Drinking in a London Suburb. I. Correlates of Normal Drinking

Abstract

A quantity—frequency index of drinking patterns of 928 residents (520 women) of a south London suburb showed that 7% of the men and 10% of the women were abstainers; 17 and 36%, occasional drinkers; 9 and 20%, infrequent- light drinkers; 25 and 28%, frequent-light drinkers; 26 and 6%, moderate drinkers; and 14% and none, heavy drinkers. Among the women 49% in higher social classes (I and II) were frequent-light drinkers compared with 18 to 30% of the women in other social classes. Among the men 27% of class I and II were moderate or heavy drinkers compared with 40 to 46% of the other classes. More Roman Catholic than Church of England men (56 vs 40%) and more Irish and Scottish than English and Welsh men (64 vs 39%) were moderate and heavy drinkers. Of 94 men with heavy-drinking fathers, 24% were heavy drinkers. Both men and women who were heavy and frequent drinkers tended to have higher Extraversion scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory than those in other drinking groups; there was no consistent relationship between drinking and Neuroticism scores. Beer was preferred by the heavy drinking men and distilled spirits by the moderate drinking women. All respondents, except men in social classes I and II, drank more at weekends than on other days. Men of the lower social classes preferred drinking in the pub; men in the upper classes preferred drinking in the home. More men than women chose the pub. The sample surveyed consisted of 81 to 94% of persons aged 18 and over from every third household in 6 residential estates representing different property values. It is concluded that there is no single drinking pattern but there are patterns—in part possibly with historical determinants—differentiating classes and the sexes; that these patterns may lead to different types of problems which might equally be labeled as problem drinking or alcoholism; and that attempts at prevention would have to be geared to the group differences in patterns and consequences.