Research paper
Re-framing ‘binge drinking’ as calculated hedonism: Empirical evidence from the UK

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2007.08.009Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Recent debates on ‘binge drinking’ in the UK have represented the activities of young drinkers in urban areas as a particular source of concern, as constituting a threat to law and order, a drain on public health and welfare services and as a source of risk to their own future health and well being. The discourse of moral panic around young people's ‘binge drinking’ has pervaded popular media, public policy and academic research, often differentiating the excesses of ‘binge drinking’ from ‘normal’ patterns of alcohol consumption, although in practice definitions of ‘binge drinking’ vary considerably. However, recent research in this area has drawn on the notion of ‘calculated hedonism’ to refer to a way of ‘managing’ alcohol consumption that might be viewed as excessive.

Methods

The paper presents a critical analysis of contemporary discourses around ‘binge drinking’ in the British context, highlighting contradictory messages about responsibility and self control in relation to the recent liberalisation of licensing laws and the extensive marketing of alcohol to young people. The paper analyses marketing communications which present drinking as a crucial element in ‘having fun’, and as an important aspect of young people's social lives. The empirical study involves analysis of focus group discussions and individual interviews with young people aged 18–25 in three areas of Britain: a major city in the West Midlands, a seaside town in the South-West of England and a small market town also in the South-West.

Results

The initial findings present the varied forms and meanings that socialising and drinking took in these young people's social lives. In particular the results illustrate the ways in which drinking is constituted and managed as a potential source of pleasure.

Conclusion

The paper concludes that the term ‘calculated hedonism’ better describes the behaviour of the young people in this study and in particular the way they manage their pleasure around alcohol, than the emotive term ‘binge drinking’.

Section snippets

Introduction: the media panic

Alcohol is a deep-seated part of everyday life in Britain—around 78,000 public houses, 25,000 restaurants, 4000 nightclubs, 23,000 other clubs, and 45,000 other premises, shops and supermarkets are licensed to sell alcohol (Mistral, Velleman, Templeton, & Mastache, 2006). This has created a market worth about £25 billion a year (DCMS, 2001). Over a 20-year period, alcohol consumption in the UK has risen by 31% (Commission for Distilled Spirits, 2004). While alcohol consumption is a common part

Binge drinking versus normal drinking

Although the term ‘binge drinking’ is in common usage, there is no consensus as to its definition (McAlaney & McMahon, 2006; Measham, 2004a). In the past, it was often used to refer to an extended period of time, during which a person repeatedly drank to intoxication (BMA, 2005). Currently it is more commonly used to refer to a high alcohol intake in a single drinking session, although there is some contention as to the amount needed to be consumed. Some researchers have defined binge drinking

Marketing alcohol to young people: the wider context

The context of alcohol consumption in the UK is market driven through the proliferation of new products and brands, intensive television advertising and point of sale promotions and sponsorship of national music events; most social spaces in the twenty-first century are dominated by point of sale promotions for branded alcohol products. Criminalisation of unlicensed dance events and the decline of the male dominated pub have culminated in a range of café, club, fun, themed and nostalgia pubs (

Pleasure and alcohol consumption

While excessive alcohol consumption can be harmful, and ‘anti-social’, it is also associated with pleasure, escape from daily pressures, and represents a key ingredient in celebratory occasions as ‘a symbol of togetherness’ (Pettigrew, Ryan, & Ogilvie, 2000, p. 71). Alcohol plays a role in facilitating social bonding between people; a key feature of the Lambrini ads described above is social orientation in the sense that the Lambrini girls are always integrated into a group of like-minded

The young people and alcohol study: methodology

The empirical part of this paper builds on our understanding of the differences in perspective between binge drinking and bounded hedonistic consumption and seeks to present a fuller picture of the nature and lived experience of pleasure amongst ‘ordinary’ young people (aged 18–25) when engaged in social activities involving the consumption of alcohol. Ten semi-structured focus groups and four in-depth individual interviews were carried out together with ethnographic fieldwork in three

Analysis: ‘chilling’ and ‘getting ‘mullered’: ‘completely different’ pleasures

Socialising and drinking amongst the participants took many forms but ‘binge drinking’ was not a term often used to refer to their own alcohol consumption. Participants described excessive drinking as getting mullered, totally blasted or pissed, wasted and annihilated. Excessive drinking was, however, frequently discussed and expressed as an activity quite different to the moderate drinking involved when ‘chilling’ with friends. When heavy drinking took place it was often with the express

Controlled loss of control—managing pleasure

While drinking to excess was a common theme in the focus groups, young people have their own ways of managing their drink over the course of an evening.

  • Interviewer: …What would you define as being the point at which you start to get drunk…?

  • Dale: Um, a good, a good few pints before I start getting tipsy. Like if I was in a pub then I’d drink it slower as well, so it’d take longer but if I was in a club or something then it would, it would take faster. So three, four before I’d start feeling it,

Having fun: going out

‘Going out’ is a world of heightened experiences of fun and friendship, and also of risk and danger. It holds the promise of fulfilment (sexual and social) and is defined by the attendance or avoidance of, different bars and clubs. In this group from Rowchester there is a discussion centred around clubs in the High Street, the busiest night time area for clubs in Rowchester and one where violent incidents have occurred.

  • Abi: I don’t drink that much, especially when you go up the High Street coz

Tequila makes me happy—stories of inebriation

Participants also recounted stories of what happened when they were drunk. While some were ‘war stories’ of spiked drinks, losing friends and violent events, most involved incidents of fun and undermining authority. Molly tells a story of a ‘typical’ night out where after a few drinks she switches to Tequila to ensure she gets drunk.

The result is a form of annihilation in that she neither knows what she is doing or who she is with. The main action of the story starts once she is drunk, and is

Concluding remarks: alcohol, pleasure and calculated hedonism

This paper contributes empirical support for a more nuanced consideration of the notion of ‘binge drinking’. The impact of alcohol on the inner and outer body is significant in why people drink. In participants’ accounts motives for drinking and getting drunk were constituted almost entirely positively. They include, having fun, conforming to peer group norms, letting yourself go, forgetting the frustrations of the day and helping self-confidence in a social situation (Institute of Alcohol

Acknowledgements

The research study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, ‘Branded consumption and social identification: Young people and alcohol’ (ESRC Ref: RES-148-25-0021) Principal Investigator: Prof Christine Griffin, Psychology, University of Bath; and: Prof Isabelle Szmigin, The Business School, University of Birmingham; Dr Willm Mistral, Mental Health Research and Development Unit, University of Bath; Prof Chris Hackley, Management, Royal Holloway College, University of London;

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