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When Rikki Lee Travolta gave up drinking in 2014, after years of using alcohol and short-term relationships to cope with his mental health issues, he found that he faced a new set of problems: without the drinking, he had to confront his fear of emotional attachment to other people, and of finding out who he really was.
As an entertainer and writer, he was used to attention, and received a lot of love from fans when he was on stage. He had come to crave adulation. But, without his liquid comfort blanket, the only place he felt no fear was in the bedroom – so he had a string of one-night stands. “One-night stands were confirmation that I was desirable. It was an affirmation that I was important and that I mattered,” he says.
“I was in every girl’s bed,” says Travolta, now 53. But looking back, he believes he was avoiding intimacy as a kind of self-protection. “If it was a relationship, I’d be thinking, ‘Am I going to still matter tomorrow?’ but one-night stands are a different feeling. It’s just animalistic.”
Travolta remembers having his first sip of alcohol aged six when his father offered him beer. By the time he was 17 he was drinking heavily. At first, he’d just spend his weekends in bars and clubs, but the drinking became more frequent until eventually he was drinking from the moment he woke up to the time he passed out. It was a daily occurrence.
“People took it as being part of my personality. I’m a very bigger-than-life person. Getting naked in a bar was just seen as Rikki Lee being Rikki Lee,” he tells i.
Travolta has been sober for the past decade, and had his last sip of alcohol in 2014 before admitting himself to hospital for two weeks and attending 30 AA meetings in 30 days. Although that attempt has kept him alcohol-free for 10 years, 2014 wasn’t the first time he had attempted sobriety.
He had stopped drinking before but each time it was temporary during relationships. And he was fighting cravings all the time, which ultimately led to the relationship breaking down. “When you’re an addict, you are a liar. You will lie to everyone, including yourself and justify another drink. You will lie to achieve anything,” he says.
According to Drinkaware, alcohol can have negative effects on people’s sex lives, as it can reduce sexual sensitivity and make it more difficult for men to keep an erection. For females, studies suggest it boosts testosterone levels and can increase desire, though it also may reduce response and sensation.
Ultimately, sober sex is likely to be better sex, relationship expert and sex therapist Aliyah Moore explains: “Being sober makes it possible to have a more authentic and present experience. Alcohol’s numbing effects may be avoided, allowing people to be more in tune with their bodies and senses.
“Removing liquid confidence may make it easier for partners to communicate. Sobriety can also improve performance. Individuals frequently highlight improvements in erectile function without the damaging effects of alcohol. It can lead to more lasting and satisfying sexual experiences due to the greater mental clarity.”
Although experts believe reducing alcohol intake can improve people’s sex lives, just like Travolta, 32-year-old Michael Singh experienced the opposite at first when he quit booze.
The project manager had fewer hook-ups when he decided to get sober during the Covid lockdown. Up until that point, his life had become “absorbed by booze”, and his list of hobbies stopped at going to the pub to watch football with his friends. He spent weeknights drinking in his bedroom of a house share in London.
It is recommended that adults do not drink more than 14 units per week but Singh, who is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK, was having much more. He says: “I would be hungover Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday I’d start to feel better again and drink a little bit. It carried on and the weekends would just be a blur.”
When he was drinking he dated a lot, always suggesting a bar to meet in so he had an excuse to drink. “It was a great opportunity to not get drunk on my own. A date was an excuse to feed my addiction,” says Singh.
His dates usually consisted of him telling drunken stories he believed were funny. “I look back and realise it was like a cry for help,” he admits. At the time he was struggling mentally, and was in therapy.
Unlike Travolta, who plunged himself into the dating world to diminish the hole left by alcohol (but was ultimately unsatisfied), Singh refused to date for over a year when he got sober.
Moore says this can be normal: “For some people who used alcohol as a way to feel confident in their sexual encounters, adopting sobriety can cause anxiety or fear. Some people may feel exposed or vulnerable in the absence of this coping mechanism since they are navigating sexual experiences without the protective barrier of substance-induced inhibition.”
This was certainly the case for Singh, whose ritual had been to turn up to the date early to have a pint to calm his nerves. It was an attempt to hide that he had no idea who he was without alcohol, and was insecure and unhappy.
Looking forward
It was only after 12 months of finding hobbies he enjoyed – like running, art and yoga – that Singh felt secure enough to date again without booze. The first he attended was with a woman he met on a sobriety website, and they met for a walk in the park shortly after lockdown ended, which he describes as a “nice experience” that lasted for a few months.
When it came to having sex sober for the first time with a different date months later though, Singh recalls being a nervous wreck. “In the past I was quite selfish when it came to sex. I was too inebriated to care too much about the act itself,” he says. Now, through therapy, Singh feels much more confident and welcomes this new sense of intimacy. “There’s more connection now,” he says.
Three years into his sobriety journey, Singh has a new rule: that he will not sleep with somebody who is under the influence themself, and that he prefers not to date people who use alcohol.
“I know that finding someone sober may be hard, but as a minimum I would want them to have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I wouldn’t feel comfortable having sex with someone if they were in any way under the influence. It would feel wrong and weird,” he says.
For Travolta, 10 years on, he finally feels comfortable enough to be around people who drink in a pub or club setting without the urge to have booze himself. He has been in a relationship for three years with a woman he’s known for decades – before he got sober – which he says is healthy and the most secure he’s ever felt: “I couldn’t imagine being with anybody else.
