“He only wants sex when he’s drunk”

Sophie Blackman, our Editor-in-Chief, is answering another dating dilemma for her new column, Dating Dilemmas with Soph. This week, she is answering how to tell if he likes you, when he only sleeps with you when you're drunk.

One VavaViolet Magazine reader asked Sophie:  “He only wants sex when he’s drunk.

"Sober, he’s distant. Drunk, he’s obsessed with me. Is this insecurity, avoidance, or just convenience?"

 

Sophie answered: 

It can be a mix of all three, but the pattern itself matters more than the label.

When someone is emotionally distant sober but suddenly intensely affectionate or sexual when drunk, alcohol is often acting like a shortcut around something they normally suppress — vulnerability, desire, anxiety, fear of rejection, or emotional inhibition. That doesn’t automatically mean the feelings are fake. But it does mean he may only feel able or willing to access them when his guard is down.

A few possibilities:

• Avoidance:
  Sober intimacy may feel uncomfortable or exposing to him, so he keeps his distance when fully conscious and regulated. Alcohol lowers those defences temporarily.
• Insecurity:
  He may need the “excuse” of being drunk to express desire, affection, or neediness because he’s afraid of vulnerability, rejection, or appearing emotionally invested.
• Convenience/self-centeredness:
  Sometimes the drunk version isn’t hidden depth — it’s simply lowered impulse control. He wants closeness, attention, comfort, or sex in the moment, but doesn’t sustain emotional effort afterwards.

The important question isn’t “Which diagnosis fits him?” It’s:
What experience does this create for you?

If you’re getting warmth, passion, reassurance, and pursuit only when alcohol is involved, the relationship can start to feel emotionally unstable:

• You wait for the drunk version to access closeness.
• The sober distance becomes confusing or painful.
• You end up interpreting intoxicated behaviour as the “real him” while the day-to-day reality says something else.

Usually, the healthier indicator is not how someone acts at 1 am, drunk and uninhibited. It’s how they act consistently when sober:

• Do they initiate closeness?
• Communicate?
• Show care outside sexual moments?
• Make you feel chosen without alcohol involved?

Because obsession while drunk can coexist with emotional unavailability while sober. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.

A useful way to frame it:

Alcohol may reveal desire, but it doesn’t create consistency, emotional safety, or relationship capability.

If this pattern keeps repeating, pay attention to the sober behaviour as the baseline — not the intoxicated intensity as proof of hidden feelings.

Written by VavaViolet Magazine's Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Sophie Blackman