Introduction: alcohol is inevitable
The best solution to problems around sex work and alcohol would be, of course, to not drink yourself and not allow clients to drink. But both of those are completely unrealistic.
Fucking strangers for money is not the sort of thing they teach you in school or your mother prepares you for. It’s foreignness to one’s natural inclinations causes you to reach for something to silence the voice in your head that tells you you shouldn’t be doing this and the senses which – as you look and listen to a client – tell you you don’t want to do this.
On a client side, they are nervous, they are looking to relax, they are looking for a whole bunch of things, and that always ends up with them drinking.
So, if you’re a sex worker that has managed to do this job without drinking then I congratulate you but most sex workers I know use alcohol. Whether it’s the client trying to force it down you, or you forcing it down yourself to try to handle the client, I repeat… it’s inevitable.
But you always have to remember something that you already know, but gets lost the moment you start consuming it: that alcohol is dangerous!
Why is alcohol so dangerous for a sex worker?
Alcohol is dangerous because of its effects on you and your ability to judge, and alcohol is dangerous because it is almost always the pathway to violence and boundary pushing in the case of clients.
Alcohol causes…
Reduced situational awareness: Alcohol dulls perception and makes it harder to notice subtle but important cues, such as a client’s mood shifting toward aggression or a condom being improperly used.
Impaired judgment and reaction time: Alcohol slows processing speed and weakens critical thinking, making it harder to respond quickly and effectively to boundary-pushing behavior or dangerous situations.
Lowered inhibitions: It reduces self-control, potentially leading a sex worker to agree to something they wouldn’t while sober or to misjudge a risky situation.
In short, alcohol dulls the exact faculties that are crucial for safety and professional decision-making in sex work.
The best way to stop these things from happening is to be much more aware of the science of alcohol as people often continue drinking through an evening believing it’s going to do one thing when it does exactly the opposite.
The AIC principle: Alcohol Isn’t Coke
One of the best ways to reduce the risks of drinking alcohol as a sex workerriskbis to learn about the science of intoxication and the pointlessness – in terms of buzz – of banging down drink after drink.
You see, alcohol induces the logic of all pleasure inducing drugs…
“I feel good…therefore I should have another dose – i.e. another drink.”
However, whereas stimulants like cocaine get better with each dose, the quality of the alcohol-high declines with each drink. Therefore, the last thing you should do when you feel good from a couple of drinks is bang down a third one, soon after.
This is because alcohol initially acts like a stimulant; however, it’s a hypnotic sedative and the more you drink, the more quickly the high mutates from stimulating to mongy. It’s this hypnotic phase which takes you to that place ‘the twat zone’ where you start slurring your words, client suddenly gets angry spiteful.
While you may have physical energy and be dancing/shouting, a number of key brain functions are sedated… i.e. monged… i.e. all messed up.
The best thing you can do with alcohol is have a break of one hour after two or three drinks. In this period, you should drink a cola or a coffee or nothing.
During the hour’s break, some of the initial dose of ethanol will have been metabolized by the liver. Therefore, when you return to drinking an hour later, you’ll find that it picks you up and is more on the buzzy, stimulant side than the hypnotic.
Understanding the AIC principle (alcohol isn’t coke) is important because drinkers constantly follow the logic that it is coke…and try to increase the buzz or maintain the buzz by upping the dosage.
However, it’s impossible. All you will do is get less and less sharp and more and more mongy. More importantly, it leads you to drink the quantities of alcohol that lead exactly to the sort of impairment which puts you in danger with clients.
Summary
The AIC principle is based on two scientific facts…
- The drug ethanol – i.e. alcohol – is from the same family as heroine and valium and all that other dozy, mongy crap.
- It takes the liver approximately 1 hour and a half to metabolise a strong pint – therefore, all you’re doing by banging down more drinks is establishing a huge backlog of unmetabolized ethanol waiting to fuck you up more and more. And not in a good way.
Strategy: Replace every second/third drink with a soft drink. Have a break for at least half an hour (preferably one hour or ideally – ninety minutes.) And remember – drinking one after the other is pointless because whatever reason you’re drinking – to keep the client company or for the boredom or for the buzz – it will soon peak and you will be left mongy and impaired and not even enjoying yourself.
