Hi all - well this is embarrassing I keep reading little snips here and there about how Nal can affect sex drive, but I can't find a post anywhere with a definitive answer so I hope someone can help (I'm a women by the way - in case you didn't guess )

I have heard that if you have sex after you have taken Nal that the brain blocks the pleasure endorphin and you will gradually become extinct to the pleasure. This is worrying - hubby and I have a great sex life and I certainly don't want to lose that. Also, how soon after taking the tablet will it still affect things.

It was awful - we had a bit of morning fun (sorry if TMI!) and I was terrified to let my self go and enjoy it, just in case the Nal I took last night kicked in to spoil it for me. That's the first time in my life that I deliberately thought of England and faked an orgasm!!

Appreciate any constructive advice on this one.

This is something I have also given a lot of thought too... from a mans' point of view I have found sex on Nal to be different, it has all the right physical feel but without the head rush,

I know we are told to not partake in endorphin releasing activities for 48 hours after a Nal, so what I have tended to do is have an AF day and then partake the following day! you may see my AF days go up!

I do however also think that sex is a bit more instinctual and would be really hard to extinguish, I still have sex with or without Nal, its just I definitely do after an AF day.

I suspect the real answer is we are targeting the drinking by Nal plus an hour, as long as we don't take a Nal, wait an hour and then have sex and a drink everytime, there will be times when we just have sex and if some of those times are after an AF day or 24 hours after a Nal then actually we end up re enforcing.

Thanks Nigel - you're right. If drinking without taking a NAL reinforces alcohol then presumably have sex without it will too. I will try not to worry about it too much. Hopefully the more AF days I get under my belt, the less I will be taking the Nal anyway.

I have two kids under the age of five. What is sex again?

Snapdragon...nothing to be embarrased about. In my experience, and from what I've read, Naltrexone should have near zero effect on your sex drive. The idea that it could "extinguish" the desire for sex is, in my opinion, so improbable as to be absurd. As has been pointed out, sex (and exercise) are so much more complicated than the dumb pleasures of alcohol that it's a whole other category.

On the other hand, alcohol tends to lower the orgasm threshold in women (i.e. it's easier to orgasm when you're buzzing versus sober), whereas it does the opposite for men. As I got older, I had multiple episodes of erectile dysfunction when drunk. I had told myself over the years that sober sex would be lacking. In reality, it has been quite the opposite. However, one problem we've had is that as I've stopped drinking, my wife has largely stopped, also. So, if you charted her orgasms, they would follow my drinking patterns over the past three years or so (in other words, she barely orgasms anymore because she rarely has alcohol in her system). So, my experience of sex has improved, hers has gone down. I'm left with the challenge of trying to get her loose and "liquored up" without appearing to try to get her drunk for sex.

Why bother with appearances?

Pour drink. "Its for you."

"Are you trying to get me liquored up for sex?"

"Yep."

This is already the most entertaining thread in ages.

LOL, I like sideeffect2's approach, but maybe Mrs. Barry wouldn't go for it.

You could also just find a pretext to observe in conversation that she's more orgasmic after a few drinks. If there's no sex actually on the horizon at that time, it's less skeevy. Once it's pointed out to her, she might handle it herself.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure I'm not more orgasmic after alcohol. I was usually drinking a whole lot, though, so it might be different for a woman who has just a couple.

Quite the opposite, whilst alcohol initially increased my desire and lowered my protective boundaries, it also had a numbing effect. I did find that Naltrexone also had a similar effect on that part of my body, however compared to the destruction alcohol had wreaked on my life it was nothing, to get sober was good enough for me. As I progressed with TSM I was able to reduce the number of days I used Naltrexone, and now have not touched alcohol for a very long time = no naltrexone required.

When I was using naltrexone I remember lots of people asking on here about exercise, sex, food etc. I simple got on with it, breaking the addiction to alcohol was my number one goal, and I decided I'd worry about the other things once I had that sorted and under control. Also reducing alcohol intake actually often has a positive effect on all those activities, which very easily counterbalances the Naltrexone effect. In the end it made very little difference compared to reducing them removing alcohol from my body and mind.