Oh brave new world

Since the 1980s there has been a substantial shift in the style and pattern of drinking by teenagers resulting in heavier consumption and an increase in drinking to get drunk. This change reflects a wider transformation of the alcohol market and the start of what has been called "recreational drug wars" in which alcohol is marketed as one of a range of psychoactive drugs.

These are the main conclusions of the first of a new series of occasional papers published by The Institute of Alcohol Studies*. We are witnessing, according to Kevin Brain of the University of Manchester's Social Policy Applied Research Centre, the emergence of a post-modern alcohol order marked by "bounded" and "un-bounded" hedonistic consumption.

Until about twenty years ago, the pattern of alcohol consumption in this country was well-established and long-standing. However, this was being eroded by the 1980s and the brewing industry began to take notice. "It started to target a new generation of youth drinkers, both male and female, who demanded a greater range of alcohol products and different kinds of drinking venue from the traditional pub." The young people growing up in the eighties and nineties were living in a post-industrial society with shifting patterns of leisure and consumption. Mr Brain makes the point that long before "the introduction of alcopops, the brewing industry had begun to design new alcohol products, and transform the pub, in an effort to capture these new customers."

The preferences and habits of the youth market was of crucial importance to the drink industry. As the old institution of the community pub and the established patterns of drinking changed, the brewers saw it as a real, and to them disastrous, possibility that a generation would grow up looking to pills and powders for its highs and washing them down with nothing stronger than Perrier water. Between 1987 and 1992 pub attendance had fallen by 11 per cent and this trend was predicted to continue up to 20 per cent by 1997. "The industry's response," says Brain, "was to accelerate the process of re-commodifying alcohol products that it had begun in the eighties." He uses the term "re-commodification" deliberately to emphasise the industry's development of alcohol as though it were a new consumer product. There have been four key elements of this transformation:

  • the development of designer drinks such as ice lagers, alcopops, white ciders, and buzz drinks;

  • the increase in strength of alcohol products in a direct attempt to compete in the psychoactive market;

  • sophisticated advertising campaigns to establish alcohol products as lifestyle indicators; and

  • the opening of new outlets aimed at the young such as café bars, theme pubs, and club bars.

Kevin Brain reminds us that the "brewing industry's attempt to recapture the youth drugs market has been referred to as a recreational drug wars." Alcopops are the obvious example of the brewing industry's aping youth drug culture in design and naming.

The stable drinking patterns of post-war years have not been replaced by anything which has any air of permanence. In the light of the constant release and rebranding of new alcohol products and the shifting fashions in venues, these patterns, at least as far as the young are concerned, are likely to continue to vary. One aspect seems unlikely to change and that is the steady increase in the amount of alcohol consumed at any one drinking session. "In 1990 the average number of units consumed [by 11-15 year olds] in a week was 0.8 which by 1996 had risen to 1.8. If non-drinkers are excluded... then average weekly consumption rose from 5.4 units a week in 1990 to 8.4 units in 1996."

The paradox of the consumer society as experienced by a section of young people is highlighted by Kevin Brain's paper. In the very act of creating the demand for products, society excludes its most vulnerable sections from enjoying their use. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to accept "the popular media image of young drinkers being out of control." Modern consumers, we are told, are "calculating hedonists" and many contemporary young drinkers "mark out pleasure spaces in which they can plan to 'let loose' and engage in less restrained behaviour than they would have to in the formal, complex structures of institutional interdependence such as school [or] work." However, not all young people are able to exist within the pattern of control and move towards what Brain calls "unbounded hedonistic consumption". They lack the means to pursue the consumer good life. "Lacking educational success, careers, and ways of constructing meaningful identities, they play around in the margins of society. Here drinking, drug taking, and other risk behaviours all merge in styles of spectacular consumption."

Kevin Brain conducted extensive research among some of the most deprived teenagers in Manchester and their comments are eloquent of the problems of the post-modern alcohol order:

*Youth, Alcohol, and the Emergence of the Post-Modern Alcohol Order, Kevin J Brain, Institute of Alcohol studies, Occasional Paper No 1 January 2000 (pdf 325kb).