Drunken words and false consciousness about alcohol

A year or so back I suggested that we need to tackle binge-drinking as a cultural intervention; that we should be aware of how drinking is construed in the stories we tell and are told about nights out and what happens or is supposed to happen in them.

"Essentially, in an instance like this, intoxication provides a 'cultural timeout' from regulating one's behavior."' Wasted' and 'hammered' versus 'buzzed' and 'tipsy' is more than just semantics

This pretty much backs up my thesis, I think. Though I'd go further and want to situate these words within a narrative ecology which talks about the expected behaviours and perspectives around drinking alcohol with friends on a night out: the constructions of 'manhood' in relation to what quantity of what kind of drink, the supposed memory-lapsing properties of drink to give alibis for not regulating behaviour, the reframing of vomiting as amusing and so on.

We need counter stories and effective ways to puncture the bubbles providing the reframing and the alibis. 'We' all know in reality that it is fairly rare for most of us to not remember, but as long as we continue to collude in this false-non-memory syndrome, for example, we collude in the bad behaviours that can be carried out under its banner because the non-remembrance acts as a get out of jail free card whereby we aren't responsible (a) because we were drunk and (b) because we don't remember and so can't be held responsible. Of course, if we can't remember, then how do we know we've had a good time? Conveniently the social group holds the memory for us and retells us in such a way as we can laugh at our own stupidity without taking it personally because in a way it wasn't us in our right mind. In reality, of course, most people in this position remember well-enough but their friends collude in the memory loss. After all, one day it'll be their turn to have a convenient amnesia and they're counting on reprocation in collusion.

Alcohol as excuse -and on not accepting it

People who've been in personal conversation with me in the last handful of years will know that I have been infomally proposing the 'our' problem with alcohol use in the UK is cultural more than anything else. So you can imagine that I am feeking somewhat vindicated reading this article: Seriously, why do we drink alcohol? : RSA blogs. Here's a quote to show you why I think it's interesting and helpful to me, based on research and insights from anthropology:

“When people think they are drinking alcohol, they behave according to their cultural beliefs about the behavioural effects of alcohol.” The problems of drinking-related anti-social behaviour in Britain are therefore about cultural conceptions of what drunkenness means, not what alcohol does.

My own reasons for having come to the conclusion that it is a cultural issue primarily were, firstly, being told by a psychologist friend a number of years back of some research done on alcohol consumption in a social setting where a control group were given zero alcohol but believed they were drinking alcohol. They behaved pretty much they way the actully drunken group did. The onvious explanation is that drinking together rather than ingesting alcohol was the trigger for a raft of behaviours we think of a drunkenness. The second thing was, looking at 'the night out' as a cultural artefact (an unfinished project of mine) suggests that part of the point of it is the story-telling afterwards: there's a heroic quality to the tales told afterwards about the night out (and I make a hypothesis that this may actually trace back to dark ages male warrior subcultures). I suspect that a big part of the point of the night out is to fuel the tale telling and thus to seal the bonding.

Interestingly there seems to be a pride in claiming not to remember (note the implied skepticism about the full veracity of that) events and embarrassing incidents. It seems to me plausible that drunkenness may be an alibi for disinhibited bahaviour: a way to avoid responsibility and yet to enjoy the 'transcendance' or 'taboo breaking' (this latter fuels my skepticism about amnesia).

So my proposal for dealing with binge drinking is to suggest that alcohol pricing and similar interventions are doomed to have only peripheral effects since the real crime and behavioural issues are probably not to do with the absolute quantities of alcohol (though these do have significant health effects and are concerning for that reason). If we're concerned by the criminal and behavioural issues, then we need cultural interventions to erode and challenge the myths of the night out. For example we need to find ways of not colluding with the meme that drunks are not responsible for their behaviour. If alcohol is a depressant, then it really, in actual fact, reveals 'the secrets of the heart' and so is acutely more embarrassing that anyone publically acknowledges -perhaps it's time to start saying that? And we perhaps need to begin to tell the truth about the events narrated in the day-after story-telling in order to reveal the sordid truth and highlight the antisocial effects and not to collude with making out that it's just a 'bit of harmless fun'.

How to make this cultural intervention is the big issue, because, of course, we know that such things are dialogical and clever responses can derail and subvert messages from the powerful or 'moral' maj/min/orities. Hoever, I thinlk that if a number of us start to insist on the truth telling I've just mentioned and do so in a humble and compassionate way, perhaps that could begin to change hearts and minds. It may be then that we can also begin to address the spiritual issue the article begins to address so helpfully towards the end:

The tragedy James alludes to is that when we get this periodic glimpse of being present, at ease with the world, and available for other people, we wrongly think that drinking more will heighten the sensation. Instead, we should ask ourselves more fundamental questions about how we might live our lives, in order to experience such bliss all the time.

Anyone with me?

A licence for chauvinism

 This sounds, oh so plausible:

testosterone has been shown to be most effective as an excuse for social aggression rather than a cause of it. In another recent study participants performed more aggressively in a financial simulation game if they believed they had been given a shot of testosterone – even when they had been given a placebo – whereas those who had received testosterone unwittingly were in fact more likely to "play fair". "It's possible that people who are inclined towards selfish, aggressive or dominant behaviour would find it easier to rationalise their actions if they felt that they were under the spell of testosterone," says science writer Ed Yong, noting that the study suggests that "testosterone's negative stereotype" can give people a "licence to misbehave".

 Just as the myths about alcohol use legitimise all sorts of 'abandoned' behaviour which really have practically nothing to do with alcohol's effects (remember those studies with 'placebo' alcohol) and nearly everything to do with the desires and inhibitions of the drinker. In both of these cases we need to do an exposure job and not let people get away with it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/17/goldman-sachs-sexism-case

Alcohol use and upbringing

Well, the title of the article pretty much tells you what you need to know. And it does seem to reinforce the common sense and the anecdotal evidence: Italian youths who drink with meals are less often adult problem-drinkers: "'Young people allowed alcohol with meals when growing up were more likely to never drink 5 [or more drinks] or get drunk,' the authors wrote. If they did drink more heavily, it was typically at a 'later age than participants who weren't allowed alcohol in a family setting.'"
However, I think that we need to add in one factor in relation to British society and that is culture. Binge-drinking has huge cultural drivers and that also needs to be addressed, but clearly, the home and upbringing can be a factor (as it seems to have been for our children).

Beer tax increases cost 20,000 jobs -really?

The report here Beer tax increases cost 20,000 jobs so far | Politics | guardian.co.uk tells us that the brewing trade would have us believe: "A record 2,000 British pubs have closed with the loss of 20,000 jobs since the chancellor, Alistair Darling, increased beer tax in the 2008 budget," Now come on: where's the in-depth journalism on this? We need to know answers to questions like this:
Since pubs have been closing rapidly for a number of years, what is the adjusted effect of the increase in tax? And if the appeal is to jobs in the UK, what is the effect in terms of jobs created or lost elsewhere? For example in hospitals and other health care areas mopping up the effects of alcohol consumption: ditto, police time, courts' time, probation services etc. Not to mention the effect that money that might otherwise have been spent on alcoholic drinks being spent on, say, DVDs or gyms or pizza ... so let's have a bit more contextual thinking about this and some more incisive journalism.

And then there's the paradox of some things improving GDP but maybe not being good for the nations health in a holistic sense. Cleaning up pollution adds to the monetary economy, for example, but it would be far better not to produce it in the first place and to encourage different kinds of employment and manufacture.

All-day drinking 'a failure'

I can feel an 'I told you so' moment coming on. Give me a moment to lie down hoping it'll pass .... There. Now, All-day drinking 'a failure' - Home News, UK - Independent.co.uk: "The report, to be released on Tuesday, will reveal that the transition to a southern European-style drinking culture – a key aim of the controversial legislation – has failed to materialise since the Licensing Act was introduced two years ago. It will also show that there are no 'clear signs yet that the abolition of a standard closing time [for pubs and clubs] has significantly reduced problems of crime and disorder'."
Now the key thing here is the whole culture thing. It is clear that there is a huge socio-cultural dimension to this in fact, I think, one going back a long long way. So the difficulty is that if you change the opportunities without changing the mindset you're likely to get what apparently we have got: the opportunity is used to abuse further.

Now, I agree with the idea of striving for a more south European drinking culture. I just don't think that extending hours is going to achieve that without things that would encourage a change of mindset and attitudes. What we need to do first is note how 'heroic' drinking is narrated in certain subcultures: the implicit message is that drinking a lot is a giver of social status. Listen too to the unchallenged assumption that in order to have a good time you have to drink to drunkenness. The strange effect of this latter is that the proof of a good night out is the hangover and even the (alleged) lack of memory of events. Of course, the latter is probably quite commonly a way to avoid taking responsibility for more embarrassing or bizarre actions. In fact, the absolution from responsibility for our actions is probably part of the mystique. There is quite literally at this point, a religious or spiritual dimension to it. There's a dionysian loss of self-regard and a mythical return to innocency.

But it is a myth in anthropological terms: a story to frame action which operates ideologically and therefore obscures matters in some areas too. In this case the cost is widely played down and woe betide the killjoy who may draw attention to some of them: health, morality, family-life and the fact that it is a kind of tax on the uninformed and deprived, profiting people who run the drinks companies and their shareholders ...

So, one of the things we have to do is to challenge the myths, perhaps on their own terms. Stories of how a good time can be had without tanking up, perhaps. We also need role-modelling of other ways. Of course, once upon a time the temperance movement did much of this. I'm not sure whether that tactic could work again, and I'm dubious about the way that it turned peoples' heads exegetically; bringing about the hermeneutic contortions to try to demonstrate 'wine' wasn't wine and that Jesus didn't drink alcohol.

So let's try to change things, but let's be aware, you can't have this kind of cultural change on the cheap. It was to try to curtail the excesses of widespread alcohol abuse that things like the restricted licensing hours were brought in in the first place. Wasn't it?

Anti-drinking Campaign Ads May Be 'Catastrophically Misconceived'

It's important to do the kind of cultural anthropological analysis that this research does in order to realise that educational advertising really does have to understand first the connotative and social meaning of the things they are dealing with. In some ways this states the obvious.

“Extreme inebriation is often seen as a source of personal esteem and social affirmation amongst young people,” said Professor Christine Griffin from the University of Bath, who led the research with colleagues from Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Birmingham.
“Our detailed research interviews revealed that tales of alcohol-related mishaps and escapades were key markers of young peoples’ social identity. These ‘drinking stories’ also deepen bonds of friendship and cement group membership. Not only does being in a friendship group legitimise being very drunk - being the subject of an extreme drinking story can raise esteem within the group.”

However, it needs joining up with reflection on how, then, current 'edutising' is actually heard and therefore how to give messages that will actually be heard. Part of the problem in Nordic and Anglo-Saxon societies is precisely the 'heroic' mindset which I postulate goes back to viking and similar ancestral culture where hard drinking was part of the feast mentality and became a macho bonding thing. Unless we address that culture properly, we will not get very far. No matter how much 'European cafe culture' we try to import via drinking hours and town planning. It's a quasi mythic thing; the fact that there are exaggerations and stylised templates for telling the 'I was so drunk...' stories tells us that, in Barthesian terms, we are dealing with myths. The act of drinking too much grants individuals access to the myth and the social status and bonding that it is there to offer and preserve. The myth needs subverting or replacing. Subversion is rarely successful 'from above'...
Anti-drinking Campaign Ads May Be 'Catastrophically Misconceived':

Holy tipple may take priests over limit

This looks like it could be a problem that Anglican clergy could share. "with a chronic shortage of priests both in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Father Brian D'Arcy says that many priests often celebrate more than one mass a day, sometimes in different parishes. 'The shortage of priests has resulted in those who are currently ministering having to say multiple masses, and often drive from church to church to do so, having drunk from the chalice in each church,"
However, when you start thinking about the practicalities, maybe it need not be a problem; it just requires that those presiding at multiple Eucharists be aware of the alcohol content of their ministry! But not putting so much wine in the chalice, getting lay help with consuming afterwards, even reserving wine for later consumption are all possibilites. Where there's a will ...
Holy tipple may take priests over limit | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Advertising works

... just not directly: but the ad industry's instinct for attitude modification through clever use of imagery in relation to oblique desires seems to be borne out by this piece of research. "Adolescents attending schools in neighborhoods where alcohol ads litter the landscape tend to want to drink more and, compared with other children, have more positive views of alcohol"
And it seemed to me that the research seems to hold out hope for those of us who think that good attitudes modelled and talked about (not lectured at, though) while growing up may have good effects, "Prior research has shown that adolescents' intentions and attitudes about alcohol generally predict their later behavior"
ScienceDaily: Outdoor Alcohol Ads Boost Kids' Urge To Drink:

Access To Alcohol Among Middle School Children

As far as I can tell, this study needs careful handling in terms of results. It finds "More than one-third of the alcohol consumed by these children came from their own or a friend's parents or guardians. " and links this to problem drinking later. But let's remember it's in the USA and the cultural context is important. There could be a huge difference between children who have been introduced to alcohol consumption in a European manner where its use is modelled in a controlled family environment and the illicit stealing of drinks to emulate the stupid binge drinking that treating it like a controlled substance reinforces. And that in a culture whose attitude to alcohol use is inherited, probably imho, from northern European warrior-feasting culture where excess and silly games and judgements of machismo are part of the deal. So, are there studies on the cultural contexts?

ScienceDaily: Access To Alcohol Among Middle School Children: