Alcohol in the lives of young adults. A biographical analysis. Research report

In this study, the leading theme was the broadly understood experience related to alcohol consumption among young adults. As a result of the biographical data analysis, three socially conditioned stages of the ‘career’ of becoming an alcohol consumer were reconstructed: initiation stage (with its subprocesses: ‘deviating from the norm’, ‘walking towards the norm’ and ‘hitting/reaching the norm’), the second one – ‘setting one’s own norm’ and the third one – a potential stage – termed ‘trajectory drinking’ which can also be described as ‘the stage of permanent transgression of norms’. Distinct characteristics characterise each stage, but at the same time, it remains strongly connected to the others. This connection is emphasised by the basic social process called the ‘normalisation of drinking’. At each stage, social actors participating in the social activity of alcohol consumption grapple with expectations, pressures and potential sanctions regarding when and how one should or should not drink. This qualitative sociological study analysed transcriptions of 35 narrative biographical interviews with young adults. It applied the classic version of the grounded theory methodology.