To drink or not to drink? Young Australians negotiating the social imperative to drink to intoxication

It is commonly argued that many young people in Australia inhabit a culture of intoxication. There has been little research on how young people find resistances within this culture. In this article we document how young people above the legal drinking age negotiate the dominant cultural logic of drinking to intoxication and explore how they conceptualise options of not drinking. The analysis draws from 60 semi-structured, mixed-method interviews about alcohol use conducted in 2007–8 in Victoria, Australia. We document the strong social imperative for young people to drink to intoxication at social events. Our results suggest that choosing not to drink carries the risk of social exclusion. To manage these pressures young people adopt specific socially legitimate subject positions for not drinking. Understanding the limited social possibilities and modes of resistance to intoxication is important for understanding the apparent hegemony of the culture of intoxication in mainstream youth cultures.