Who pre-drinks before a night out and why? - Alcohol Action Ireland

DOI: 10.3109/14659891.2013.784368 Pre-drinking and motives 7J Subst Use Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by 80.198.89.98 on 07/15/13For personal use only.earning above £3000 a month. Males going out in Londonpre-drank more units before a night out than males interviewedin the university or seaside town. Frequent clubbingand intoxication during the preceding 30 days also increasedthe likelihood of males’ pre-drinking excessively before anight out.Pre-drinking was also highly influenced by the males’motives. Model I showed that males who pre-drank to besocial consumed less alcohol than males who pre-drank tosave money. Model II, however, suggested that this resultapplied only to low-income males. Thus, lower-earning (lessthan £1200 a month) males whose main pre-drinking motivewas to save money would pre-drink larger quantities thanlower-earnings males whose primary pre-drinking motive wasthe desire to be social. Lower-earning males also differedfrom other males, because when lower-earning males’ mainpre-drinking motive was driven by their viewing pre-drinkingas part of going out rather than as a way to save money, theywould pre-drink fewer quantities. In contrast, other maleswould pre-drink larger quantities if their pre-drinking motivewas that pre-drinking was part of going out.The multilevel Poisson model II for females showed thatthe number of units they consumed before a night out wasattributable to their age, occupation, education, income andmotivation. Female students would pre-drink larger quantitiesthan the unemployed females but fewer units than employedfemales. Females with an upper secondary educationconsumed larger quantities than females with either a nationaldiploma/bachelor degrees or females who had completedsecondary education. Females earning less than £1200 amonth pre-drank more units than females with higher incomes(between £1800 and £3000).As with the males, we found heterogeneous effects forfemales when including the interaction between low-incomeand pre-drinking motives. Both models I and II showed thatfemales consumed larger quantities of alcohol if their primarymotive for pre-drinking was that it was part of going out asopposed to saving money. However, whilst model I showedthat females whose main pre-drinking motive was to becomeout of control were more than three times as likely to drinklarger quantities than females whose primary motive wassaving money, model II showed that this effect applied only tolower-earning females. Lower-income females who reportedthat their main pre-drinking motive was to be social were alsomore likely to consume more units than those who pre-drankto save money.DiscussionThe finding from our event-specific survey collected in 26 barsand clubs in four different regions of the UK showed that morethan half of the females and males pre-drank before their nightout, and that when they pre-drank, they consumed an average ofabout 7–10 standard units of alcohol within one to two hours.Thus, even before they began their night out, these youngpeople by far exceeded the UK government’s recommendedsafe limit for alcohol consumption (for males no more than 3 to4 units of alcohol per day and for females no more than 2 to 3units per day (Robinson & Harris, 2011)). According to theyoung people interviewed in the survey, the most popularreason for pre-drinking on an event-specific night out is to savemoney. Thus, our finding corroborates with previous qualitativestudies, in which young people explain that their predrinkingprimarily concerns saving money by not having to buyexpensive alcohol later in the evening.We used a multi-level Poisson model to examine whetherwhen we control for socioeconomic status the quantities thatyoung people pre-drink on an event-specific night out areactually motivated by saving money. The results showed thatif lower-earning males loaded themselves with alcohol beforea night out, their motivation was clearly to save money. Thisfinding most likely results from their lacking the means toparticipate – but still having the interest in participating – inintoxication-led drinking practices on-premises. If, however,lower-earning males considered pre-drinking as a part ofgoing out or a way to be social, they would pre-drink less thanthose who identified with saving money as their mainmotivation. In contrast, males at a higher income scale predrinkheavily because they consider it part of going out.This finding suggests that the pre-drinking phenomenon isstrongly embedded in bar and club culture, where participatingwithout drinking to intoxication is difficult for males.Financially better-off males may drink heavily prior to anight out because they find it the way to start their night out.But males who lack the funds – either because they areunemployed or they earn less than £1200 a month – and wantto take part in this determined drunkenness are very aware ofhaving to pre-drink to reach a sufficient level of intoxicationwithout having to spend too much money on buying alcoholin bars and clubs.Amongst the females, pre-drinking heavily was notmotivated by saving money, because lower-earning females’consumption of larger alcohol quantities was motived by theirwanting to become out of control or to be social. Females alsopre-drank heavily if they considered pre-drinking as part ofgoing out. However, in contrast to our findings for lowerearningmales, our study found no reduced effect on lowerearningfemales’ alcohol consumption when they considereddoing so as part of going out as opposed to saving money.Thus, the interpretation of the result amongst females is lessobvious, and the complexity is heightened by the inclusionof older females and employed females – not the younger orthe unemployed females who pre-drink heavily. So althoughfemales’ consumption of larger quantities of alcohol before anight out is also associated with their low-income level, theirmotivation is more likely connected not with their beingunemployed but with their being in lower-paying jobs(probably a result of their low educational level) wheredetermined drunkenness has become the expected way ofsocialising with friends.This article also reveals that socioeconomic statuscontributed very little to explaining why some young peopleengage in the practice of pre-drinking before a night out. Formales pre-drinking was more popular amongst students, andfor females participating in pre-drinking was related to beingyounger. However, for both males and females, frequency ofintoxication was associated with the practice of pre-drinking,thus suggesting that pre-drinkers may have a higher overallconsumption of alcohol. The different impact of sociodemographicand socioeconomic status in explaining who