What do we expect will happen when we drink alcohol?

There are some very common beliefs about alcohol.
Do you agree that alcohol:

makes people talkative and sociable
makes people more interested in sex
makes some people argumentative and aggressive?

Well, the truth is complicated and runs something like this:

Alcohol seems to lubricate social communication, but in fact this only happens when people are in the mood for talking and when they are expecting a good time. In fact, the more that we drink the poorer the quality of our communication. Have you tried being sober when others around you are drinking heavily? Was it boring, or did the conversation seem a little ridiculous? And of course social skills are absent once a person is drunk.
Again, if in the mood, alcohol might briefly be associated with an interest in sex, but the reality is that interest when intoxicated does not translate into action! The more you drink, the less likely that you will become aroused, maintain arousal or complete sex. And you will be more likely to misjudge the interest or needs of your partner. Heavy drinkers do not have good sex lives!
When people are feeling angry or frustrated, and they associate intoxication with aggression, they may seek situations (or at least allow potentially explosive situations to develop) where conflict and aggression are likely.

Alcohol is a sedative drug, so when drinking at risky levels, the parts of the brain responsible for reasoning, judgement and planning cease to function effectively. But alcohol does not make (or cause) anyone to do anything! Indeed, there is a lot of research showing that expectations when drinking greatly influence whether we feel intoxicated and our behaviour at that time. It has been shown in studies that manipulate the 'dose' of alcohol received, that our expectations of alcohol are so strong that we will act as though we are tipsy when we receive a non-alcoholic drink carefully disguised as an alcoholic beverage (i.e. when we are tricked into thinking we are drinking alcohol - a 'placebo effect'). We can also act in a totally sober manner after receiving alcohol when we have been mislead into thinking we are drinking tonic or soda water.

The big danger in believing that alcohol causes uninhibited behaviour is that alcohol can then become an excuse for unacceptable behaviour: "I did it because I was drunk". People on the receiving end of drunken behaviour might believe the excuse too, but not for long. The excuse soon wears thin.

So, let's take a complex view of our relationship with alcohol. What happens when we drink too much is a combination of our mood at the time, our expectations, and the events around us (the setting in which we have become intoxicated or the situation we move on to later).

Expect only from alcohol that it will reduce your abilities to function in all sorts of ways. But that's OK if you drink in low-risk amounts at a time when you are not engaging in any dangerous activities. Then you can have a good time and neither alcohol, nor you, can be held to account for bad outcomes.

Find out more about low-risk drinking.