Swimming with Crocodiles: The Culture of Extreme Drinking (International Centre for Alcohol Policies)

296 Pages·2008·2.6 MB·English

by  Marjana Martinic

SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES
International Center for Alcohol Policies
Series on Alcohol in Society
Grant and Litvak ...............Drinking Patterns and Their Consequences
Grant .................................Alcohol and Emerging Markets: Patterns,
Problems, and Responses
Peele and Grant .................Alcohol and Pleasure: A Health Perspective
Heath .................................Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives
on Alcohol and Culture
Houghton and Roche .........Learning about Drinking
Haworth and Simpson .......Moonshine Markets: Issues in Unrecorded
Alcohol Beverage Production and Consumption
Martinic and Leigh ..........Reasonable Risk: Alcohol in Perspective
Grant and O’Connor ..........Corporate Social Responsibility and Alcohol:
The Need and Potential for Partnership
Martinic and Measham .....Swimming with Crocodiles: The Culture of
Extreme Drinking
SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES
The Culture of Extreme Drinking
Marjana Martinic and Fiona Measham
New York London
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
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© 2008 by International Center for Alcohol Policies
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Swimming with crocodiles : the culture of extreme drinking / edited by Marjana
Martinic and Fiona Measham.
p. ; cm. -- (ICAP series on alcohol in society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-95548-5 (hardbound : alk. paper)
1. Youth--Alcohol use--Cross-cultural studies. 2. Drinking of alcoholic
beverages--Social aspects. 3. Drinking of alcoholic beverages--Cross-cultural studies.
4. Drinking customs--Cross-cultural studies. 5. Alcoholism--Cross-cultural studies. I.
Martinic, Marjana. II. Measham, Fiona, 1963- III. Series: Series on alcohol in society.
[DNLM: 1. Alcohol-Related Disorders--Case Reports. 2. Adolescent. 3.
Cross-Cultural Comparison--Case Reports. WM 274 S977 2008]
HV5135.S95 2008
362.2920835--dc22 2007049821
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Routledge Web site at
http://www.routledge.com
“When I get drunk, I go swimming…. This is a stupid thing to do
because there are crocodiles and hippos in the river, but you feel
like you are invincible when you are drunk, so you do it. I do it.”
(Male participant, ICAP Focus Group, South Africa)

Contents
Editors ix
Contributors xi
Disclaimer xiii
CHAPTER 1 Extreme Drinking 1
Marjana Martinic and Fiona Measham
CHAPTER 2 A History of Intoxication: Changing Attitudes to
Drunkenness and Excess in the United Kingdom 13
Fiona Measham
CHAPTER 3 Beyond Boundaries: Youth and the Dream of the Extreme 37
Véronique Nahoum-Grappe
Case Study: Young People’s Drinking in France 39
Marie Choquet
CHAPTER 4 What Motivates Extreme Drinking? 53
Barbara Leigh and Christine Lee
Case Study: Drinking among Young People in the United
Kingdom 67
Fiona Measham
CHAPTER 5 Focus Group Results 79
Brazil 84
Mônica Gorgulho and Vera Da Ros
China 95
Ian Newman
vii
viii CONTENTS
Italy 111
Enrico Tempesta
Nigeria 120
Olabisi Odejide, Olayinka Omigbodun, Ademola Ajuwon,
Victor Makanjuola, Afolabi Bamgboye, and Frederick
Oshiname
Russia 132
Eugenia A. Koshkina
South Africa 141
Chan Makan
Scotland, United Kingdom 148
Steve March
CHAPTER 6 Stakeholders and Their Roles 161
Mark Leverton and Keith Evans
CHAPTER 7 Extreme Drinking, Young People, and Feasible Policy 183
Marjana Martinic and Barton Alexander
Case Study: Botellón in Spain 193
Andrés Bascones Pérez-Fragero
CHAPTER 8 Feasible Interventions: Tackling Extreme Drinking in Young
People 219
Mônica Gorgulho and Daniya Tamendarova
Case Study: Drinking among Sorority and Fraternity
Students in the United States 228
Jason Kilmer and Mary Larimer
Afterword 261
Marjana Martinic and Fiona Measham
ANNEX 1 Procedures for Focus Groups on Extreme Drinking 263
ANNEX 2 Guiding Questions for Focus Groups 265

Index 269
Editors
Dr. Marjana Martinic is Vice President for Public Health at the International
Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP). Her work focuses on the nexus between
the scientifi c evidence base and international alcohol policy development.
Prior to joining ICAP in 1996, she worked in developmental neuroscience
research at the University of Virginia Medical School and at the National
Institutes of Health in the United States. She has published extensively in the
fi elds of neuroscience and alcohol policy. Her previous book (co-authored with
Barbara Leigh), Reasonable Risk: Alcohol in Perspective (2004), is volume 7
in the ICAP book series, Alcohol in Society.
Dr. Fiona Measham was appointed to Lancaster University in 2000 and is
now Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the Department of Applied Social
Science. Dr. Measham is a nationally renowned researcher with 20 years of
experience in the fi elds of drug and alcohol use, gender, licensed leisure, and
cultural criminology. She is co-author of Illegal Leisure (1998) and Dancing
on Drugs (2001), based on two large-scale studies of young people’s drug and
alcohol use, for both of which she was lead researcher. Her theoretical interests
span cultural criminology, gender studies, and the sociology of intoxication,
with a particular interest in the boundaries of transgression, the criminal-
ization of leisure, and the problematic-recreational interface in leisure-time
consumption.
ix