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Drinking with and Without Fun: Female Students' Accounts of Pre-Drinking and Club-Drinking
Abstract
Pre-drinking, also known as pre-partying, pre-gaming, and front- or pre-loading, is the intensive pair or group consumption of alcohol in a private home prior to going out for the night, with the intention of ensuring maximum levels of intoxication. It has emerged as a distinct component of heavy drinking practice among young adults approximately between the ages of 18-25. This paper examines reflective accounts of female students' pre-drinking and club-drinking. It explores the experience of pre-drinking in the context of the overall drinking sequence undertaken throughout the evening in and the night out. It finds that pre-drinking has a specific purpose for young women in managing risk, as well as ensuring a shared level of intoxication in preparation for entry into public drinking spaces. Their accounts illustrate the performative nature of intoxication. Pre-drinking is highly directed, bounded, and ritualised. It was frequently, though not always, recounted as lacking in pleasure for these reasons. It was associated with preparation for entry to a particular kind of superpub or nightclub especially, where the emphasis was on further rapid alcohol consumption. Accounts of continued drinking in the nightclubs were dualistic, emphasising pleasure and disgust, along with risk and vulnerability. Risk was experienced as individualised, and the women had shared responsibility for guarding against risk from unsafe others in the nightclub environment. This coding of risk is supported by public health messages targeted at women drinkers and by the more general societal and drinks industry promoted representation of alcohol consumption as normal and abstinence as deviant, which students were critical of. One attraction of pre-drinking for female students was as a way of protecting and supporting female agency in conditions of generalised, individualised vulnerability.
... These latter studies present pre-partying as structured around a variety of preparatory activities, and as related to 'getting in the mood' and becoming intoxicated cheaply before entering the licensed venues of the NTE (e.g. Atkinson & Sumnall, 2019;Dresler & Anderson, 2017;Barton & Husk, 2014;McCreanor et al., 2016;Bancroft, 2012;Nicholls, 2018). Furthermore, Barton & Husk (2014) argue that pre-parties are often gender-divided events, which are socially motivated, and which in many cases are marked by more thought and effort than the NTE phase of the evening. ...
... Part of this literature focus on pre-partying, which form a widespread way of drinking alcohol for young people across genders before going out, to the nightlife or to other mixed-gender drinking sites (e.g. Atkinson & Sumnall, 2019;Dresler & Anderson, 2017;Barton & Husk, 2014;Bancroft, 2012). Overall, our analysis supports the observation of these studies, that pre-partying is not merely fueled by possibilities of becoming intoxicated in a cheap and un-surveilled way before going out. ...
... With this in mind, it is not surprising that existing qualitative research emphasize that prepartying seem particularly important for young women (e.g. Bancroft, 2012;Atkinson & Sumnall, 2019). Yet, our analysis indicates that domestic pre-party settings are not just important in terms of performances of femininity, as suggested by, for example, Atkinson & Sumnall (2019), but maleidentified pre-partiers also engage in different forms of gender performativity. ...
Background:
The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between youthful drinking practices and gender within the domestic pre-party (prior to a night out), an arena, which has been relatively ignored in existing qualitative research on youthful alcohol use. An examination of the relationships between gender and drinking practices in this context is important for three reasons. First, pre-parties are associated with heavy drinking, which has traditionally been associated with masculinity. Second, because pre-drinking takes place in the private sphere of the home, it is therefore 'controlled' in terms of who can participate and hence what precisely is the gender composition. Third, whilst being located in the private sphere of the home, pre-party practices are nevertheless informed by the (hyper) gendered environments of public drinking spaces in the Night-Time Economy (NTE), most dominantly mainstream clubs and bars. We suggest that such characteristics allow for the emergence of specific gendered relationships, activities and affectivities, thereby demarcating the pre-party as a particular gendered drinking space.
Methods:
We draw on narrative data from 140 in-depth face-to-face interviews with young Danish alcohol users between 18-25 years of age. The interviews were part of a large-scale research project on the gendered aspects of youthful alcohol use and intoxication. Theoretically, we draw on a combination of the 'doing gender' paradigm (West & Zimmerman, 1987) and affect theoretical notions on (un)comfortability (Ahmed, 2014). We propose that these perspectives mark out the pre-party as a particularly gendered drinking space.
Results:
While our analysis supports the observation of existing qualitative studies, that pre-partying is not merely motivated by the possibility of becoming intoxicated in a cheap and un-surveilled way before going out, we especially argue that pre-partying is fueled by a desire for 'comfortability', which seems almost impossible to disassemble from the gendering that pre-partying also entails. Our analysis therefore contributes to the ongoing academic discussion around the relationship between 'intoxicated femininity' and 'intoxicated masculinity' by suggesting that we need to take the affective implications of young people's (gendered) drinking practices into account in a thorough discussion of the relationship between youthful alcohol use and gender.
... Furthermore, they preloaded as a way of feeling included in a friendship group. The group bonding carried them collectively through the subsequent phases (Bancroft, 2012). The young women described preloading as a phenomenon with extensive preparation and management before entering the NTE. ...
... The binary construct of celebratory/mundane confines the Alcohol Consumption Journey within the temporal, contextual, spatial and social limits of the edgework. Celebration was often a reason given for going out to escape the mundane life (Bancroft et al., 2014;Bancroft, 2012). Entering the NTE, the young women negotiate a controlled loss of control, balancing intoxication and navigating the edge between risk and pleasure. ...
Purpose
Heavy episodic drinking in young women has caused concern among many groups including public health professionals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of young women’s alcohol consumption so as to facilitate better health education targeting.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative descriptive study examines the narratives of 16 young women’s experience of a “night out” framed as the Alcohol Consumption Journey.
Findings
The young women’s Alcohol Consumption Journey is a ritual perpetuated by the “experienced” and “anticipated” pleasure from social bonding and collective intoxication. The data showed three sequential phases; preloading, going out and recovery, which were repeated regularly. The young women perceived that going out was riskier than preloading or recovery and employed protective strategies to minimise risk and maximise pleasure. Alcohol was consumed collectively to enhance the experience of pleasure and facilitate enjoyment in the atmosphere of the night time economy. Implications for health interventions on collective alcohol consumption and perceived risk are presented.
Originality/value
The concept of socio-pleasure is valuable to explain the perpetuation of the young’s women ritualised Alcohol Consumption Journey. The binary concepts of mundane/celebration, individual/collective and insiders/outsiders are useful to illustrate the balancing of collective intoxication with group protective strategies in navigating the edge between risk and pleasure.
... Young women are frequently encouraged to look out for themselves and for other women, to guard their drinks from being spiked, and to avoid contact with strangers on nights out (Bancroft, 2012). However, these so-called "prevention" strategies pose the danger of perpetuating a "victim-blaming" narrative where the responsibility of preventing genderbased violence is placed upon women (Lawson, 2003). ...
Drug (including alcohol) use among UK university students is estimated to be widespread and associated with adverse social, physical and mental health consequences. Drug Education Programmes (DEPs) may reduce drug-related harm although there is a sparsity of literature exploring their use in higher education settings; a gap our research aimed to fill. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 university students and four individuals involved in the development and/or implementation of university drug education services. Interviews explored students’ experiences of drug use and the perceived barriers and facilitators for implementing university DEPs. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we developed the following five themes: 1) A culture of drug use; 2) Balancing risk and reward; 3) Drug use as a coping mechanism; 4) The current approach is failing students; and 5) A new approach. While DEPs are a promising way of reducing harm, students’ fears of judgement, punishment and criminalisation may prevent them from fully engaging with them. Successful implementation of DEPs would therefore require structural changes to encourage students to access any future interventions.
... For example, relatively recently women have experienced increased participation in the workforce and subsequently increased income [38], and cultural norms related to alcohol use for women have changed such that it is more acceptable for women to binge-drink [39]. Importantly, women are more likely to consume alcohol in response to negative emotions and stress as compared to men [40], but women also view alcohol as an important and pleasurable aspect of their social life [41]. ...
Background:
Health-related behaviours such as physical inactivity, low fruit and vegetable intake, smoking, alcohol use, and inadequate sleep are significant predictors of adverse health outcomes. Health promotion strategies often focus on one behavior, though research suggests health-related behaviours tend to co-occur. The purpose of this study is to describe the relationships between health-related behaviours in the Canadian adult population.
Methods:
Data from cycles 3 (2012-2013) and 4 (2014-2015) of the Canadian Health Measures Survey were pooled to describe health-related behaviours (current smoking status, high-risk alcohol use, fruit and vegetable intake, inadequate sleep, and physical activity) among adults according to sex, age group, household education, and income adequacy. Logistic regression was used to test for relationships between health-related behaviours.
Results:
Findings indicated that adverse health-related behaviours co-occur frequently, with approximately half of Canadians reporting two or more adverse health-related behaviours. Overall, Canadian men were more likely to report adverse health-related behaviours compared to women, with the exception of inadequate sleep. Smoking status, fruit and vegetable intake, sleep and physical activity exhibited an income and education gradient. Sex-based patterns in grouping of behaviours were present such that adverse health-related behaviours were associated with current smoking among men and with high-risk alcohol use among women.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that health-related behaviours should be considered in both isolation and combination when designing intervention strategies. Sex-specific patterns of how these behaviours co-occur must also be taken into account.
... In her important review of the role of alcohol in British women's lives, Plant (2008) argues that changes in gender roles and in women's social and economic position, the 'feminisation' of the night time economy, sales of cheap alcohol in supermarkets, and female-targeted marketing form the backdrop to increased drinking amongst young women over the past 50 years. A more recent body of qualitative research suggests that young women view alcohol as a pleasurable and important aspect of their social lives (Bancroft, 2012;Guise & Gill, 2007;Seaman & Edgar, 2012), and place value upon sharing drinking and hangover stories (Griffin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, Mistral, & Szmigin, 2009;Sheehan & Ridge 2001). It is not simply the consumption of alcohol which is considered enjoyable, but also what that consumption represents. ...
Research suggests young women view drinking as a pleasurable aspect of their social lives but that they face challenges in engaging in a traditionally 'masculine' behaviour whilst maintaining a desirable 'femininity'. Social network sites such as Facebook make socialising visible to a wide audience. This paper explores how young people discuss young women's drinking practices, and how young women construct their identities through alcohol consumption and its display on social media. We conducted 21 friendship-based focus groups (both mixed and single sex) with young adults aged 18-29 years and 13 individual interviews with a subset of focus group respondents centred on their Facebook practices. We recruited a purposive sample in Glasgow, Scotland (UK) which included 'middle class' (defined as students and those in professional jobs) and 'working class' respondents (employed in manual/service sector jobs), who participated in a range of venues in the night time economy. Young women's discussions revealed a difficult 'balancing act' between demonstrating an 'up for it' sexy (but not too sexy) femininity through their drinking and appearance, while still retaining control and respectability. This 'balancing act' was particularly precarious for working class women, who appeared to be judged more harshly than middle class women both online and offline. While a gendered double standard around appearance and alcohol consumption is not new, a wider online audience can now observe and comment on how women look and behave. Social structures such as gender and social class remain central to the construction of identity both online and offline.
... There is not much academic literature concerning nightclubs and nightlife, and in most cases the nightclubs are an element of a wider context in which another particular phenomenon is analyzed. Examples include several studies on drugs, alcohol and tobacco ( Archer et al., 2014;Bancroft, 2012;Boivin, Geoffrion, Ouellet & Felson, 2014;Livingston, 2013;Sönmez, Apostolopoulos, Theocharous & Massengale, 2013;Tutenges, 2012;Tutenges, Bøgkjaer, Witte & Hesse, 2013), violent behavior ( Boivin et al., 2014;Cozens & Grieve, 2014;Demant, 2013;Franquez, Hagala, Lim & Bichler, 2013;Romain-Glassey et al., 2012), risky sexual intercourse ( Boyd, 2010;Damani et al., 2009), accidents or disasters (Aguirre, Torres, Gill & Lawrence Hotchkiss, 2011;Dean & Mulligan, 2009), health problems ( Beach, Williams & Gilliver, 2011;Halios et al., 2009;Johnson, Andrew, Walker, Morgan & Aldren, 2014;Kelly, Boyd, Henehan & Chambers, 2012;Potier et al., 2009) or social behavior ( Allemand, 2010;Anderson, Daly & Rapp, 2009;Demant, 2013;Guéguen, 2009;Hendrie, Mannion & Godfrey, 2009;Measham & Hadfield, 2009;Moss, Parfitt & Skinner, 2009) in the nightlife environment. With regards to the articles that mention nightclubs in their context, one might come to the conclusion that nightclubs are a focus for social and health problems, since the vast majority of articles are only analyzing these issues. ...
Tourism depends largely on the good will of local inhabitants and over the past decades many studies have been conducted concerning the attitudes of residents towards tourism. There is not much academic literature concerning nightlife, and in most cases the nightclubs are an element of a context in which another phenomenon is analyzed. There is a limited amount of literature analyzing the differences between men and women in their role as residents of a tourist destination, and there are also no studies concerning the attitudes of women towards nightlife. This paper intends to provide a first study of the attitudes of women towards the nightclubs, in the case of Ibiza Island. The analysis of the attitudes towards nightlife was carried out by means of an array of items integrated into a broader survey on attitudes of residents towards tourism. A total of 418 valid questionnaires were obtained, 266 of them were completed by women. Although the general view of the sector is negative, women are much more critical about the island’s nightlife. When breaking down the sample of women it can be seen that one part of women has similar opinions to those of men (Moderates), mainly those that depend economically on the sector, but the other part has very contrary opinions (Haters). Women have a more conservative and adverse stance towards risk than men, and they are more contrary to offers that may have a significant negative impact on local society, as would be the case for nightclubs.
... Assemblage and affective theories (Duff 2012(Duff , 2014Jayne et al., 2010) suggest that objects, spaces and places are not "passive backdrops" to one-night stands, rather socio-spatial settings that should be included in investigations. Traditionally, the possible pleasures of alcohol have received little attention in social sciences (O'Malley & Valverde, 2004), but researchers now seem to have accepted that the pursuit of pleasure is one of the most obvious explanations of alcohol use (Bancroft, 2012;Pennay, 2015). ...
Background:
In this study, we use assemblage theory to investigate the link between alcohol use and one-night stands.
Methods:
The data come from qualitative interviews conducted with 104 young participants in the night-time economy.
Results:
We show that: (i) alcohol-fuelled sexual explorations (e.g. erotic fantasizing, flirting and sex) are of paramount importance for young partygoers; (ii) sexualized territories (e.g. private parties, rural feasts and the backseat of cars) significantly shape the experience and performance of one-night stands; and (iii) contrary to previous research, one-night stands are to a large degree associated with pleasure-the immediate pleasure of having sex and the long-term pleasure of telling about it to others.
Conclusion:
We argue that drunken one-night stands are part and parcel of a drinking culture that places high value on sexual encounters and personal sex stories.
... 496). In connection with studying pre-drinking and clubdrinking, Bancroft (2012) has noted that sometimes predrinking took on an obligatory character and was enforced, with students describing the tactics as ''bullying'', but the most important mechanism seemed to be indirect: ''it was more common that ''bullying'' took the form of self-forcing according to the rhythm of pre-drinking, with students engaging in a process of peer imitation to attain normative levels of intoxication, rather than unwilling subjection to peer pressure''. Whatever the mechanism through which the influence from peers is mediated, the literature on young people indicates that those who abstain from alcohol oftenbut not always -experience a need to come up with coping strategies to deal with this pressure and to avoid the uncomfortable social repercussions. ...
Aims: We review literature and use existing quantitative and qualitative data to examine direct and indirect pressures to drink more, particularly among heavy drinking adults. Methods: Quantitative analysis uses a Finnish general population survey (n = 2725), which included questions on direct pressure to drink and on wishes for better non-alcoholic alternatives. Experiences and cultural logics of social pressure are studied using thematic interviews of young adult Finns (n = 52) on factors encouraging their drinking. Findings: Nearly one-half of the population reported having been pressured to drink during the past year. Pressures to drink more were reported the most among heavy and problem drinkers, and among respondents in their 20s. The qualitative data showed that indirect pressures to drink played a more significant role for the respondents. Ambivalence was created by two forces: collective drinking stands for sociability in the Finnish drinking culture so that there is a strong social norm and expectation to drink in social situations; simultaneously, drinking is considered a highly individual and autonomous activity. Conclusions: In alcohol abuse prevention, more attention should be paid to the norms that guide social and cultural possibilities of situational abstinence and the possibility to reduce drinking within drinking situations among those who drink.
... In terms of gender, previous international research shows that both men and women engage in preloading practices (Measham et al. 2011). In the UK, Bancroft (2012) found that although female students did not necessarily enjoy the speed and prescriptive nature of pre-loading, they did regard it as necessary preparation for a night out. ...
The practice of pre-loading—drinking large amounts of alcohol rapidly in private spaces prior to socialising in the night-time economy—has come to notice recently in the study of alcohol-related harm, but no studies have explored these phenomena in Aotearoa New Zealand. We used a theoretical framework developed with public health alcohol studies for understanding drinking cultures that conceptualises patterns of behaviours as arising within a dynamic interaction between forces of hedonism, function and control. We report findings from 34 focus groups conducted with 18–25 year olds as part of a project supported by the Marsden Fund, between 2011 and 2012, to investigate drinking cultures among young people. Our thematic analyses of participants’ accounts of pre-loading show that the term is in common use, applying to a range of practices motivated by price of alcohol but influenced by the pleasures of intoxication, the importance of peer processes and certain aspects of the regulatory system. We conclude with a discussion of the usefulness of the framework and the implications of the findings for public health policy that aims to reduce alcohol consumption and the harm that arises from it.
... Alcohol had multiple uses and different types for the purpose. Pre-drinking was one way of women entering into the night-time economy on terms suitable to them (Bancroft, 2012). The high cost of on-trade drinking was given in our interviews as part of the motivation for pre-drinking, but delving deeper it was apparent that pre-drinking had many other desirable attributes (Barton, 2013). ...
This paper reports on a participatory ethnography conducted with undergraduate students. It examined the rituals and habits through which they constructed their intoxication culture. Students used video recording devices such as smartphones to collect data about aspects of their intoxication experiences. They were then interviewed about emerging analytical themes. In this paper we focus on one aspect of intoxication culture, the place of pleasure in women's accounts. We build on previous research that showed that pleasure was present but not always dominant in women's accounts of leisure focused drinking. They experienced the predominant, neo-liberal concept of pleasure as a demand which had to be navigated alongside their own desires which could include a preference for a more situated, intimate, sociability. Pre-drinking occasions were especially significant as places where bonds could be built up and body and self prepared to enter the public night-time economy. For many, this preparation became the main, enjoyable event in contrast to sometimes fraught and demanding public drinking spaces, where women could find themselves subject to various critical judgements about their femininity. Their activities on these occasions focused on achieving a 'good drunk', a manageable state of group intoxication. We use these findings to comment critically on the gendering of the night-time economy, the narrow framing of 'pleasure' in it, and the commodification of student experience in the UK.
Preloading of alcohol and/or drugs before an event has been examined in the research literature for the past two decades. Despite the considerable interest and scrutiny on the behaviour, there are limited, if any, attempts to conceptualise a theoretical understanding of why people preload before an event. Here we propose a Theory of Preloading (TOP)—a general cognitive-behavioural motivational model for alcohol and drug preloading. This conceptualisation reviewed and borrowed relevant cognitive, motivational and behavioural constructs from previous models—i.e., the Motivational Model of Alcohol Use, (Cox & Klinger, 2011), PRIME theory (West, 2007); SORCK analysis (Kanfer & Sanslow, 1965)—applied to the target behaviour of preloading with alcohol and/or drugs. The TOP proposed that a central construct of affective management—guided by distal and cognitive factors—contributes to decisional factors for preloading. Consequential reinforcers and punishers create a reinforcement loop that feeds back into distal and immediate environmental factors for preloading, increasing the likelihood of future occurrences of preloading behaviours. Our proposed theoretical formulation concludes with practical and clinical implications, along with future directions for testing the model.
This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of young people’s performative pleasurable drinking practices. Some participants reinvented drinking practices that occurred in Westernised contexts in the early 2000s. These participants deliberately pursued transformational ‘carnal pleasure’ through calculated hedonism, engaging in intense but non-competitive drinking episodes, some of which went too far. These young men and women normalised such intentional excessive drinking rituals given the bodily pleasure they derived. On the other hand, other participants practised ‘disciplined pleasure’, engaging in social drinking among friends for fun and enjoying the social interactions and other adjunct pleasurable activities that also occur in drinking contexts. Moving beyond harm (to the self and others) discourses, the chapter demonstrates subjective, socio-spatial, and economic drivers of pleasure-seeking through alcohol consumption, highlighting how much the globalisation of the culture of intoxication is manifesting in contemporary Nigeria. The chapter demonstrates the extent to which young people are reconfiguring drinking cultures that are at variance with the traditional era, underscoring the necessity of rethinking the prohibitive traditional consumption norms, which deviate from contemporary youth leisure cultures. Given the decline in youth drinking in the Global North, the chapter concludes by highlighting the role that the alcohol industry plays in commodifying pleasure and producing the heavy and other drinking practices that the chapter explored.
In a time when music streaming has become the dominant mode of consuming music recordings, this book interrogates how users go about listening to music in their everyday lives in a context where streaming services are focused on not only the circulation of music for users but also the circulation of user data and attention. Drawing insights directly from interviews with users, music streaming is explained as never merely a neutral technology but rather one that seeks to actively shape user engagement. Users respond to streaming platforms with some relishing these aspects that provide music to be drawn into daily activities while others show signs of resistance. It is this tension that this book explores. This unique and accessible study will be ideal reading for both scholars and students of popular music studies, communication studies, sociology, media and cultural studies.
Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar o fenômeno do "esquenta",suas práticas, motivações e impactos, por meio da revisão da literatura. A disseminação da cultura do "esquenta" como forma de consumo recreativo de álcool durante o lazer noturno e a escassez de estudos específicos sobre a temática no Brasil motivaram o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa. Foi realizada revisão na base de dados Periódicos Capes, por meio de 10 buscas diferentes, o que resultou em um total de 995 artigos. Com base nos critérios aplicados no estudo, foram selecionados 35 artigos para compor estapesquisa. As discussões sugerem que jovens de vários países que praticam esquenta procuram economizar recursos financeiros frente os altos preços praticados em bares e outros estabelecimentos noturnos, e compartilhar expectativas sociais e emocionais entre seus pares. No entanto, o esquenta pode acomodar o uso excessivo de álcool por uma parcela dos jovens, constituindo fatores de risco para consequências negativas durante eventos de lazer noturno, como mal-estar, vômito e desmaios, embora a literatura também aponte aspectos positivos do fenômeno em relação a prevenção para uma parte dos jovens, como beber menos quando têm alguma vivência de lazer principal na noite.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE:Jovens. Atividades de lazer. Álcool
Purpose: Drug (including alcohol) use among UK university students is estimated to be widespread and associated with adverse social, physical, and mental health consequences. Drug Education Programmes (DEPs) may reduce drug-related harm although there is a sparsity of literature exploring their use in higher education settings; a gap our research aimed to fill. Materials and Methods: We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 university students and four individuals involved in the development and/or implementation of university drug education services. Interviews explored students’ experiences of drug use and the perceived barriers and facilitators for implementing university DEPs. Results: Using reflexive thematic analysis, we developed the following five themes: (1) A culture of drug use; (2) Balancing risk and reward; (3) Drug use as a coping mechanism; (4) The current approach is failing students; and (5) A new approach. Conclusions: While DEPs are a promising way of reducing harm, students’ fears of judgment, punishment, and criminalization may prevent them from fully engaging with them. Successful implementation of DEPs would therefore require structural changes to encourage students to access any future interventions.
All the associated risk factors were not equally responsible for influencing individuals either in alcohol use, khat use, tobacco, or cannabis use. This study attempted to examine sociocultural factors influencing university students in substance use by comparing one with another. A cross-sectional study was carried out. The study used a quantitative approach to collect data from 384 students. Compared with their involvement in khat use, female students were positively influenced in cigarette and hashish use (Adjusted Odds Ratio, AOR = 1.102, 95% CI: 1.056, 1.149) and alcohol use (AOR = 1.066, 95% CI: 1.021, 1.113). The involvement of students in alcohol use (AOR = 0.884, 95% CI: 0.838, 0.932) and cigarettes and hashish use (AOR = 0.909, 95% CI: 0.866, 0.953) were negatively associated with stress related to their academic activities. The involvement of students in alcohol use (AOR = 0.942, 95% CI: 0.906, 0.979) was negatively associated with parental influences; involved in alcohol use (AOR = 0.445, 95% CI: 0.210, 0.941) was negatively associated with the thoughts of considering substances as an energizer. The involvement of students in alcohol use (AOR = 4.980, 95% CI: 1.614, 15.368) was positively associated with peer influences. It was, thus, suggested that the management of Haramaya University should work on creating awareness of the negative consequences of substance use. Concerned professionals, including sociologists, psychologists, and health workers, should work on raising students’ awareness as it was possible to undertake their studies without substance use. Moreover, the university management is strongly recommended to expand recreational centers within the campus. Lastly, Haramaya woreda administration should restrict the availability and accessibility of these substances around the campus.
This article argues that key points in the female life-course – specifically, the transition into independent adulthood and motherhood – have come to be characterised by risk. The discussion is anchored in two case studies: the first concerns female undergraduate students’ strategies for managing the risks associated with socialising, and the second deals with the depiction of pregnancy-related health issues in British newspapers. Across both, discussion focuses on the protective and self-limiting routines that have become a distinctive feature of women’s lives. This article approaches these as ‘risk rituals’ and works towards a refinement of this concept. First, by suggesting that this concept should pay greater attention to the critical question of who is being asked to take responsibility for a risk. Secondly, by suggesting that ‘risk rituals’ might on occasion serve to mark and manage life-course transitions. The article’s conclusion seeks to explain why risk rituals might serve this function. Developing out of conditions of detraditionalisation and individualisation, risk rituals are nonetheless socially-patterned, rather than universal. They are, for example, a particular feature of the female life-course, and in making this argument the article points out the connections between practices of risk-avoidance on the one hand, and social constraints associated with gender on the other. In making this case, the article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on risk and the life-course, as well as contribute to the emerging ‘risk rituals’ literature and work on gender and risk.
With what Chatterton and Hollands call the ‘ritual descent’ (2002: 95) of young women into bars and clubs every weekend, we must take seriously young women’s participation in such spaces and explore further what role participating in the NTE plays in young women’s lives. Participating in the NTE has been increasingly recognised as an important component of the lives of many young women (Hollands 1995), and the participants in my study were no exception. Set against a backdrop of conflicting debates positioning the NTE as simultaneously a site of both pleasure and regulation, it is important to understand the value engaging with the NTE has for young women and the ways in which this can offer opportunities for ‘doing’ femininities or girliness and cementing friendships within these spaces. The girls’ night out represents a discreet and distinctive mode of engagement with the NTE, yet one that has received little attention in research, despite the fact that it is likely to reveal a huge amount about the individual and collective production and negotiation of femininities and friendships in nightlife venues. This chapter provides the backdrop for the remainder of the book by exploring what the girls’ night out means to young women and the central role it can play in the negotiation and maintenance of friendships and in doing ‘girly’. Whilst previous research has depicted friendships within the NTE as potentially shallow or instrumental and consumption practices as highly individualised, this chapter highlights the ways in which going out was described as an important and valued opportunity to maintain close female friendships, spend time together and enjoy opportunities to socialise and relax. I will also introduce some of the ways in which alcohol consumption was central to the young women’s negotiations of the NTE. Drinking could take on a particular role on the girls’ night out, where alcohol could function in the maintenance and cementing of friendships and the creation of intimacy (particularly when ‘pre-drinking’ at home). Consuming certain types of alcohol could also enable ‘girliness’ to be embodied in particular ways through certain consumption choices. I argue that the ‘girling’ of drinking and clubbing is particularly significant because alcohol consumption in public spaces has traditionally been recognised as a masculine pastime, rendering drinking and femininity fundamentally incompatible. If young women are able to rupture the linkages between public drinking and masculinity, they may be able to recast women’s presence and alcohol consumption in the contemporary NTE as feminine and respectable. I also explore the ways in which getting ready for a girls’ night offered further opportunities to do girliness collectively.
Studies undertaken by scholars in a range of disciplines in, and beyond, geography have provided important insights into geographical issues pertaining to young people’s alcohol consumption practices, for instance, elucidating experiences in a range of drinking microgeographies, such as bars, pubs, and clubs, along with differences between drinking in public and private realms and between urban and rural areas. This chapter aims to synthesize existing literature, from a range of international contexts, which brings to the fore the diverse microgeographies within which young people consume alcohol while also giving an indication of how young people manage their well-being in such spaces. Two key analytical points can be distilled from the body of work presented in this chapter. First, scholars have been somewhat fixated with preformed drinking spaces, such as bars, pubs, and clubs – typically in city centers. Second, studies exploring the ways in which spaces and places are fundamental constituents of experiences of alcohol, drinking, and drunkenness are largely theoretical. To expand, drinkscapes have typically been conceived as passive backdrops to young people’s drinking practices; and, more than this, spaces have predominantly been rendered fixed, bounded, terrains. These omissions are significant because health promotion and education discourses seeking to address problematic dimensions of young people’s alcohol consumption practices are limited by their incapacity to acknowledge and address the spaces in which drinking occurs. Consequently, this chapter goes beyond bars, pubs, and clubs to consider spaces young people create themselves as drinkscapes, including: squares, streets, parks, waterscapes, and homes. Further, this chapter signposts theoretical apparatus which may assist future researchers in elucidating the agentic and fluid capacities of young people’s drinking geographies, namely, the more-than-representational conceptual tools of actor-network theory and (im)mobilities.
Studies undertaken by scholars in a range of disciplines in, and beyond, geography have provided important insights into geographical issues pertaining to young people’s alcohol consumption practices, for instance, elucidating experiences in a range of drinking microgeographies, such as bars, pubs, and clubs, along with differences between drinking in public and private realms and between urban and rural areas. This chapter aims to synthesize existing literature, from a range of international contexts, which brings to the fore the diverse microgeographies within which young people consume alcohol while also giving an indication of how young people manage their well-being in such spaces. Two key analytical points can be distilled from the body of work presented in this chapter. First, scholars have been somewhat fixated with preformed drinking spaces, such as bars, pubs, and clubs – typically in city centers. Second, studies exploring the ways in which spaces and places are fundamental constituents of experiences of alcohol, drinking, and drunkenness are largely theoretical. To expand, drinkscapes have typically been conceived as passive backdrops to young people’s drinking practices; and, more than this, spaces have predominantly been rendered fixed, bounded, terrains. These omissions are significant because health promotion and education discourses seeking to address problematic dimensions of young people’s alcohol consumption practices are limited by their incapacity to acknowledge and address the spaces in which drinking occurs. Consequently, this chapter goes beyond bars, pubs, and clubs to consider spaces young people create themselves as drinkscapes, including: squares, streets, parks, waterscapes, and homes. Further, this chapter signposts theoretical apparatus which may assist future researchers in elucidating the agentic and fluid capacities of young people’s drinking geographies, namely, the more-than-representational conceptual tools of actor-network theory and (im)mobilities.
It has become increasingly clear that social activities play an important role for many UK undergraduate students in informing identity and place attachment through interactions with their term-time location. While attention has been given to the ways in which students construct ‘exclusive geographies’ through self-segregation from non-students, thus far there has been very little discussion of how students' identities may be affected by their changing activity spaces and how this may blur the boundaries between student and non-student spaces. Exploring these transformations over the duration of the degree is important as they highlight how identity performances may be influenced by students' transitions through university and their changing mobility patterns. This paper will address such matters by considering the following: (1) how first year activity spaces may constitute a student bubble for new undergraduates; (2) how, in subsequent years, these activity spaces adapt as students hone their social practices and explore environments less associated with student life; and (3) how ‘local’ student's activity spaces can become complex as they contemplate locating their multiple identities during term time.
In a supposed "post-feminist" society of gender equality, engagement with contemporary spaces such as the Night Time Economy (NTE) may offer young women positive opportunities to redefine femininities through leisure activities and alcohol consumption. Whilst the NTE is depicted as an increasingly "feminised" space where women's drinking is normalised and expected, this essay will demonstrate some of the ways in which alcohol consumption remains highly gendered and women continue to be expected to buy into normative femininity through their beverage choice by looking at a specific mode of engagement with the NTE - the "girl's night out". Drawing on the findings of my PhD research with young women in the North-East of England, I will highlight some of the ways in which young women manage drinking practices and choices in the potentially highly gendered and (hetero)sexualised contemporary leisure spaces of the NTE when going out with female friends. With the consumption of more "girly" drinks such as wine and cocktails both normalised and positioned as a key way in which to "do" gender and femininity on the girls' night out, I argue that women's scope to rewrite the dominant scripts of femininities in these particular contexts is limited and constrained. However, other social occasions or drinking contexts and settings may potentially offer women more opportunities to resist, challenge or ignore gendered expectations and norms around alcohol consumption. Highlighting specific examples of resistance from the data, I will draw attention to the important role of context in shaping the ways in which women manage and negotiate their drinking choices in contemporary leisure spaces.
Alcohol consumption in 21st-century Britain is of significant interest to government, media and academics. Some have referred to a ‘new culture of intoxication’ or ‘calculated hedonism’, fostered by the drinks industry, and enabled by a neoliberal policymaking context. This article argues that the ‘carnivalesque’ is a better concept through which to understand alcohol’s place in British society today. The concept of the carnivalesque conveys an earthy yet extraordinary culture of drinking, as well as ritual elements with a lack of comfort and security that characterise the night-time economy for many people. This night-time carnival, as well as being something experienced by participants, is also a spectacle, with gendered and classed dynamics. It is suggested that this concept is helpful in making sense of common understandings of alcohol that run through the spheres not only of alcohol consumption but also production and regulation.
Despite the increase in drinking by women in early midlife, little alcohol research has focused on this group. We explore how alcohol is associated with the construction of gender identities among women aged 30 to 50 years in the west of Scotland, United Kingdom. We draw on qualitative data from 11 focus groups (five all-female, six mixed-sex) with pre-existing groups of friends and work colleagues in which women and men discuss their drinking behaviours. Analysis demonstrated how alcohol represented a time and space away from paid and unpaid work for women in a range of domestic circumstances, allowing them to relax and unwind. While women used alcohol to construct a range of identities, traditional notions of femininity remained salient (e.g. attention to appearance, drinking ‘girly’ drinks). Drinking enabled women to assert their identity beyond the roles and responsibilities often associated with being a woman in early midlife. For example, some respondents with young children described the transformative effects of excessive drinking which allowed them to return temporarily to a younger, carefree version of themselves. Thus, our data suggest that women's drinking in early midlife revolves around notions of ‘idealised’ femininity but simultaneously represents a way of achieving ‘time out’ from traditional female responsibilities such as caring for others. We consider these findings within a broader social and cultural context including alcohol marketing, domestic roles and motherhood and their implications for health promotion.
Young people’s alcohol consumption has been the focus of heightened concern over
‘binge drinking’ in social policy, academic research and popular culture. A normalised
culture of intoxication is now central to many young people’s social lives, playing an
important role in the night-time economy of towns and cities across the UK. In this
paper we draw on the findings of a study on the significance of alcohol consumption in
the everyday lives of ‘ordinary’ young adult drinkers to explore the significance of loss
of consciousness and loss of memory in their drinking stories. Through an analysis of
focus group discussions with 89 young women and men aged 18 to 25, we explore the
role of ‘passing out stories’ in the classed and gendered domain of young people’s
alcohol consumption in the neo-liberal social order focussing on the constitution of risk
and pleasure in their accounts.
The ill-defined set of substances and behaviours collected under the name 'date rape drugs' present an opportunity to rethink risk management and the ways in which risk is studied in governmentality analyses. We borrow and develop Bakhtin's notion of the 'chronotope' - the spatially specific temporality constituting each literary genre - to understand how the risks associated with certain illicit drugs consumed by youth at weekend parties are thought of as inhering in a chronotope rather than in some chemicals. This chronotope, like most others, is gendered, but the gender-specific character of both the risks of partying and the friendship networks mobilized to prevent mishaps is denied by the educational materials: risks are simultaneously gendered and de-gendered.The insights generated by this study highlight the importance of relying on a more flexible toolbox for doing research on knowledges of risk.
In recent years concerns have been raised about the increase in alcohol consumption amongst young women in the UK. This paper presents a qualitative study of the experiences and relationship young, middle-class, female students have with alcohol. Interviews with five friendship groups were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal the integral part alcohol plays in the young women's social lives and its importance in the staging of the young female self. Drinking can be seen as empowering and confidence boosting. However, the ‘friendship’ between femininity and alcohol is a contemptuous and fragile one. Loosing public self-control is seen as an invitation to unwanted sexual attention and even exploitation. The interviews not only illustrate the gendered and classed behavioural codes imposed on women, but also how the women have made these their own. We discuss how the young women's description of ‘problem drinking’ as being, for the most part, the preserve of men and so called ‘chavvies’, allows them to project an image of themselves as feminine and in control of their own drinking. We conclude that this could have implications for the extent to which they see the messages of public health campaigns about the dangers of ‘binge’ drinking as relating to them. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Recently the use patterns, circumstances and consequences of cocaine have become of interest to both researchers and policy makers in Europe. Currently only a few studies have been conducted of the social epidemiology of cocaine. In this article, focus is placed upon the use of cocaine in one subpopulation, heroin addicts. Based mainly upon ethnographic research conducted in the city of Rotterdam it can be estimated that the prevalence of cocaine use in this population has reached a very high level. The mode of ingesting cocaine parallels that of heroin; Injecting Drug Users inject cocaine-hydrochloride, heroin smokers smoke cocaine base. This cocaine base is mainly processed by users themselves. An exception to this rule of self-processing can be found in the most marginalized addicts who do not have access to the house addresses where both heroin and cocaine-hydrochloride are sold. In this group the selling of 'cooked cocaine', a crack-like product, has occurred. The circumstances and potential consequences of the emergence of 'cooked cocaine' are discussed.
In Australia, negative attitudes regarding young women's drinking have eased, drinking is on the increase, and there are heightened concerns about 'heavy' or 'binge' drinking. In a climate where underage drinking is frequently considered undesirable, campaigns aimed at reducing 'heavy' alcohol use have failed. This article takes as its departure point the notion that alcohol plays a meaningful role in social lives and relationships. It is through the use of narrative that these young women make sense of their drinking, which is still stigmatized. Any harm encountered along the way tends to be filtered through the 'good story,' brimming with tales of fun, adventure, bonding, sex, gender transgressions, and relationships. Nevertheless, these women implemented their own practical harm minimization strategies, and it is here that professionals can gain a foothold and assist young people and help them to drink more safely.
Peer pressure is consistently implicated in the excessive drinking of college students. However, both theory and empirical findings suggest that peer pressure is a combination of three distinct influences: overt offers of alcohol, modeling, and social norms. Overt offers of alcohol can range from polite gestures to intense goading or commands to drink. Modeling occurs when the student's behavior corresponds to another student's concurrent drinking behavior. Perceived social norms can serve to make excessive alcohol use appear common and acceptable to the student. This review critically examines the literature on each form of peer influence and provides suggestions for future research.
This article applies the concept of strategic ambiguity in examining viewer responses to brewer-sponsored "responsible drinking" television advertising campaigns. Strategically ambiguous messages are designed to engender diverse interpretations between varied audience segments, and these different selective perceptions should translate into relatively uniform positive corporate images. In this study, teenage and young adult respondents were shown a series of television spots from two leading alcohol companies. As predicted, there was a high degree of diversity in meanings of message content and campaign purpose derived by viewers, particularly among less sophisticated teenagers. Moreover, evaluative ratings of messages and sponsors were generally favorable and more uniform than interpretive responses. The research demonstrates how seemingly prohealth messages can serve to subtly advance both industry sales and public relations interests.
The authors examined the phenomenon known to college students as prepartying, which is the consumption of alcohol prior to attending an event or activity (eg, party, bar, concert) at which more alcohol may be consumed.
To explore the extent of this behavior, the authors surveyed 227 college students about each drinking event over a 1-month period.
Principal results revealed that 64% of participants engaged in prepartying (75% of drinkers) and that prepartying is involved in approximately 45% of all drinking events. Prepartying was predictive of more drinking throughout the day of the drinking event and alcohol-related negative consequences. Men and women engaged in this behavior at similar rates, and prepartying was most related to social reasons for drinking.
Because prepartying is well-known among students, the authors suggest that clinicians and researchers target it to better understand college drinking and to help students understand the associated dangers.
In many social situations, the consumption of at least some alcohol is socially obligatory—at least for some participants. This paper focuses on the norms that govern minimum levels of consumption in such settings. Evidence for the existence of such norms is derived from the empirical literature on drinking and on my own research on reactions to non-drinking and lighter-drinking men in New Zealand. Reactions encountered ranged from subtle nonverbal responses to threats of physical force. These responses add weight to the contention that abstinence and lighter drinking can be thought of as deviance relative to minimum drinking norms. Identifying abstinence and lighter drinking as deviance locates the study of minimum drinking norms within the ambit of the alcohol branch of the sociology of deviance. This raises some interesting issues from a public health point of view and partially balances the historical bias in favor of studying maximum drinking norms.
Concern about the increase in alcohol consumption amongst young women, drink spiking and drug-assisted sexual assault have
culminated in a renewed focus on safety advice for young women. This paper examines young women's responses to safety advice,
and their associated safety behaviours, by drawing upon interview and focus group data from a qualitative study with 35 young
women (18–25 years) in relation to their safety in bars, pubs and clubs. The findings reveal that young women's behaviours
were complex and contradictory in that they resisted, adopted and transgressed recommended safety behaviours. This raises
interesting questions about both the practical and the theoretical implications of contemporary safety campaigns, challenging
the prevailing focus on women's behaviour and the gendered discourse invoked by such campaigns.
This article introduces the idea of a ‘pedagogy of regret’ to illustrate some of the inadequacies in recent government policy initiatives which target young women's drinking practices. In the Australian context, the National Binge Drinking Campaign warned young women: ‘Don't turn a night out into a nightmare’. A similar British campaign advised individualized drinkers to ‘know their limits’. The rhetorical appeal of these campaigns hinges on the notion of regret: young women will lament the excesses of hedonistic indulgence the morning after given the inevitable consequences of risky behaviour. This paper shows the limitations of such an appeal through a ‘sympathetic online cultural studies’ approach, which we use to explore the nexus between contemporary drinking cultures and the social networking site Facebook. Ordinary and mundane uses of Facebook – status updates anticipating the weekend, mobile posts in the midst of intoxication, photo uploading and album dissemination the morning after – reveal the anticipatory pleasures, everyday preparations and retrospective bonding involved in hedonistic and risky alcohol consumption. This demonstrates the fundamentally social dimensions accompanying young women's drinking. The enjoyment derived from sharing the ‘risky’ and ‘regrettable’ experience on Facebook is part of ongoing narratives between girls. Such pleasures, which are increasingly mediated by social networking sites, confound the notion that young women are haunted by inevitable regret and remorse.
This paper tackles the question of how we might begin to re-conceptualize contemporary youth cultural identities in the context of social divisions created through different transitional pathways, by reference to some recent ethnographic work on young adults and nightlife. Traditionally, there has been a historic divide between analyses of youth cultures on the one hand, and studies of youth transitions on the other. This has led to charges that transition studies are not only somewhat mechanical and structurally biased, but rather dull and positivistic in their orientation. At the same time, recent analyses of youth styles have been pre-occupied with more post-modern readings of club-cultures, post-subcultures, neo-tribal patterns of activity and lifestyles, and have often failed to address questions of inequality, segmentation and spatial separation amongst differing consumption groupings. This paper critically interrogates these two traditions, and seeks to advance the debate by looking at the complex relationship between labour market divisions and cultural identities in the night-time economy. It argues that while minority elements of 'hybrid' forms of identity and consumption exist, they are overshadowed by the dominance of a 'mainstream' form of nightlife provision that exploits existing cleavages in the youth population, and segregates young adults into particular spaces and places. The paper concludes by suggesting that while individual scholars may continue to work primarily in one of these two areas, transition studies need to aspire to become more culturally rich, while studies of youth cultures need to become more aware of the existence of spatial divisions and socially segmented consumption patterns among different youth groupings.
This paper reflects on the relationship between harm reduction, demand reduction, and supply reduction (collectively, harm minimisation) in relation to the individual, socio-economic, and legal regulation of alcohol, focusing on changing consumption patterns of youths and young adults in the UK. Firstly, harm reduction and practices of self-regulation are considered within the British context of an apparent culture of intoxication, with evidence of determined drunkenness amongst young people that builds upon a longstanding tradition of northern European drinking characterised by weekday restraint and weekend excess. Secondly, demand reduction and the predominant public health programme of recommended sensible drinking levels are discussed in relation to the credibility gap between such messages and contemporary alcohol-related attitudes and behaviours. Thirdly, looking at supply, recent legislative changes and broader developments in the alcohol industry are explored. They counterbalance economic deregulation of licensed leisure with the increased criminalisation of some drinkers. In order to produce the most effective policy mix, individualised models of harm reduction and demand reduction need to be located within broader, culturally appropriate, and context-specific policies that consider the socio-economic, political, and environmental factors influencing harm, demand, and supply.
It has long been accepted that newspaper reporting of drug issues may be prone to amplification. However, to date there has been little empirical confirmation of this view. This paper aims to examine the representativeness of newspaper reports of deaths attributed to illegal drug use. This was achieved by the comparing ‘official’ toxicological statistics for a single country (Scotland) with the reporting of drug deaths in that country's most popular newspapers over a given time period (the 1990s). The amount of press coverage given to different (types of) drug deaths was also compared. It was found that some drugs were more likely to be mentioned in newspaper stories concerning drug deaths than others. Moreover, atypical drug fatalities, such as those involving teenage females or ‘recreational’ drugs, especially ‘ecstasy’ received a disproportionate amount of press attention. It is concluded from these findings that the news media can present an unrepresentative and somewhat distorted view of illegal drug deaths. These biases may have serious implications for public opinion, social policy and drug education.
In this paper I extend our understanding of the ways in which young women in rural areas produce, negotiate and experience identity through an exploration of their drinking practices. Through a close ethnography of three groups of young women in the rural south west of England this paper shows how pubs, clubs, bedrooms and other informal spaces such as ‘in the park’ provide arenas of performance in which identities are constructed, negotiated and reproduced. In particular this paper explores the significance given by rural young women to their discursive drinking practices and the extent to which these practices lead to inclusionary and/or exclusionary experiences. Eschewing conventional notions of the body, by recognizing the body as malleable, porous and an unfinished product, subject to socially produced alteration, this paper teases apart the different lived experiences of rural young women by arguing that much of their behaviour in pub(lic) and private space(s) can be seen in terms of acts of spectacle, compliance and challenges to disciplinary frameworks. To illustrate this point I discuss how rural young women employ various embodied strategies to move between spaces to experiment with alcohol and alternative femininities and ‘do’ gender, thereby contesting acceptable rural gender roles and expectations. Through shedding light on drinking practices, I reveal how this experimentation affects their sense of their body, femininity and belonging in the countryside.
Recently the use patterns, circumstances and consequences of cocaine have become of interest to both researchers and policy makers in Europe. Currently only a few studies have been conducted of the social epidemiology of cocaine. In this article, focus is placed upon the use of cocaine in one subpopulation, heroin addicts. Based mainly upon ethnographic research conducted in the city of Rotterdam it can be estimated that the prevalence of cocaine use in this population has reached a very high level. The mode of ingesting cocaine parallels that of heroin; Injecting Drug Users inject cocaine-hydrochloride, heroin smokers smoke cocaine base. This cocaine base is mainly processed by users themselves. An exception to this rule of self-processing can be found in the most marginalized addicts who do not have access to the house addresses where both heroin and cocaine-hydrochloride are sold. In this group the selling of ‘cooked cocaine’, a crack-like product, has occurred. The circumstances and potential consequences of the emergence of ‘cooked cocaine’ are discussed.
Young adults in Western countries are drinking more alcohol than ever before, particularly young women. This study aimed to
explore how women are (re)defining their gender identities in relation to men through consumption of alcohol. Eight friendship
discussion groups were conducted in Auckland, New Zealand, with 16 women and 16 men aged 20–29years. Participants viewed
binge drinking as a routine, normal part of everyday life. Women’s drinking was linked to pleasure and fun, with positive
descriptions of female participants who were frequently intoxicated. However, other drunk women were positioned as deviant
and breaking traditional codes of femininity. Findings are discussed in terms of women’s changing social positions and the
accomplishment of gender identities through local communities of practice.
Pregaming is a risky drinking behavior that occurs when students drink alcohol before a primary social gathering or event.
The paucity of research on pregaming highlights the need for research on the correlates of drinking behaviors, such as alcohol
expectancies, that might increase the likelihood of pregaming. Thus, we sought to examine how alcohol expectancies and the
valuations (i.e., desirability) of these expectancies are associated with frequency of pregaming, drinking game (DG) participation,
and hazardous alcohol use. Students (N=1327) from nine U.S. colleges and universities completed self-report surveys. Results showed sufficient discriminant validity
among pregaming behaviors, DG participation, and hazardous alcohol use. Findings also revealed that pregaming mediated the
associations between positive alcohol expectancies and hazardous drinking behaviors. Finally, when we tested for invariance
across gender, ethnicity, and legal versus underage alcohol users, we found full invariance across gender and ethnicity, but
not for legal versus underage alcohol users. Future research directions and potential implications for prevention efforts
are discussed.
KeywordsAlcohol expectancies-Drinking games-Hazardous alcohol use-Pregaming
This study addresses binge drinking in college as a risk factor for heavy drinking and alcohol dependence after college. A national probability sample of 1972 college students from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY79) was interviewed in 1984 and reinterviewed again as adults in 1994. The short-term effects of binge drinking in college were assessed as well as the extent to which experiences of negative effects in college predicted patterns of alcohol use across the transition from college into postcollege years. As expected, college binge drinkers were comparatively more likely than nonbinge drinkers to experience one or more alcohol-related problems while in college. In addition, weighted estimates of DSM-IV-defined diagnostic criteria in logistic regression models indicated that the binge drinking patterns exhibited during the college years, for some former college students of both genders, posed significant risk factors for alcohol dependence and abuse 10 years after the initial interview, in conjunction with evidence of academic attrition, early departure from college and less favorable labor market outcomes.
842 women enrolled in large health classes offered at a midwestern university completed a health survey from which report of both the women's drinking behavior and their experience with sexual victimization could be excerpted. Both correlations and analysis of variance indicated an association between the amount of alcohol the women reported drinking each week and their over-all experiences with sexual coercion.
High volumes of alcohol consumption and risky single occasion drinking (RSOD) among university students have been shown to be associated with considerable harm to both those who consume alcohol and their fellow students. The vast majority of these studies are based on US and Canadian samples.
The present article provides an overview of the characteristics of alcohol-consuming university students in Europe.
65 relevant articles published within the last 20years using European student populations could be identified.
Sociodemographic, individual, social, and university-related characteristics associated with alcohol consumption patterns could be identified. Male students, in particular, tended to consume alcohol more often and in higher quantities, including RSOD. Students consumed alcohol chiefly during social gatherings and for social and enhancement motives. Those without family obligations and those living alone, with roommates or in areas with a high density of students were more likely to consume alcohol in higher quantities, and to engage in RSOD. Students tend to overestimate the extent of their fellow students' alcohol consumption.
Health promotion and prevention efforts which focus on these characteristics (i.e., gender, drinking motives, living conditions and social norms), and which have been successful and evaluated among university students in the US and Canada, may also be very promising for their European counterparts.
"Pregaming"--drinking alcohol prior to going out-is believed to be common, yet empirical examinations are scarce. In this study, we examined who is at risk for pregaming, consequences resulting from it, and motives behind it.
Participants (N = 159, 52% female) were drinkers, aged 18 to 24, recruited from introductory psychology classes.
In 2005 and 2006, interview measures of drinking and pregaming and self-report demographic, motivational, and reasons for pregaming measures were administered.
Two-thirds of students pregamed. Younger age, but not Greek affiliation, was associated with heavier pregaming drinking. We found minimal support for the prediction of pregaming by general drinking motives. Specific reasons for pregaming were identified, including saving money and obtaining alcohol when under 21.
Findings highlight the risk associated with pregaming, due to selection effects and to event characteristics. The unique reasons for pregaming must be further understood and addressed in targeted interventions.
To describe the research, policy and prevention implications of pre-drinking or pre-gaming; that is, planned heavy drinking prior to going to a public drinking establishment.
The authors describe the phenomenon of pre-drinking, motivations for pre-drinking and its associated risks using available research literature, media and popular internet vehicles.
Heavy drinking prior to going out has emerged as a common and celebrated practice among young adults around the world. Apparent motivations are: (i) to avoid paying for high priced drinks at commercial drinking establishments; (ii) to achieve drunkenness and enhance and extend the night out; and (iii) to socialize with friends, reduce social anxiety or enhance male group bonding before going out. Limited existing research on pre-drinking suggests that it is associated with heavy drinking and harmful consequences. We argue that policies focused upon reducing drinking in licensed premises may have the unintended consequence of displacing drinking to pre-drinking environments, possibly resulting in greater harms.
Effective policy and prevention for drinking in licensed premises requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account the entire drinking occasion (not just drinking that occurs in the licensed environment), as well as the 'determined drunkenness' goal of some young people.
It is proposed that people variously recognize their real selves either in feelings and actions of an institutional and volitional nature, such as ambition, morality, and altruism, or in the experience of impulse, such as undisciplined desire and the wish to make intimake revelations to other people. A shift toward the impulse pole seems to be under way and might be plausibly explained by chaning cultural definitions of reality modified terms of social integration, shifting patterns of deprivation, or new opportunities and consequences. Many standard sociological assumptions about social control are incopatible with the new pattern of self-identification.
A presumed high rate of U.S. drinking problems often has been ascribed to ambivalence over alcohol. Ambivalence is argued to be a necessary component of normative explanations which contemplate only constraining norms, as exemplified also in the place of ambivalence in Parsons' theory of deviance. Although ambivalence refers broadly to the individual's experience of conflicting norms, its psychotherapeutic origins in analyzing special kinds of relationship give it connotations of continuity in time and of excitation and potential explosiveness. It is these connotations which give ambivalence the appearance of providing an explanation of the origin and maintenance of deviance. Although sociologists have treated ambivalence as a property of the individual mind, possible meanings of ambivalence seated at aggregate levels are explored. The use of ambivalence as an explanatory concept should be replaced by analysis in terms of the conflicting norms and values the concept purports to cover.
There is limited information about the prevalence of recreational drug use over the postsecondary experience in Scotland. The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use in postsecondary helping-profession students (medical, nursing, education and psychology) in Scotland in regards to gender, age and course of study.
The Queensland Alcohol and Drug Study Questionnaire was completed by students enrolled in helping-profession courses from 22 departments at universities and colleges in five Scottish cities. The sample consisted of 717 male and 2,537 female students.
A slightly (p < .05) higher percent of women (92.7%) consumed alcohol compared to men (90%), but men consumed significantly (p < .001) more drinks per week (26.7) compared to women (17.3). There was no difference between the two groups when U.K. recommendations of maximum limits for each gender were considered. About 50% of men and women consumed over 21 drinks and 14 drinks per week, respectively. A higher (p < .05) percent of men (42.5%) smoked compared to women (36.9%) and a higher (p < .001) percent of men (40.1%) consumed marijuana compared to women (24.1%). There was no difference in the quantity of tobacco consumed. For both men and women, the prevalence of alcohol and marijuana was highest 2 or 3 years before the maximum use of tobacco (students over 24 years of age). Male and female psychology students consumed the most marijuana. Psychology students, together with nursing students, also consumed the most tobacco.
In view of the increasing prevalence of tobacco over the university experience, especially among nursing and psychology students, and heavier alcohol consumption among younger students, health education programs for Scottish postsecondary helping-profession students should expand from the recently introduced school programs.
The use of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs was investigated by questionnaire in 3699 second year students in ten UK universities. Patterns of use varied considerably between different faculty groups. Tobacco use was most prevalent in arts, social science and biological science students, among whom 36-39% of men and nearly one third of women were regular smokers, and least in female veterinary students (5%). Alcohol consumption was greatest in biological science students: 23% of those who drank exceeded 'hazardous' levels compared with 10-16% in all other faculties. Prevalence of cannabis use was highest in arts and social science students of whom 27% reported regular weekly use compared with 9-22% in other faculties. Experience with other illicit drugs was greatest among arts, social science and physical science students, of whom 64-71% reported experience at least once or twice, and least among veterinary students (42%). Identification of different lifestyles may help to direct appropriate health information to particular student groups.
Research developments since the appearance of MacAndrew and Edgerton's landmark volume, Drunken Comportment (1969), are summarized. The challenge of moving beyond the book is to understand what lies behind cultural variations in drunken comportment. Four specific factors in variations in drunken comportment are discussed. (1) A common contrast is between "wet" societies, where drinking is banalized everyday, and "dry" societies, where alcohol is set apart as a special commodity. Problems with this contrast are discussed, and the need for cross-cultural studies comparing expectancies from intoxication. (2) There is a need to study variations in the definition of intoxication as a "time out" state. In some societies, intoxication is likened to possession by spirits; a rationalistic version of this can be found in Canadian court decisions viewing extreme intoxication as potentially "akin to automatism". (3) If bad behaviour is a foreseeable consequence of drinking, why do some societies nevertheless not hold the drinker responsible'? In Anglo-American and similar societies, drunkenness has some excuse value, but it is not a very good excuse. Compromises like this seem to be found also in other cultures. (4) Pseudointoxication is fairly widespread, and seems to mark social situations where alcohol has enhanced excuse value. It appears to be a stratagem of the weaker side across cultural boundaries, and of the young where age-grading favours older groups. Concerning the possibility of cultural changes in drunken comportment, it is argued that there are historical examples, but such a shift requires a substantial social change.
Binge drinking in young people, particularly females and students, is a source of some concern to those engaged in health education. The concept is usually defined in terms of quantities of alcohol consumed within a relatively short space of time. Research suggests that reasons for drinking are varied, and are likely to be influenced by culture and context. This study aimed to explore issues important to female undergraduate students in Scotland. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 19 participants who were asked to describe what they understand by the term 'binge drinking', why they drink and what might trigger excessive consumption. Discourse analysis was used to explore the possible 'functions' of what was said, as well as the content. Participants showed sensitivity to how others might interpret their responses. They described binge drinking in terms of its behavioural effects rather than quantities consumed. Crucially, they positioned themselves outside the categories of 'serious' or 'anti-social' drinkers. These findings have important implications for our understanding of factors influencing drinking behaviour in this group of people, which in turn impacts on the potential design of health-enhancing interventions. The study also demonstrates the usefulness of a discourse analytic approach to accounts of drinking behaviour.
The contemporary night-time economy has transformed British town centres into liminal spaces where transgression does not subvert normative space, but establishes public drunkenness as integral to a negotiated order. The focus of this paper is the wider dialectic surrounding contemporary 'binge drinking', and in particular the relationship between aesthetic processes aimed at encouraging alcohol-related excitement and excess, and those that seek to exert a measure of rational control over the drink 'problem'. It is the logic of the market that informs governmental policy on alcohol, and the binge drinker is central to the spectacle of the night-time economy as a form of self gratification which also embodies forms of repression.
The pleasures associated with the use of illicit drugs are rarely acknowledged in contemporary drug policy debates. Where they are, these pleasures are almost always attributed to the specific physiological and/or sensory effects of individual substances.
Drawing on qualitative research recently completed in Melbourne, Australia, this paper argues that the pleasures associated with illicit drug use extend well beyond the purely physiological to include a host of properly contextual elements as well.
These "contextual" pleasures include the corporeal experience of space, such as the "feeling" of electronic music in a large night-club space, or the engagement with natural and wilderness environments. Also important are a range of corporeal and performative practices, such as dancing and interacting with strangers, which were reportedly facilitated with the use of different drugs.
This emphasis on the dynamics of space, embodiment and practice as they impact the contextual experience of pleasure, has the potential to open up new ways of thinking about pleasure and its place in the mediation of all drug related behaviours. Greater understanding of these relationships should also facilitate the emergence of new, context specific, drug prevention and harm reduction initiatives.
This paper examines a natural experiment in which students at a large state university were randomly assigned roommates through a lottery system. We find that on average, males assigned to roommates who reported drinking in the year prior to entering college had one quarter-point lower GPA than those assigned to non-drinking roommates. The 10th percentile of their college GPA is half a point lower than among males assigned non-drinking roommates. For males who themselves drank frequently prior to college, assignment to a roommate who drank frequently prior to college reduces GPA by two-thirds of a point. Since students who drink frequently are particularly influenced by frequent-drinking roommates, substance-free housing programs could potentially lower average GPA by segregating drinkers. The effect of initial assignment to a drinking roommate persists and possibly even grows over time. In contrast, students' college GPA is not influenced by roommates' high school grades, admission test scores, or family background. Females' GPAs are not affected by roommates' drinking prior to college. Overall, these findings are more consistent with models in which peers change preferences than models in which they change endowments.
This article explores the production of the nightlife industry within a new urban entertainment economy. We do this by drawing upon debates about the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism, and the assumed shift away from standardized and mass towards more segmented and niche consumer markets. In contrast to some of the more self-congratulatory accounts of varied, flexible niche urban consumption, our starting point is to pursue more neo-Fordist interpretations which explore continuity as well as change and in particular stress growing corporate control in entertainment and night-life economies, the increased use of branding and then-ling, and the emergence of segmented, sanitized and gentrified consumer markets. These processes are illustrated and empirically examined in relation to changes within the UK nightlife sector which has undergone rapid restructuring, re-concentration and segmentation over the last 10 years. We discuss a number of implications which emerge from these developments, such as the erosion of diversity and choice, and the possibilities for alternative/ independent and historic/community forms of nightlife production and spaces to coexist in such a context.