According to research psychologist Jeffrey Arnett, “emerging adults” (i.e., people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five) share a unique place in the social world.1 Today, most Americans put off marriage and parenthood until their mid-to-late twenties. As a result, the period between adolescence and “full-blown” adulthood is a time filled with active identity exploration driven by considerable identity confusion.2 Finding themselves in between adolescence and adulthood, emerging adults are actively seeking grown-up identities within a context dominated by peer interaction. Friendships are extremely important to emerging adults, especially if (like many college students) they move out of their parents’ home and spend the great majority of their time living and socializing with peers. Thus, the importance of peer confirmation (which is usually associated with adolescence) may intensify when emerging adults go away to college.
According to my data, one way to draw positive peer confirmation is by being an active member of the college drinking scene. If, like Jason, you’ve ever had your own cheering section, you can attest to the power of overt audience approval. But what is the relationship between college alcohol use and social relations? Why does alcohol use seem to make it easier to love and be loved by your peers? Alcohol has been referred to as a “social lubricant” or as “liquid courage.” That is, collective intoxication appears to amplify the expression of emotions during interaction and may allow people to be more openly bold and gregarious in social relations. But before we get to students’ stories about the ways in which they feel transformed when they get drunk, it will be useful to briefly discuss two important sociological concepts, identity and self.
Identity, Self, and Intoxication
Identity is a social artifact. It is the shared meaning between you and your audience about “who you are” (e.g., “I am a woman, a student, and a heavy drinker”). An identity, then, is a name that we call ourselves that is socially recognized and validated by an audience within particular social contexts.3 It is not uncommon for college students to find an identity in the party scene. Donny, a nineteen-year-old male student, sees “party animal” as a contextually situated identity that only comes out when he’s trashed:
I consider myself a party animal and always look forward to going out drinking and partying with my friends on the weekends. It felt great getting that wasted. It would have definitely been fun without drinking but it was more fun with it. It helps me to loosen up and let the party animal come out.
Being known as a “party animal” may be accompanied by social expectations and pressures to be the “animal” whenever drinking sessions convene. The college drinker with a reputation for being a crazy drunk may feel obligated to make good on the identity that he or she claims for him- or herself. Stephen, a twenty-three-year-old senior, discusses his friend, who, while normally “wild,” takes his reckless abandon to a higher level when he is drunk:
Q: Do you know people—that you drink with socially—that their behavior or personality changes a lot when they drink?
A: I have a friend, he is a pretty wild guy to begin with, but when he drinks he even becomes larger, even bigger than life, and like he does things I think just to show off. It’s funny, but I mean he is an idiot.
Q: Is it entertaining?
A: It is at first. A lot of people when they first meet him think he is hilarious. After you know him for awhile it’s just like “what is he doing now?” It really doesn’t shock me anymore. I have known him for probably six or seven years. But he has done some stuff and I’m like “What are you doing?”
Q: Like what?
A: Most of them are funny, but sometimes he can be rude and he doesn’t see it; I have seen him shoot himself in the scrotum with a BB gun. He is the kind of guy who will walk around wearing the most disgusting costume you can buy. He looks like he has been in a concentration camp and has a beer belly.
Q: So he has the identity of the crazy guy who’s going to do something?
A: Yeah, I think so.
As demonstrated by Stephen’s profile of the “out-of-control drunk,” constructing and reproducing identity takes work. One resource for creating a public identity is self. Sociologists view self as the active, reflexive process of being self-aware. To reiterate, self is not a thing; it’s a process—a process of seeing oneself as both a subject and an object. The active self can be observed in the ways in which we watch ourselves, have private discussions with ourselves, manage others’ impressions of us, and tailor our behaviors to meet other people’s expectations. According to sociologists Andrew Weigert and Victor Gecas, becoming self-aware and using that self-awareness to guide behavior during social interaction is an important skill and contributes to the order and functioning of social relations:
The capacity of humans to be both subjects and objects to themselves enables a wide range of self-objectification processes, such as self-evaluation, self-criticism, self-motivation, and self-control.… Without the ability to self-objectify, society would not be possible; we would not be able to engage in role taking [to see the world from the perspective of others], to live by the rules we create, to exercise self control over our impulses, to judge our conduct and that of others.…4
Self, then, is a mechanism of social control because it “struggles endlessly to come off positively within the dramatic situations that make up life.”5 Humans alter their behaviors and self-presentations more or less depending upon how much they care about a particular audience’s approval of them (e.g., we may be on our “best behavior” at a job interview but will relax or change our standards at a keg party). According to my research respondents, the process of self-awareness and adaptation is changed significantly when in the throes of intoxication. In short, college drinkers believe that they have a unique intoxicated self.
My Drunken Self
In his classic study of adult alcoholics—The Alcoholic Self—Norman Denzin quotes an alcoholic male in his midforties who believes that alcohol turns him into some sort of a monster:
When I drink I become another person. Like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (or whatever they’re called). I get violent. I swear, I throw things. Last Saturday, a week ago, I threw a kitchen table at my father-in-law. I grabbed my wife (she only weighs 98 pounds) by the throat ‘cause she said I was drunk when I came home. My little girls were hanging on my leg, telling me not to hurt Mommy! Christ! What’s wrong with me? I’m not violent. I don’t swear. I’m quiet. I always wear a smile. I’m easy going. Even when things are going bad I smile and say it’ll work out. But I stop and have that first beer and the next thing you know I’m drunk and there till the bar closes. Then the wife’s mad. Screaming at me when I come in the door. I feel guilty, mad. Mad at myself. Mad at her. Hell, I know I’m drunk. She don’t have to tell me. Why’d she throw it up at me like that? I don’t want to be like this any more than she wants me to be drunk. I get crazy, like last Saturday, last week. Then we don’t talk. Now she’s gone! Took the girls.6
This extreme account given by an adult alcoholic displays the radical personal transformations that may take place during a drinking episode. This violent metamorphosis suggests that he possesses a unique intoxicated self. His transformation is particularly problematic because it disrupts and damages valued family relationships (a component of heavy drinking that college students are less likely to face). While the transformations are generally less extreme, many college drinkers report that being wasted means temporarily becoming a different kind of person. According to my research, collective intoxication transforms social relations because it allows people to behave more freely than they normally would. This phenomenon is usually referred to as the lowering of inhibitions. An inhibition is a mechanism that blocks or restrains the individual from acting purely upon desires or impulses. If drunken students become less inhibited, we can expect them to broaden their menus of behavioral options in a variety of ways. The drunken—less inhibited—self is less vigilant about controlling impulses in order to manage its c
onduct in public. According to Luke, a twenty-one-year-old male, alcohol has a positive, socially relaxing effect in that it allows actors to open themselves up to new relationships:
It takes a few bricks out of the wall. Everyone puts up a wall—especially when you’re new here—to kind of not let people in because the less people know about you the less people can hurt you. You know, if they don’t know you they have nothing bad to say about you. A few drinks will take a few bricks out of the wall. It kind of opens people up to conversations with people they might not have ever talked to.… Alcohol seems to be the great gathering form of my generation… it almost levels the playing field when everyone gathers ‘cause everyone’s just trying to have a good time.
Most of my respondents would agree with Luke’s assessment. Alcohol releases inhibitions, creating a less disciplined, less demanding self. If college students are preoccupied with seeking peer affirmation, then being tanked may be one effective vehicle towards achieving that end. To illustrate this point, consider the following comments by college alcohol users who feel that they are transformed by alcohol because it relaxes that process of self-awareness that, when sober, stands as an obstacle to social interaction:
Beer is beautiful. As a shy person by nature, I forget all about it. I can talk to beautiful women much easier. It is liquid courage most definitely. (nineteen-year-old male)
When I am sober I am more of a shy person and I am always worrying about what people think of me. When I am intoxicated I loosen up a lot more. I am not afraid to say something stupid. I feel like I can be myself and not worry about what other people think of me. (eighteen-year-old female)
There is something that you let go of usually, you know, some self, your mind, you lay it back and you just let whatever you think or whatever you feel just come out, might be right might be wrong, might piss somebody off. (Joe, nineteen-year-old male)
Intoxication: The Care-Removal Machine
As illustrated in the comment above, Joe seems to regard his intoxicated self as a relatively free agent that has lost his ability to care about the consequences of his behavior. But even if alcohol makes us more social, better equipped to enter into new and intimidating social settings, does it remove our ability to care about how others regard us? The following cases suggest that becoming “carefree” or losing interest in what other people think is a taken-for-granted benefit for some college drinkers:
It’s all in the relaxing feeling that you just don’t give a damn, and you can let your hair down. (twenty-year-old female)
Many of us enjoy to get very drunk and talk about the most random things. This is what makes it fun.… Alcohol allowed us to open up to any situation. That sense of not caring was what we strived for. (nineteen-year-old male)
I was being loud and obnoxious because that’s how I am when I’m drunk. I just don’t care. (twenty-one-year-old male)
Does college drinking create a community of free-acting hedonists who don’t care what others think? If so, being wasted may be a dangerous enterprise. After all, the pioneering sociologist Erving Goffman once wrote, “Societies everywhere, if they are to be societies, must mobilize their members as self-regulating participants in social encounters.”7 Living in a society populated with free agents who do not care what other people think of them, that is, could have disastrous consequences for the social order. If everyone constantly acted upon impulse and followed the path to immediate gratification, violence, interpersonal attacks, and substance abuse might run rampant. Many of my respondents, indeed, recognize the broad negative implications of the carelessness that heavy consumption brings. And, for certain populations on campus, the last thing that they want to appear as is “out of control.” This sentiment was articulated by two African American interviewees who believe that, when it comes to being wasted, race matters. According to Dennis, an eighteen-year-old African American male, being intoxicated in public is a bad idea for students of color:
A: Yeah, actually, is drinking different race by race? Yeah, I think it is but I think that it does have a lot to do with the ratio of the Caucasian race to any of the other races down here … but I think it’s more socially acceptable for them [whites] to drink in like large quantities.
Q: By whose standards?
A: I think by like any of the college students’ standards down here.… I just think it’s more acceptable. It just seems that way.
Q: So it’s more acceptable for a white student to be intoxicated?
A: Yeah, absolutely it is.
Q: So do you think that someone… would a student of color be held more accountable for their drunk actions than a white drunk student might?
A: I definitely think they would give them more trouble. I absolutely do. … I mean stereotyping and discrimination still exist and we would be wrong to say that they didn’t.… Yeah, it’s sort of like the whole Taylor Swift and Kanye West thing.… If one person acts out, the whole race is held accountable, so if a minority student was to get drunk and act out they would be held accountable for representing their race in the eyes of those who see it, as opposed to those who are a majority member or Caucasian member of society, they would just be acting out individually and it would be like, “Wow that’s terrible” but it’s not affecting or reflecting on their whole race as a collective.8
Courtney, an eighteen-year-old African American male informant, agrees with Dennis’s analysis. According to Courtney, “minority” students must be ever mindful of their public perception, and being drunk and misbehaving in public is something to be avoided:
Q: So, when it comes to drinking and black students, for example, would it draw more attention and would there be more negative sanctions?
A: I think it would draw more attention. I don’t know if the sanctions would change.… I feel like if a minority student acted out versus a white student, it would cause more of a scene.
Q: And do you think that’s sort of in the back of people’s minds. You know, “I’ve got to be even more careful about my behavior because I’m going to be held more accountable”?
A: Yeah, that’s just something that minorities have always got to think about like right before they do something… so I mean, a lot of the black people that I know don’t really engage in the drinking scene as much as the white people I know.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: For me it seems like the comparison of the number of whites to the number of blacks. It’s like they are kinda outnumbered… so I feel like most of the black people that come here are more focused academically to me because a lot of them are here on scholarship and have to be more careful than it seems like some of the white people that go here.
My interviews with Dennis and Courtney revealed a variety of unique race-based perspectives on college drinking. In addition to their general concern about how a social audience would view an intoxicated black student, Dennis seemed especially aware of the risks that men face when they have sexual encounters with intoxicated women. Given the heavily sexualized, predatory image of African American males in our culture, it is likely that African American college men are uniquely aware of the potential risks related to having sexual relations with women who are under the influence. Dennis, in fact, appeared to be well versed in campus policy related to alcohol and sexual consent:
A: [T]here is a new policy here that if a person has one drink it takes away their ability to consent under Midwestern State’s new policy and so were a girl to have maybe an unsatisfying experience or she hooked up with a guy and she didn’t feel that the man treated her the way that she wanted to be treated or maybe she wanted something more and he didn’t want something more… it would make that more accessible to say, “Hey, I was raped because I was intoxicated.” So you just want to avoid anything like that.
Q: Right, so knowing that, knowing the culture out there and the potential consequences or sanctions you have got to be extra careful about having any sort of relations with a woman who is intoxicated, right?
The insights provided by Dennis and Courtney may help to explain some of the disparity between black and white binge drinking patterns across American campuses (researchers estimate that only 22 percent of black college students binge drink compared to 50 percent of white students). It may actually be more socially acceptable for white students to be drunk and out of control within the college drinking scene. It would be beneficial to explore issues related to race and college drinking, since few researchers have attempted to investigate the reasons for the relationship between race and drinking rates on campus. College students, of any color, however, are not necessarily seeking release from the basic standards of conduct that hold our social order together. Maybe college drinkers have something else in mind when they refer to the social freedom that accompanies intoxication. Maybe they aren’t seeking drunken, animalistic anarchy, but, rather, a temporary sense of being the kind of confident, independent free thinker that American culture so often celebrates.
Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard Page 8