“But no one told me it’s okay to not drink”: a qualitative study of young people who drink little or no alcohol

Abstract

Young people’s drinking is a matter of social, media, and political concern and the focus of much policy activity within the United Kingdom. Little consideration has been given to the fact that some young people choose to drink little or not all and our knowledge and understanding of their choices and how they manage not drinking is limited. Nor has much attention been paid to the possibility that the insights of young light and non-drinkers could be useful when thinking about how to change the prevailing drinking culture, but if we are to gauge and engage with the current culture of consumption then we need to understand all parts of it. This qualitative study of young people (aged 16–25) who drink little or no alcohol aimed to further understanding of their lives and choices. The results highlight that choosing not to drink or drink lightly is a positive choice made for diverse reasons with the strongest messages and influences coming from real-life observations. Young people develop strategies to manage not drinking or drinking lightly. Alcohol education messages need to present not drinking as a valid option to young people, parents, and society more broadly.

• Young people
• alcohol abstinence
• qualitative

Acknowledgements

This study on which this article is based was supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation but the views expressed are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of JRF. We would like to thank the young people who took part in the research and shared their thoughts and experiences with us.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 There is no consensus definition of “binge” drinking. It is a term that has been used in a variety of ways, often quite loosely, particularly in the media and the usefulness of the term has been called into question (Herring et al., 2008; Szmigin et al., 2008). In the major UK surveys binge drinking is defined as drinking over 6 units for women and over 8 units for men in one sitting. A unit is 10 ml or 8 g of pure alcohol.

2 Current UK guidelines are that men should not regularly drink more than 3/4 units a day and women 2/3 units a day. Regularly means drinking this amount most days or every day.

3 Some religions (e.g. Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Islam) forbid, discourage or restrict the consumption of alcohol and so, as part of their faith, followers abstain from alcohol. The funders (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) felt there was a particular gap in the understanding of young people who drink little/not at all for reasons other than religion which required attention.

4 Those consuming alcohol less than once a week, drinking no more than 2 drinks (women) and 3 drinks (men) on each drinking occasion and had not been drunk for at least 3 months.

5 In order to protect the anonymity of respondents (there were several respondents who were the only respondent of a particular ethnicity) some reclassification into “other” category has been undertaken.