How is Excessive Drinking Maintained? Untreated Heavy Drinkers' Experiences of the Personal Benefits and Drawbacks of their Drinking

Abstract

The present paper reports results from a larger study of 500 heavy drinkers (men drinking more than 50 units of alcohol per week, women more than 35 units), untreated for their drinking within the last ten years, recruited by advertising and snowballing in the English West Midlands. Data on participants' perceived benefits and drawbacks of their own drinking were obtained by 1) a computer-administered set of ratings of benefits and drawbacks in thirteen life domains, and 2) open-ended interviewing with a sub-sample of 50 participants leading to qualitative analysis of post-interview reports and transcripts. The main findings were: perceived benefits outweighed drawbacks in both forced-choice ratings and open-ended interview; there was a small but significant correlation between drinking large quantities in a day and perceived drawbacks; social benefits and drawbacks were dominant in open-ended interview; enhancement and coping benefits were linked by the concept of 'relaxation' and were difficult to distinguish; becoming argumentative and aggressive with friends and family was the dominant drawback in open-ended interview; in the health domain, toxic and short-term drawbacks were more salient than longer-term illness effects. These findings suggest a model of the perceived benefits and drawbacks of heavy drinking which challenges both conventional health promotion efforts and motivational balance models of alcohol consumption.