Abstract
University students in the UK engage in relatively high alcohol consumption levels, yet young adults, including students, now drink less than previously and abstain more. Against this cultural backdrop, our objective was to further understanding of 'maturing out' of excessive drinking practices among students by focusing on drinking transitions that had taken place during university years. A qualitative interview study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten 18- to 27-year-old UK undergraduate university students who self-identified as light or non-drinkers. Interviews were audio-recorded, and anonymized interview transcripts were subjected to an experience-focused application of thematic analysis. Participants reported dilemmas involved in transitions from relatively high to low levels of alcohol consumption. One dilemma was characterized by managing to drink less (or nothing) without cutting off social options with university friends/peers. A second dilemma concerned not wishing to fully abandon the pleasures and increased social confidence that alcohol consumption could afford. Results also demonstrated that self-reported drinking could contradict participants' self-defined 'light drinker' status. This study reinforces the view that 'maturing out' involves more than simply having gained new responsibilities during young adulthood. Recognition of these dilemmatic features of drinking transitions could be drawn on in novel campus-based interventions. Such interventions may help strengthen realistic and sustainable moderate drinking by guiding students to anticipate potential difficulties involved in planned reductions in personal drinking but may also help foster students' ability to view drinking choices as in transition rather than as permanent and enduring.
Highlights
University students are a demographic group of ‘young adults’ for whom it is typically normatively acceptable to consume high levels of alcohol (Davoren, Demant, Shiely, & Perry, 2016; Heather et al, 2011)
Student drinking in the UK occurs within a pervasive cultural norm of ‘drinking to get drunk’ (Griffin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, Mistral, & Szmigin, 2009; Measham & Brain, 2005) and within ‘intoxogenic environments’ like university campuses where excessive alcohol consumption is viewed as relatively typical and acceptable
Accounts revealed personal dilemmas involved in transitioned drinking practices but the fragmented and contradictory nature of participant accounts reflected ideological dilemmas (Billig et al, 1988) with contradictory beliefs/values presented in meaningmaking accounts of drinking practices
Summary
University students are a demographic group of ‘young adults’ (i.e., individuals aged around 18–30 years) for whom it is typically normatively acceptable to consume high levels of alcohol (Davoren, Demant, Shiely, & Perry, 2016; Heather et al, 2011). Socializing in intoxogenic environments without drinking (or drinking very little) is no small accomplishment because within these environments (e.g., university campuses), low or moderate alcohol consumption is easier to rhetorically denounce, while excessive levels of alcohol use, including alcohol use to deliberately become drunk/intoxicated, is easier to rhetorically validate (e.g., McCreanor, Barnes, Kaiwai, Borell, & Gregory, 2008) These considerations have ‘real-world’ health, social, and economic implications: for example, a greater incidence of heavy episodic drinking (HED, i.e., consuming ≥60 g of pure alcohol once or more in the previous 30 days, World Health Organization, 2018) has been associated with wideranging negative personal outcomes (e.g., personal injury, psychological harm) and negative community outcomes including criminal damage and domestic violence (e.g., Anda et al, 2002; Gell, Ally, Buykx, Meier, & Hope, 2015)
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