“I Just Drink for That Tipsy Stage”

Abstract

Many young adults aim for a state of tipsiness, where control is not abandoned when they drink alcohol; however, this level of intoxication is very difficult to get right. Interviews conducted with 60 drinkers aged 18–24 years in Melbourne, Australia, indicate that few counted standard drinks and most spoke of attending to bodily signs that they had had enough and should not drink more. This strategy was ineffective for a small proportion of interviewees who never felt too drunk. To understand young adults’ efforts to manage intoxication, we use Mol and Law’s notion of excorporation. The partial nature of intoxicated self-control led young adults to arrange to be in settings where external restraints to drinking would operate. Alcohol policy should acknowledge the mosaic and embodied nature of self-control for young adults in the nighttime economy and focus on the development of settings where drinking and associated harms are minimized.