Of all of participants encountered in fieldwork, there was one young person who did not drink (Toby, 16 years old). The remainder of the participants in this study held the view that people who abstained from alcohol and those who usually drink, but for whatever reason were not
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drinking on a night out, were regarded as “no fun” by peers. For example, during an interview with Toby, Chantelle and Mason from Willow High School, Chantelle and Mason claimed that alcohol and drug use is fun:
Laura: Do you think The Rafters and your teachers, people like that…some of them know that you use drugs right…do you think that they understand you and why you do it?
Chantelle: No!
Mason: No. they just think that you are doing it to fit in or just because everyone is doing it, but it’s not. It’s just fun. There’s just nothing else to do… all there is, is parks.
If you are sitting in a park what else can you do?
Chantelle: If you haven’t got any money, and you only have a tenner, what else are you meant to do?
Toby: Go get some KFC or something.
Chantelle: I don’t wanna’ spend my money on that, you don’t get nothing out of it.
Where’s the fun in that Toby?
Mason: It’s easier to grab a few beers or whatever and go out and have a good time.
Toby: Well what about bowling or cinema?
Mason: Why would you wanna’ do that? It’s boring.
Chantelle: You go to the cinema and the film ends quickly. You do a bit of bowling and its over in ten minutes, and its crap anyway. There is nothing good.
Toby: You guys are just trying to act hard.
This shows that young people often regard alcohol consumption as pleasurable and normalised (Measham, 2006; Measham and Brain, 2005); however, young people like Toby can be identified as ‘anti-consumers’ who resist norms about alcohol that predominate contemporary society (Piacentini and Banister, 2009:279). For Toby, his identity and values clash with the normalised culture of excessive consumption and demonstrates resistance through challenging statements put forward by Mason and Chantelle. Thus, for some young people, tensions can arise amongst friends and peers when individuals attempt to exclude themselves from participating in the contemporary culture of intoxication, drinking and/or drunkenness (Piancentini and Banister, 2009). Here, young people like Toby, despite expressing levels of agency through resistance, experience a constrained position whereby they have to justify their non-participation in drinking.
Non-drinkers like Toby attempt to remain non-judgemental of peer’s engagement in the culture of intoxication so that it reduces tensions amongst friends; however, for those who do consume alcohol, they appear to be more judgemental of peers who do not drink or are limiting
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their drinking (e.g. for personal/health reasons etc.). Young drinkers often held the view then that alcohol consumption and intoxication equates to having a good time. The implications of this is that individuals expressed different views about what is ‘sensible’ or ‘responsible’
(Harrison et al., 2011), as identified during an interview with Rosie:
Rosie: Sometimes you get those people my age that sit in the corner of the club, and don’t actually do anything. You just think, why have you actually bothered coming out?
They just sit there, I’m not saying that you have to have a drink to have fun, but they don’t dance and don’t do anything.
Here Rosie scrutinises individuals who do not engage in social and cultural activities linked to consumption in the Night Time Economy (NTE) like drinking and dancing with friends. This shows that young people desire to consume alcohol to achieve desired levels of intoxication alongside friends which is deemed as pleasurable (Harrison et al., 2011). As per Rosie’s assumption, there is an underlying value amongst that alcohol is seen as a requirement to having a good time; but should be consumed in such a way that it does not produce negative outcomes for individuals and friends.
Some young people expressed that they wished to restrict their alcohol consumption because of commitments and responsibilities. However, for friends of these individuals, they saw this as problematic because it prevented full-commitment with friends to the culture of intoxication.
As noted in the field diary during an evening at The Bull’s Head pub with a group of young people, it became apparent to James that some individuals were not drinking heavily, or not at all because they had work the following day. This did not go down well with James:
James went around the pub asking if the others (Stephanie, Owen, Amelia and Tony) were coming to the nightclub after the pub. They all replied no because they had other commitments (like working or being the designated driver). James continued to pester the group about attending the nightclub but had no luck in persuading them to attend.
He approached me, “How boring are them lot? You had better be coming out.” I assured him that I would, which made him happy. He chinks my glass, “Yeah, fuck them lot.”
This shows that James (like other participants) to an extent, viewed personal responsibilities and commitments as inhibiting pleasure on nights out; holding the view that drinking and having fun with friends should be prioritised. Such views occasionally caused tension amongst friends when individuals were seen to be drinking less than normal because it was considered that this would impact pleasure for the whole group on the night out. This parallels Oliver
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Smith’s (2013) work on adult drinking which suggests that individuals attempt to maintain youthful identities by heeding to pleasurable outcomes associated with the NTE.
These fieldwork findings reveal that in line with other research, excessive alcohol consumption is regarded as “the norm rather than the exception among young people” (Harrison et al.
2011:469) and that light drinking or abstaining is not seen as desirable. In light of this, the remaining sections of this chapter will attempt to draw out why such values predominate contemporary youth drinking cultures in Sutton. The chapter will also explore that despite young people claiming that excessive consumption and drunkenness was often the perceived goal of a night out; young people often deviated from this in practice whereby it became apparent that drunkenness was not the desired goal.