181. I Was Drunk… It Would Never Have Happened Sober. The Truth About Alcohol and Betrayal

When a partner says “I was drunk… it would never have happened if I was sober,” it can leave you feeling confused, unsettled, and searching for answers. Part of you may want to believe it was simply a mistake. Another part of you may feel even more uncertain about the future.

Because if alcohol is the reason, what happens the next time alcohol is involved?

In this episode, I explore the real role alcohol plays in betrayal, why the explanation of “I was drunk” often leaves betrayed partners feeling unresolved, and the deeper questions that actually help rebuild trust after infidelity.

Key Takeaways

• Alcohol lowers inhibition, but it doesn’t create new values. It removes the guardrails that normally keep behaviour aligned with someone’s character.

• “I was drunk” can feel incomplete to the betrayed partner. It explains what happened, but often fails to answer the deeper question: why did it happen?

• Alcohol often acts as an amplifier rather than a cause. It intensifies existing attraction, curiosity, emotional disconnection, or weak boundaries.

• Trust isn’t rebuilt through explanations; it’s rebuilt through growth. What matters most is the reflection, awareness, and changes that follow the betrayal.

• If something still feels unresolved months or years later, there’s usually a reason. Your mind is trying to answer the fundamental question after betrayal: Is it safe now?

💬 Reflection Question:

If alcohol was part of your partner’s explanation for their betrayal, do you feel the deeper questions were ever truly explored?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 181.

Recently I received a message from someone who had asked a really important question and it's a question that honestly I'm quite surprised I haven't covered more directly on a podcast episode before. They wrote to me and said I wondered if you had done any podcast episodes with surrounding alcohol. My partner blamed their betrayal on being drunk and said that if they had been sober this would never have happened and they then finished the message with something that many of you listening might recognise.

This happened quite some time ago but it still feels very raw. Now I want to start there because if you are someone who is still carrying the emotional weight of something that happened a year ago or two years ago or sometimes even longer I want you to know that there's nothing unusual about that. Betrayal doesn't always heal with time alone.

It heals with understanding and when the explanation that you've been given doesn't quite sit right with you your mind keeps returning to it. Your brain keeps trying to solve the puzzle. Was it really the alcohol? Was it just a mistake? Does that explanation actually make sense? What if it could happen again? So today I want to explore this in a bit more detail.

What role does alcohol actually play in betrayal? Does alcohol cause infidelity or does it simply lower the barriers that normally stop something from happening? Let's start with the explanation itself. I was drunk. It would never have happened if I was sober.

The alcohol made me do it. This explanation is quite common and for the betrayed partner it often creates a strange emotional mix. Part of you might feel a slight sense of relief because if alcohol was the cause then maybe the betrayal wasn't intentional.

Maybe your partner didn't consciously choose it. Maybe it was just a terrible mistake. But another part of you feels deeply unsettled because alcohol is, well, quite common.

People drink at weddings, at parties, on holidays, on nights out with friends, sometimes even casually at home. So if alcohol is the explanation your mind naturally starts asking a new question. What happens the next time alcohol is involved? That's why this explanation rarely restores safety.

Instead it often introduces a kind of new kind of uncertainty. Now let's talk about what alcohol actually does to the brain. Alcohol reduces inhibition.

It affects the part of your brain responsible for impulse control, judgement and decision making. In simple terms alcohol weakens the internal brakes that normally regulate behaviour. That's why people say things they wouldn't normally say.

That's why people take risks when they wouldn't normally take them. That's why behaviour under the influence can look very different to behaviour when sober. But here's the important part.

Alcohol does not create values. Alcohol does not insert brand new desires into someone's mind. It just lowers the guardrails that normally keep behaviour aligned with those values.

So when someone says, that wasn't me, that was the alcohol, we probably have to look a little deeper. Because the alcohol didn't invent the behaviour. It just removed some of the restraint.

Now that doesn't mean the person planned the betrayal. It doesn't mean they consciously intended to betray their partner that night. But it does mean something important.

The situation, the environment and the lowered inhibition all came together in a way that allowed something to happen. And if the explanation stops at, it was just the alcohol, then the real learning often never happens. The alcohol explanation becomes problematic when it removes responsibility.

Because if the story becomes, the alcohol made me do it, then the behaviour becomes external. It wasn't their choice. It wasn't their character.

It wasn't their responsibility. It was the drink. And if both people in the relationship accept that explanation at face value, nothing actually changes.

Because alcohol will obviously, or likely, exist again. Social situations will exist again. Attraction will probably exist again.

And it's not unreasonable to think that opportunities might not exist again. So if alcohol is the only explanation, the deeper question remains unanswered. What allowed that situation to develop in the first place? In many cases, alcohol acts more like an amplifier than a cause.

It amplifies what is already there. Existing attraction. Existing curiosity.

Existing resentment. Existing emotional disconnection. Or sometimes it simply amplifies poor boundaries.

For example, maybe two people have already begun flirting. Maybe there has been an emotional connection forming. Maybe conversations have become slightly more personal or intimate.

None of these things necessarily cross the line on their own, but they create proximity. They create familiarity. They create the conditions where a boundary might eventually be crossed.

Then alcohol enters the situation and the hesitation that might normally stop behaviour disappears. So when someone says, I was drunk, perhaps a more useful question might be, what was happening before the alcohol? Because that's often where the real story begins. Now obviously I want to be careful here, because responsibility is not the same as shame.

Acknowledging alcohol played a role is completely reasonable. It absolutely can affect judgement. But responsibility means looking at the whole picture.

A more honest explanation might sound something like this. I drank too much and it lowered my inhibition, but I also allowed myself to be in a situation where boundaries were perhaps already weak. Or I wasn't paying attention to the way that that relationship was developing and alcohol removed the hesitation I perhaps normally would have had.

Or even I made a decision I regret and alcohol made it easier for me to ignore the consequences in that moment. Those kinds of explanations create something quite important. Awareness.

Growth. Ownership. And those are the things that actually rebuild trust.

Now let's return to the person who sent the message. They said something that stood out to me. This happened quite some time ago, but it still feels raw.

When people say that to me it often means something deeper. It often means the explanation they received never quite satisfied their nervous system. Because your brain is always asking one question after betrayal.

Is it safe? If the explanation doesn't fully answer that question, your mind keeps returning to it. Not because you're refusing to move on, but because your brain hasn't resolved the uncertainty. So instead of asking was it the alcohol, perhaps a more useful question might be what has changed since then.

Has your partner reflected deeply on what happened? Do they understand the environment that allowed it? Have any boundaries changed? Have any habits around alcohol changed? Have they become more aware of situations where alcohol could weaken their judgement? Those things matter far more than the explanation itself. Because trust is rebuilt through learning, not through justification. If you're someone listening to this who has betrayed a partner and alcohol was involved, there is something important also for you to understand.

Saying I was drunk might feel like honesty, it was probably true, but to your partner it might feel incomplete. Because they're not just asking what happened, they're asking why it happened. And more importantly, they are asking what will stop it happening again.

So the deeper reflection really matters, not because you need to punish yourself, but because the relationship needs to understand the full picture in order to rebuild safely. And if you're the person who was betrayed and this explanation was given to you, your discomfort makes sense. Your mind is trying to understand whether the explanation is sufficient or not.

But it can also be helpful not to get stuck analysing one sentence from the past. Instead, look at the behaviour in the present. Look at growth, look at awareness, look at whether your partner is willing to explore the deeper questions with you.

And I know I've given some examples today and I'm not expecting, and neither should you expect, your partner to be able to articulate all of these intricate thoughts and feelings in a way that aligns exactly with the examples I'm providing. But is there some change? Is there some movement? Is there some growth, some awareness, something that suggests that what is true now is not the same as what was true then? Because the future of the relationship is shaped far more by growth than by the original explanation. Alcohol may lower inhibition, but it does not create character.

It reveals how someone behaves when their guardrails are weakened. That doesn't mean alcohol is irrelevant, but it does mean the deeper work after betrayal is not explaining the moment. It's understanding the patterns that allowed it.

So if this is something you've struggled with, perhaps the conversation to have is not was it the alcohol, but what have we learned from what happened? Because relationships don't rebuild themselves through excuses, they rebuild themselves through awareness, through honesty, and through growth. If you're still carrying questions about something that happened months or even years ago, you don't have to process that alone. Understanding the dynamics behind betrayal is often what allows the emotional charge to finally settle.

If you'd like support exploring that, you can visit LifeCoachLuke.com or drop me a message directly on Instagram at my Life Coach Luke. And until next week, take care of yourself. I'll talk to you soon.