The Competent Drinker, the Authentic Person and the Strong Person: Lines of Reasoning in Swedish Young People's Discussions about Alcohol

Abstract

This study examines young people's discussions about alcohol in an Internet chat room. I study how alcohol is meaningful to the young people through specifically focusing their understandings of the concepts control/loss of control, conscientiousness and maturity. I also study what relations of power are constructed among them. The results point to four different lines of reasoning about alcohol: the ‘teetotaller argument’, the ‘age-distinction argument’, the ‘moderate drinking argument’ and the ‘getting drunk argument’. From each of these lines of reasoning to the next, there is a shift in the definition of ‘the Others’—of those who are said to be immature. In three of the lines of reasoning—the teetotaller argument, the moderate drinking argument and the getting drunk argument—the young people describe the characteristics of what for them appears as an ideal person with ideal views on alcohol consumption and intoxication: the strong person, the competent drinker and the authentic person. In the concluding section of the paper, I discuss and compare these different lines of reasoning with each other and with previous research on young people and drinking.

Notes

1. In short, ‘normalization’ refers to drug use becoming more a part of conventional everyday life rather than something that should be condemned (see Parker et al. 2002, for a full explanation of the concept).

2. Conscientiousness in the working-class movement referred to a way of life. The (ideal) worker was to go about his [sic] work in an impeccable and ardent fashion, he had to be sober, cleanly, honest, self-controlled and thoughtful (Ambjörnsson 1988). As underlined by Norell and Törnqvist (1995), while conscientiousness for Ambjörnsson's nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century worker from Northern Sweden meant total abstention from alcohol, conscientiousness for a late twentieth century (1980s) worker from Southern Sweden rather implies moderation—the ability to deal with alcohol and intoxication within the limits of certain given frames.

3. The ‘new conscientiousness’ also implies that one reflects upon one's behaviour and style in relation to different media images, instead of in relation to the knowledge or attitudes of parents or members of the same social class (Lalander 1998).

4. The programme was broadcast by Sveriges Television (SVT), the Swedish public service television company.

5. In the programme, young people discussed alcohol and drugs with each other.

6. See http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=2259 (10 October 2004).

7. With some exceptions, which I will explain below.

8. It turned out that only one or two of the contributions under the heading This Week's Show were related to the programme about alcohol and drugs. Most contributions on this subject were instead assembled under the heading Alcohol.

9. For example, studying how a category such as ‘Drunkenness’ is described involves a focus on important concepts or specific terms used by the young people; for example, the term ‘pass out’ and the related and central term fjortis (implying a person who is too young or too immature to drink, see further analysis). In the next step, the concepts or terms that are related to each other in chains of association are put together (as with the terms ‘pass out’ and fjortis, which were associated with each other and linked to the verb ‘screaming’ and to ‘becoming drunk after drinking only one “medium-strong beer”). The terms may also be linked to opposites, such as fjortis and adult, fjortis and controlled. The next step then involved separating different ways of describing what a fjortis really is, resulting in four different lines of reasoning.

10. Because of the colloquial tone of voice and slang expressions, I have worked together with a translator with knowledge of such expressions in English (when in doubt about how to translate a Swedish expression we have discussed the connotations implied and the translator has suggested a similar word or term). There are, however, still difficulties associated with conveying the full meaning of an expression in another language. Furthermore, for the sake of readability, I have chosen not to use typical Internet chat abbreviations (such as ‘r’ for ‘are’, ‘n’ for ‘and’).

11. There are some discussions about this, including people trying to ‘expose’ others’ attempts at bragging, ‘camouflaged’ as talking about troublesome things that happened to them when drunk. The logic is that if something really troublesome had happened, they would not have brought it up to discussion.

12. This is also indicated in other parts of the discussion where people who drink often are encouraged to ‘get a life’.

13. Allowing for the fact that these differences may be related to differences in method between the present study and that of Pyörälä.

14. Unless one argues that pleasure is the only ‘real’ reason underlying all these reasons (i.e., you want to become more social because it is pleasurable, you want to escape because it is pleasurable, etc.).

15. In one contribution, the contributor argues that although it is fun, alcohol can cause many ‘problems’. A participant in the discussion then asks: ‘Okay so you got pregnant or something?’

16. Note that this is not to say that they do not seek these things elsewhere; for example, in music (see, for example, discussions on the straight-edge movement in Irwin 1999; Helton & Staudenmeier 2002).