Binge drinking vs. drunkenness. The questionable threshold of excess for young Italians

Abstract

The use of a standard definition of ‘binge drinking’ can potentially offer the advantage of ‘objectifying’ the concept of excessive drinking. Nevertheless, the term has become somewhat confusing, as it is often used as a synonym of drunkenness, making cross-cultural comparison difficult. The present study investigates the meaning Italian young people attribute to binge drinking, to explain the gap between self-reported rates of drunkenness and episodes of binge drinking found by comparative youth drinking surveys. About 134 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted, targeting adolescents (aged 15–17) and young adults (aged 22–24) who had admitted to drinking excessively. In addition, an online forum was created, using a video clip as a stimulus and asking for web users' comments (132 were analysed). Results show how in the view of Italian bingers, binge drinking does not necessarily entail drunkenness, but only being tipsy. This is what they aim at when they drink, while they have negative attitudes and expectations regarding intoxication and its effects. This boundary establishes the concept of excess and marks the threshold between socially acceptable and unacceptable drinking. In conclusion, the concept of binge drinking cannot be used as a synonym of drunkenness, which young people in Italy judge severely.

Keywords:

• binge drinking
• drunkenness
• heavy drinking
• youth drinking cultures
• Italy

Disclosure statement

Franca Beccaria is a member of Scientific Laboratory of Osservatorio Permanente sui Giovani e l’Alcool (Permanent Observatory on Youth and Alcohol) in Rome, an association which is mainly funded by the Italian Breweries Association. For this task she does not receive any honorarium, but the reimbursement for travelling expenses for one/two meeting/s per year. In 2012, she has received an honorarium from ERAB (The European Foundation for Alcohol Research, an independent alcohol research foundation supported by The Brewers of Europe) for participating at the project ‘Underage drinking. A report on drinking in the second decade of life in Europe and North America’. They also reimbursed the travelling costs for a meeting in Montreal and a meeting in Brussels. Together with the University of Torino she got a grant from ERAB for the research ‘Images of adolescent alcohol use and health in Italy. A study of teenagers’ drinking and societal reactions to it’ (2012–2013).

Notes

1. ‘PASSI’ (Advance of health services for Italian health).

2. 15–24 years is the age span that is most commonly considered by surveys. To observe differences between adolescents’ and young adults’ binge drinking, cohorts were defined on the basis of the two extremes in order to maximise these differences.

3. Basically, the distinction was between executive jobs vs. specialised jobs requiring an academic degree. For young adults, the main distinction was between students and workers, as young people from the upper class usually continue to study. The place (district) of recruitment was often also related to sociocultural level. For this reason, interviewers were advised to map the city and look for participants in different areas. The decision to differentiate between social classes was made in order to achieve a heterogeneous sample, rather than to draw inferences from the data. Though some small differences are retrievable in the data, they will not be discussed in this article because they are not pertinent to the topics under study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Osservatorio Permanente sui Giovani e l'Alcool (Permanent Observatory on Youth and Alcohol), www.alcol.net. The Osservatorio Permanente sui Giovani e l'Alcool (Permanent Observatory on Youth and Alcohol Youth) is partly funded by the Italian Breweries Association.