is packed with dry ice everything arrived super frozen it definitely could have even been in transit for a couple more days without defrosting that's I was just so impressed by that part of it and the quality is next level this is such good fish plus it feels good knowing that every single one of our orders supports sustainable harvesting practices which is something that's important to Vanessa and me and you can try wild alaskan completely risk free if you're not completely satisfied with your first box wild alaskan will give you a full refund no questions asked so no risk just high quality seafood not all fish are the same get seafood you can trust go to wild alaskan.com slash pillow for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood that's wild alaskan.com slash pillow for $35 off your first order thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. You are probably not drinking enough water so many people aren't and if you're somebody who struggles to stay hydrated then we want to introduce you to cure they make these clean and simple plant-based electrolytes with no added sugar they have incredible flavors like watermelon berry pomegranate and lemonade they come these really convenient little packets you can just throw a couple in your purse in your car Xander takes them when he goes surfing all the time just to like quickly and easily rehydrate they also have an incredible energy drink mix that has a plant-based 100 milligrams of natural caffeine plus electrolytes for focus and hydration but without any jitters or crash that energy drink mix comes in great flavors like peach tea or acai berry i think you like the peach tea one the best right yeah xander just went on a big surfing trip and you have them like every day i just like multiple times a day i think just like trying to replenish all that oh yeah no nothing nothing tastes better than one of these things after two hours surfing so yeah after you know whatever it is your workout your activity of choice it tastes so good having electrolytes and these cure packets really just taste so so good compared to most of the other ones i've ever tried staying hydrated isn't just about water you also need electrolytes that's why we love cure it's clean and tastes great you can grab cure on amazon or find a store near you at cure hydration.com slash pillow real ingredients real hydration okay this episode is brought to you by Expedia and Visit Scotland start your story in Scotland experience the pool of wide untamed landscapes and fresh cuisine that feels rooted in place discover castles steeped in legend and feel the genuine warmth from locals you meet in a place that will stay with you long after you leave start planning your own Scottish holiday today at Expedia.co.uk slash Visit Scotland. Let's get into some of the questions from our community i'm going to ask you the first one is sober sex awkward at first this is something that like yeah we do get this question a lot from people who are pretty reliant on substances during their sex life like the idea of having a fully sober sex life feels very scary and we've actually heard about this from a lot of people who reach out to us after hearing your episodes about sobriety like on this podcast and saying like hey that podcast really opened my eyes i'm thinking about getting sober but i'm really worried about having a totally sober sex life like that sounds very scary yeah i mean this is a this is a very real thing you know for us fortunately for us this isn't something that we dealt with in our own relationship because we always had had a mix of you know even when even when things were tough for me we all so we're still having a good mix of sober sex as well so you know for me when i got sober it was not it was not a situation where i that was like a foreign concept to me but yeah i know a lot of people that i i know um you know from the recovery community have been through that where it's like oh no i for the last five years have not had sober sex once i don't know how to do it anymore and that is a very very very real thing um so yes it is going to be awkward at first the same way that say maybe the first couple of times you have sex when you are a teenager or when you are having your sexual debut it can be awkward right because it is a new thing it's a new experience you don't have the tools yet for how to do that you're building connection with someone um you know even if like you are in a long-term relationship with someone and you have sex for the very first time there is going to be some awkwardness right you are still figuring out how each other works and what this new element in your relationship is so i think the same is going to be true when you switch to having sober sex now i think one of the biggest things the most important things to get over the awkwardness is well one don't expect it to not be awkward you have to lean into the awkwardness you have to accept the fact yes this is going to of course it's going to be awkward it's been forever since i've had sober sex right i've never had sober sex whatever so accept that and but then two is acknowledge like with your partner hey i'm feeling a bit anxious about this because i've never had i've never you know i haven't had sober sex in a long time and i'm worried about what it's might might be like just being able to acknowledge that with your partner that is laying some emotional groundwork right because the more connected you feel to your partner the easier this is going to go most people have been having not sober sex to mask you know maybe a lack of emotional connection in the relationship right or to kind of jump start this to kind of like throw like lighter fluid on the sort of like a low level of emotional connection can be masked by being like oh yeah i'm really drunk or i'm really high like oh yeah we're so excited about this so i think that just accepting yes it's going to be awkward and then acknowledging with your partner hey here are some of my concerns like let's talk about it you're gonna start to feel closer and you're gonna start to realize oh yeah the bar is actually gonna get lowered the more i talk to my partner about what i'm scared of because your partner's probably gonna be like oh yeah no like i'm not expecting this to be like fireworks like yeah this is going to be a new thing and we're going to figure it out together also i mean you and i talk so much about how awkwardness just is a part of sex like sex is awkward yeah i mean that and that can be fun and sexy once you once you begin to love the awkwardness yeah it's just like being able to embrace that like yeah sex is awkward that just a part of it that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong i mean and awkwardness actually has the potential to create a lot of closeness and intimacy like some of our favorite sexual memories together have been times that were really awkward and we just like leaned into it and we laughed together and we made silly jokes out of it and we just were like in that moment with each other i mean intimacy the whole point of intimacy is truly seeing each other it's feeling like you don't have to put masks on or act in front of each other you can just be your full self with your partner and most of us are just a little bit awkward so like why would we not be that way in the bedroom too so the more you learn to embrace awkwardness and lean into it it doesn't feel so scary anymore it actually feels really connecting okay let's move on to the next question my libido is really low should i try smoking weed no a lot of people have this idea in their heads that libido like that smoking weed increases your libido and like i think that that's really more about the placebo effect of it where people think like oh my inhibitions are going to be lowered and i'm gonna like my head's gonna my brain's going to turn off a little bit but we don't have any sort of research showing that weed increases libido and i certainly would not look at it as like a solution for increasing your libido we have tons of other pillow talks podcast episodes about libido and the ways that most people really misunderstand what libido really is and how it works and the truth about how it actually works so definitely go check out those episodes but don't don't use weed let's say that smoking weed did increase your libido then would you like then what what would you use that information for them be like oh well i have to just become a total stoner then in order to have a stable high libido right like you're not gonna want to be like oh yeah great it it really jacks my libido up and now i just got to be high all the time like that doesn't that doesn't really make sense and again it doesn't really you know it then it means that your ability to have sex is going to be completely dependent on your ability to get high yeah right so unless that's what you want which i doubt it is if you've gotten this far in the episode then that's probably probably not the first thing to start trying but i mean placebo is a hell of a drug it really is you might as well tell yourself well uh going to the gym is gonna increase my libido i mean cool because it might it will it will it will but also if you tell yourself that like you know you might as well tell yourself to do something else that also will be a net positive for you because if you tell yourself you really believe that that is going to increase your libido it probably will just the same that you know smoking weed because i mean that's the thing like you were saying is a lot of people hear this rumor oh yeah no it's going to increase my libido so if you start smoking weed going oh i can't wait till my libido is higher in five minutes then there's a good likelihood that you will actually feel like your libido is higher in five minutes so just do something else and tell yourself it's gonna increase your libido okay next question how do i start the conversation with my partner that having sex under the influence makes me feel uncomfortable okay i would take complete and utter ownership of this and just talk about your own experience you know i talked earlier in this episode about how a lot of people can feel very defensive about their usage and i think if you go to your partner and say like i don't want to have you know sex with you when you've been drinking like they're gonna immediately get on the defensive now if there is an actual issue here like your partner's been you know pressuring you when they're drunk they have been unsafe situations like anything like that then that is something that you do need to talk about and i would highly recommend that you talk about it with therapist like somebody skilled to help you guys like navigate that but i'm just let's just assume this is a kind of standard situation where it's just like yeah i you know my partner's just kind of obnoxious when they're drunk yeah and to be really clear we are not saying that you cannot have a conversation with your partner about their drinking or about their drug usage you absolutely can't if you want to have a conversation about that have a conversation about that don't bring sex yeah into it let's keep these as separate things i think is what we're trying to get at yeah so yeah so in a situation like this i would just say something like i would talk about like whatever impacts you notice from your own usage so maybe it's like hey i've been noticing that you know when i've been drinking i just don't really feel any sensation or it's harder for me to get wet or it's harder for me to get an erection whatever it is and i'm thinking that going forward like i really just want to i only want to have sex when you and i are sober and you can say too like yeah it's i think it would be you know personally i know that i just want to be sober when we're having sex now and i don't want to you know control what you're doing but it just you know it can be a little weird when like one of us is sober and the other one is not so i'm just thinking it might be a better overall for us to you know only have sex when we're both sober yeah i think it's fair to be like you know and you know since i don't want to be having sex but i'm not sober you know i am aware that you know it you know there's the level of connection between us just feels a little different if i you know if i know i'm sober and you're really drunk or you're whatever so it's like you're not saying oh you're a bad person when you're drunk or you're a bad person when you're high whatever that's not what we're saying and i don't think that's what your partner will hear but you're just saying you know because i think everyone can acknowledge that when one person is stone cold sober and the other person is not it's a it's a it's a different vibe right i think it's fair to just be like you know hey and yeah it's a different vibe like that and it doesn't feel to me if i'm sober it doesn't feel like a sexy vibe yeah and you or you could also just phrase it in more positively about like the positive aspects of sober sex yeah of telling your partner like hey i just noticed like when we're both like when we haven't been drinking i feel so much closer to you i feel like i'm so much more present in the moment i feels better feels better you know whatever it is i feel closer to you yeah so like it's just so good when i'm sober i'm thinking that like that's how i want us to be having sex every time something like that so that's another great way to put it okay xander how do i handle a husband that only touches me when he is drunk oh i'm sorry that this is your experience this is a tough one yeah um this to me this feels like a situation where you're starting to really get into the territory where this might be something could do address in couples therapy it's hard to know from like a one sentence question like there could be other things going on maybe the husband is just really dealing with like a lot of shame or self-consciousness or embarrassment like i don't know it's hard to tell like i definitely you know i'm i'm always going to be a proponent for people doing couples therapy it's always a good idea but yeah it's it's hard to know like exactly what is the root of this issue going on here okay xander last question what do you do if you're the one who's been using substances to get in the mood and now you want to change that yeah well i mean i think this is what this is why we do what we do i mean basically okay let's take the substances out of it for a second like you got to start thinking okay so what when i am not using substances what feels like it's getting in the way of me being in the mood is it that my to-do list is a million miles long and i can't or don't think about sex until until i you know can have that everything on the to-do list checked off is it that um i you know was raised with a lot of shame around sex or maybe um you know a lot of religious shame around sex where you know i thought sex was bad bad bad bad bad and then i got married and all of a sudden sex is good good good but like i couldn't flip the switch right like that's an experience that a lot of people have um is it that you're really uncomfortable initiating sex or you're really scared of rejection and so you don't want to you know you don't want to initiate like so yeah what is what is the blockage there and then i think you know then it's starting to think about okay how do we address each of those individual things i mean i also like i wondered if this person is just overthinking it too like and now you want to change that just stop using substances see how it goes like you might be getting a little in your head about it wondering like oh is everything going to change and i might need to make it like my sex life is going to be totally different like maybe it won't maybe you just stop using them and it's just fine it might be i mean i think i think another another thing people are really getting their heads about with sex and being in the mood is this idea that i need to be being in the mood or like i need to be in the mood to have sex and to be in the mood i need to feel like wildly horny and i think that that is total bullshit oh yeah we talk a lot about this desires over this idea i am very rarely wildly horny until we start doing something that's when i feel wildly horny right is once we start doing something so instead of being like oh god i need x y z in order to get into the mood go to your partner and be like hey it would be really fun to get in the mood and have sex with you what like let's get in the mood to get like what do we do what like what do you do to get in the mood with your partner well you probably start kissing them you probably start touching them you start taking each other clothes off like you you make the mood together right so i think that we just so get in our heads of like yeah like you need to feel a very specific thing in order to even open the conversation about sex you can open the conversation about sex whenever you want you can open the conversation about getting in the mood whenever you want i think that's the one of the reasons why venessa and i have probably more and definitely better sex now you know in our forties than we did in our 20s is because both of us almost always say yes to the other person even if we are not in the mood because we see the invitation not as are you wildly horny and do you want to have sex with me at this very moment the invitation is are you open to getting turned on with me yeah right now and 99.9% of the time we get each other wildly turned on because we we know how each other's bodies work and we know what we like right and i think the same is true for everybody else we just have forgotten that we have that option all right well we're gonna wrap it up here we'd love to know what you thought about this episode you can leave a comment for us on Spotify you can come on over to instagram we're at venessa and zander and send us a dm but we'd love to hear your thoughts all right thanks so much for listening join us again next week we release new episodes every thursday