Sarah MacLean

Who or what do young adults hold responsible for men’s drunken violence?

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 07-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2019.07.015

Abstract: Men are more likely than women to perpetrate serious violence when they have consumed alcohol, but alcohol does not affect all men in the same way. This paper considers young adults' attribution about agency (the capacity to act) in men's drunken violence. Interviews about alcohol use in night-time venues, streets or private parties were conducted with 60 young adults aged 18-24 in Melbourne, Australia, and analysed thematically. Participants included seven men who identified as having initiated violence when drunk. Some interviewees stated that men chose to be violent, or that men's violence when they were drunk was purposeful and therefore involved some component of choice. However, much alcohol-related violence enacted by young men was understood (both by men who reported violence and by other young adults) as impelled by forces outside their control. These forces were: diffusely defined effects of drinking alcohol proclivities of men and masculinity, and the interaction of alcohol and men's bodies to override capacity for judgement and produce an irresistible urge to fight. The latter was at times explained as caused by the mutually reinforcing actions of alcohol and testosterone, providing a particularly persuasive account of men's violence as biologically-determined. These categories encapsulate a set of discursive resources that contribute to the rationalisation, naturalisation and production of men's violence. Participants tended to regard alcohol, masculinities and testosterone as inciting violence predictably and consistently, suggesting that men themselves had relatively little agency over its occurrence. In contrast, research evidence indicates that these actors do not cause violence in any uniform way and that their effects are contingent on changing configurations of factors. Highlighting discrepancies between young adults' understandings of responsibility for men's drunken violence, and those expressed in research, presents additional opportunities for intervention.

Re-configured pleasures: How young people feel good through abstaining or moderating their drinking

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 03-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2020.102709

Was it good for you too? Impediments to conducting university-based collaborative research with communities experiencing disadvantage

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 10-2009

DOI: 10.1111/J.1753-6405.2009.00420.X

Abstract: Collaborative and participatory research (CPR) models are increasingly recognised as methodologically, ethically and practically appropriate to conducting health and welfare research involving disadvantaged communities. This paper identifies impediments to CPR and proposes measures to support and encourage future CPR in Australian universities. This paper draws on a small qualitative study of university-based CPR projects in Melbourne. The study involved a literature review and interviews with 23 participants, comprising university-based researchers and community liaison officers, and community representatives involved in university-based research projects. The paper outlines four main difficulties encountered by university-based researchers and community liaison staff in conducting CPR. These are: managing community sensitivities, the time-consuming nature of the work and erse tasks involved, difficulty securing adequate research funding, and a concern that CPR was detrimental to academic careers. CPR in universities might be supported in the future through providing CPR training for researchers, employing additional community liaison staff, recognising community reports within the Australian research quality evaluation system Excellence in Research for Australia, adopting supportive policies within universities and provision of dedicated CPR funding. In the current Australian university context of competitive funding, further research into CPR nationally, alongside dedicated resources and policies are required to maximise the benefits of this approach.

Addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 26-11-2018

DOI: 10.1111/ADD.14075

Abstract: Established in 2006, the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) is Australia's only research centre with a primary focus on alcohol policy. CAPR has four main areas of research: alcohol policy impacts alcohol policy formation and regulatory processes involved in implementing alcohol policies patterns and trends in drinking and alcohol problems in the population and the influence of drinking norms, cultural practices and social contexts, particularly in interaction with alcohol policies. In this paper, we give ex les of key publications in each area. During the past decade, the number of staff employed at CAPR has increased steadily and now hovers at approximately 10. CAPR has supported the development of independent researchers who collaborate on a number of international projects, such as the Alcohol's Harm to Others study which is now replicated in approximately 30 countries. CAPR receives core funding from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and staff have been highly successful in securing additional competitive research funding. In 2016, CAPR moved to a new institutional setting at La Trobe University and celebrated 10 years of operation.

Intervening in Indigenous Gambling: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 22-08-2019

DOI: 10.31124/ADVANCE.9637631

Abstract: This study aimed to systematically search and review the literature relating to interventions designed for Indigenous populations that seek to prevent or address gambling harm, to support the design of new programs. Peer-reviewed articles and grey literature that described programs of this nature and/or which reported outcomes for Indigenous participants were included in the review.

Will modifying inhalants reduce volatile substance misuse? A review

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 2006

DOI: 10.1080/09687630600762202

Home alone: Patterns and perceptions of solitary home alcohol consumption in an Australian convenience sample

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 16-01-2023

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13600

Abstract: In contrast with extensive literature exploring sociable alcohol use, few studies focus on drinking alone at home, even though the home is the place where the majority of drinking occurs. We draw on survey and interview data gathered in 2018/2019 prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic, to identify prevalence and perceptions of solitary home drinking in an Australian convenience s le of heavy and light drinkers (LD). A substantial minority of survey participants identified drinking home alone, with over a quarter of heavy drinkers (27%) reporting that they only drank alone in their own home (compared to 15% of LD). In interviews, solitary home drinking was frequently constructed as signifying personal inadequacy, heavy consumption and harm. However, tensions arose through solitary home drinking bringing pleasures, such as relaxation. It was regarded as more socially acceptable for men than women and lighter home drinking patterns were viewed more positively than heavy drinking. Perceptions of what constitutes solitary home drinking varied, with some suggesting it includes drinking with others present who are not themselves drinking, and others using a more limited definition of consuming alcohol while alone in a house. While strong social sanctions against it persist, solitary home drinking can reflect a lack of opportunity to drink with others and also be associated with more harmful regular patterns of alcohol use. Increasing recognition of home drinking provides a new imperative to better understand the complex stigmatisation that frames solitary home drinking and to explore opportunities to limit associated harms.

Drinking Patterns and Attitudes for Young People in Inner-Urban Melbourne and Outer-Urban Growth Areas: Differences and Similarities

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 12-2013

DOI: 10.1080/08111146.2013.831758

Young people are drinking less: It is time to find out why

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 03-2015

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.12255

Petrol sniffing in Aboriginal communities: A review of interventions

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 03-2002

DOI: 10.1080/09595230220119345

Abstract: Petrol sniffing (and other forms of inhalant misuse) occur within some Aboriginal communities across Australia. However, there is little documented information about the nature and combination of interventions that are most effective in addressing it. This article reviews published and unpublished literature relevant to petrol sniffing in Australian Aboriginal communities. A range of strategies which have been trialled previously are discussed under the categories of primary, secondary and tertiary intervention. We have adopted Zinberg's schema of 'drug', 'set' and 'setting' in theorizing the mix of interventions most likely to reduce petrol sniffing. We argue that interventions should address as many as possible of these factors. Further, while no strategy is likely to succeed without strong support from local community members, governments also have an important role in addressing petrol sniffing. Consistent funding for strategies directly addressing petrol sniffing and co-ordinated government responses to the broader needs of Aboriginal young people and their communities are critical.

‘Hyped up’: Assemblages of alcohol, excitement and violence for outer-suburban young adults in the inner-city at night

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 05-2014

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2014.02.006

Abstract: Young adults from across greater Melbourne are drawn to the city centre night time economy (NTE). There is some evidence that young adults who live in outer-suburbs are involved in higher rates of weekend night time assaults than their inner-urban peers, both as perpetrators and as victims. Using the notion of 'assemblages', this article explores outer-suburban people's participation in the affectively charged spaces of inner-city entertainment precincts to show that trouble in the NTE cannot be attributed to alcohol and other drugs alone. We provide a narrative analysis of interviews conducted in 2012 with 60 young adult drinkers aged 18-24, half of whom lived in an inner-city area and half in outer-suburbs. More so for young adults from outer-suburbs than those who live closer to the city, going to the city is an event marked out as different from everyday life. Their sense of being 'hyped up' in the inner-city made different sets of practices possible, particularly in relation to drinking and being open to new engagements with friends and sexual partners. Participants also spoke, however, of discomfort, danger and fear. Violence was most likely to occur at points where people felt a dissonance between their heightened affective states and the spaces where they found themselves. In this analysis, outer-suburban young adults' positioning within the assemblages of the city centre NTE makes conflict and violence more likely for them. Efforts to improve NTE safety should maintain a focus on managing alcohol availability. Nonetheless additional strategies to decentralise the NTE, ensure better late night public transport to outer-suburbs or to support people to manage sudden affective shifts in NTE might also play a greater part in the overall effort.

Declining drinking among adolescents: Are we seeing a denormalisation of drinking and a normalisation of non‐drinking?

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 14-07-2022

DOI: 10.1111/ADD.15611

Abstract: In the early 2000s, alcohol use among young people began to decline in many western countries, especially among adolescents (ages between 12–17 years old). These declines have continued steadily over the past two decades, against the backdrop of much smaller declines among the general population. Hypotheses examining in idual factors fail adequately to provide the necessary ‘big picture’ thinking needed to understand declines in adolescent drinking. We use the normalisation thesis to argue that there is strong international evidence for both processes of denormalisation of drinking and normalisation of non‐drinking occurring for adolescents in many western countries. Research on declining adolescent drinking provides evidence of both denormalisation of alcohol consumption and normalisation of non‐drinking. This has implications for enabling policy environments more amenable to regulation and increasing the acceptability of non‐drinking in social contexts. Normalisation theory (and its various interpretations) provides a useful multi‐dimensional tool for understanding declines in adolescent drinking.

Intervening in Indigenous Gambling: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 22-08-2019

DOI: 10.31124/ADVANCE.9637631.V1

Abstract: This study aimed to systematically search and review the literature relating to interventions designed for Indigenous populations that seek to prevent or address gambling harm, to support the design of new programs. Peer-reviewed articles and grey literature that described programs of this nature and/or which reported outcomes for Indigenous participants were included in the review.

The ‘social worlds’ concept: a useful tool for public health-oriented studies of drinking cultures

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 17-09-2020

DOI: 10.1080/16066359.2020.1820491

Global issues in volatile substance misuse

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 24-05-2011

DOI: 10.3109/10826084.2011.580169

Abstract: This special issue of Substance Use & Misuse addresses the public health issue of volatile substance misuse (VSM), the inhalation of gases or vapors for psychoactive effects, assessing the similarities and differences in the products misused, patterns, prevalence, etiologies, and impacts of VSM by examining it through sociocultural epidemiology, neuroscience, and interventions research. The Canadian, US, and Australian guest editors contend that, when compared with other drugs used at a similar prevalence, VSM has attracted relatively little research effort. The authors and editors call for further research to develop evidence-based policies and comprehensive interventions that respect culture and context-specific knowledge.

Petrol sniffing interventions among Australian Indigenous communities through product substitution: From skunk juice to opal

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 24-05-2011

DOI: 10.3109/10826084.2011.580223

Abstract: Inhalation of petrol (gasoline) fumes has been prevalent in some Australian Indigenous communities since World War II, and has led to a continuing quest for an effective method of preventing the practice either by modifying the substance or by substituting nonharmful alternatives. This article traces the results of this search, beginning with the addition of ethyl mercaptan, then describing the substitution of aviation fuel for conventional vehicle fuel, and concluding with the staged introduction of Opal--a vehicle fuel containing low levels of aromatic hydrocarbons--throughout many communities from 2005. The article assesses the benefits and limitations of supply reduction methods.

Subgroups of adults who drink alcohol at low‐risk levels: Diverse drinking patterns and demography

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 12-08-2020

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13133

Why we stopped using the term ‘aftercare’

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 27-05-2022

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13332

Abstract: The words we choose to describe alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatments and interventions reveal assumptions about how we understand AOD use. Moreover, they have important implications for how the treatment is imagined, implemented and funded. Service provision which follows engagement in an intensive (usually residential) program is often called ‘aftercare’ in the international AOD field. In this commentary, we argue that the term ‘aftercare’ fails to articulate the nature of ongoing care required by people who are managing AOD use. We maintain that ‘aftercare’ positions post‐residential care as being less important than other treatment modalities, rather than as integral to a continuum of care. It is a term that implies that care should be acute, like much treatment delivered through a medical model, and assumes that people follow linear pathways in managing their AOD use. Assumptions embedded in the term ‘aftercare’ such as these may disincline governments from funding ongoing services for people exiting intensive programs. Alternative terms including ‘continuing coordinated care’ more aptly signal the integrated and ongoing service provision that should be available to support people in sustaining changes initiated through other AOD interventions.

‘I just wanted a change, a positive change’: Locating hope for young people engaged with residential alcohol and drug services in Victoria, Australia

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 06-06-2023

DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13680

Abstract: In this article, we investigate young people’s involvement with residential alcohol and other drug (AOD) services as part of their broader engagement with hope. This study draws on qualitative interviews conducted with 20 young people aged 17–23 from Victoria, Australia, who were either in, or had recently left, residential AOD services. Interviews explored their experiences with AOD services and included questions about their hopes for the future. We found hope located in social relationships, productive discourses and AOD settings themselves. Hope also presented differently according to the external resources young people had available to them, giving some young people greater capacity to action their hoped‐for futures than others. Given many young people seek reimagined futures as part of their use of residential AOD services, this creates a valuable opportunity for services to help shape achievable hopes and boost service engagement. We suggest that hope can materialise in a variety of ways but caution against relying on it as a motivational strategy without providing young people with other resources. A more sustainable narrative of hope may require a solid foundation of resources, allowing young people with AOD problems to gain a sense of control over their lives and their imagined futures.

Volatile bodies: Stories of corporeal pleasure and damage in marginalised young people's drug use

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 10-2008

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2007.08.005

Abstract: This paper explores the connection between meaning and corporeal pleasure in drug use experience through considering accounts of inhalant use made by marginalised young people in Melbourne, Australia. Inhalants (also known as volatile substances or solvents) have a reputation internationally as drugs of desperation rather than enjoyment. Corporeal pleasure as a motive for inhalant use is generally overlooked in policy, drug research literature and health education--as is frequently the case also in relation to other forms of drug use practiced by marginalised peoples. In contrast, harms such as brain damage and death are strongly emphasised. Twenty-seven young people with current or past experience of inhalant use were interviewed, each between one and three times. Participants were asked to speak about what they liked and did not like about inhalant use. A narrative analysis was used to identify stories about the bodily encounter with inhalants that were iterated across interview transcripts. Two narratives about corporeal experiences of inhalant-induced intoxication are discussed here, both of which research participants framed within an understanding of these drugs as pre-eminently dangerous. The first narrative is that inhalant use is an ineffable experience of the body. The second links the intensity of pleasure occasioned by inhalant use with the infliction of brain damage and risk of death. Catastrophic beliefs about the dangers associated with inhalant use serve in some instances to accentuate the pleasures it affords users, and at the same time debilitate their sense of capacity to change. Additionally, where drug users are depicted as self-harming rather than seekers of (albeit risky) pleasure, the range of policy options likely to be implemented is restricted. Education provided through drug treatment presents an opportunity to counter some of the harms associated with narratives of pleasure and damage in drug use.

Why is adolescent drinking declining? A systematic review and narrative synthesis

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 23-09-2019

DOI: 10.1080/16066359.2019.1663831

'I've had a pretty tough life but that's not why I do this': Narratives of autonomy and control among alcohol and drug service-engaged early teenagers

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 24-07-2013

DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2012.704990

Increasing harms for bingo players: digitisation, commercialisation and regulatory inadequacy: a multi-site case study

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 04-05-2022

DOI: 10.1186/S12889-022-12954-Y

Abstract: Bingo is often understood as a low-harm form of gambling. This view has been challenged by a growing body of literature identifying gambling harm to bingo players in a range of countries. In this study, we aimed to identify which conditions enabled, facilitated, intensified or mitigated gambling harm for bingo players in three populations in Victoria in the context of corporate, technological and regulatory changes. Our qualitative study investigated experiences of bingo-related gambling harm in three populations in Victoria, Australia where bingo was popular and structural disadvantage common: Indigenous people in the east, Pacific people in the state’s north and older people on low or fixed incomes in the capital. Data was generated through interviews with 53 bingo players and 13 stakeholders as well as 12 participant observations of bingo sessions. We found that while bingo is overwhelmingly positive for many players, a minority of bingo players and their families experience notable harm. Harm was generated through traditional paper-based bingo games, new technologies such as tablet-based bingo and by the widespread tactic of placing bingo sessions in close proximity to harmful electronic gambling machines. Overall, the risk of harm to bingo players appears to be escalating due to commercial, technological and regulatory changes. These changes can be better managed by regulators: reforms are needed to safeguard bingo’s distinct character as a lower-risk form of gambling at a time when it, and its players, are under threat. Significantly, we found that harm to bingo players is intensified by factors external to gambling such as racialised poverty and adverse life events. Strategies that recognise these factors and grapple with gambling harm to bingo players are needed.

Changing risky drinking practices in different types of social worlds: concepts and experiences

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 18-05-2022

DOI: 10.1080/09687637.2020.1820955

Evolving Understandings of Bingo in Four Decades of Literature: From Eyes Down to New Vistas

Publisher: University of Alberta Libraries

Date: 07-03-2022

DOI: 10.29173/CGS89

Abstract: Bingo is a distinct, enduring but understudied form of gambling. It provides comfort and pleasure to many of its players while also causing harm to some. While traditionally seen as low harm, it is being reshaped by technological and regulatory change. Despite this, there is no recent overview of the literature on bingo. This narrative review seeks to fill this gap by exploring the development of literature on bingo since the 1980s, first providing a chronological overview of writing on bingo and then a brief account of major themes in the literature. The literature reviewed was primarily identified through searches of academic databases using search terms such as betting, bingo, electronic and gambling. We find that bingo research makes a number of important contributions: it allows better understanding of groups of overlooked gamblers, corrects biases in gambling literature, highlights the importance of social and structural factors in understanding gambling and employs methodological approaches that are congruent with the people and practices being studied. Additionally, it provides new perspectives on gambling in terms of skill, affect, harm and control and offers a distinct viewpoint to analyse gambling and other phenomena.

‘Super googs on a Zoom, are you kidding me?’: The pleasures and constraints of digitally‐mediated alcohol and other drug consumption

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 07-12-2022

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13415

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated social restrictions have profoundly shaped the routines, practices and space-times of alcohol and other drug (AOD) consumption. As a part of these transformations, video conferencing services (e.g. Zoom, Whereby) have emerged as popular mediums for socialising and AOD consumption. In this article, we adopt a more-than-human theoretical framework to explore how these online contexts re-shape experiences of AOD consumption. Data were gathered using a case-study approach, guided by principles of digital ethnography. We 'staged' the online gatherings of three established friendship clusters of adults in Melbourne, Australia, and drew on a discussion guide to elicit accounts of past online AOD encounters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our thematic analysis was sensitised to the dynamic composition of these encounters and the kinds of relations, practices and affects they enabled and constrained. Composed via video conferencing services, AOD consumption afforded distinct pleasures, including enhanced sociality, excitement and momentary reprieves from isolation. Importantly, these effects were not uniform or stable. Participants also navigated various constraints of online AOD consumption while establishing for themselves what substances and associated practices 'fit' within these novel encounters. Our study conveys the importance of digitally-mediated AOD consumption as a site of socialising and pleasure. In so doing, it demonstrates the ways in which AOD consumption was drawn on in the everyday negotiation of health and wellbeing under lockdown conditions. We call for research and policy approaches that are sensitive to the affirmative potentials of digitally=mediated AOD encounters.

Drinking at home: Restricting alcohol availability is a key mechanism to reduce harms

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 09-05-2023

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13679

Pleasures and Risks Associated with Bingo Playing in an Australian Aboriginal Community: Lessons for Policy and Intervention.

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 05-06-2019

DOI: 10.1007/S10899-018-9779-6

Abstract: Bingo playing in Australian Indigenous communities has received little academic attention. We report here on an exploratory study designed to understand the complex benefits and harms associated with bingo playing for Aboriginal people in Sunraysia, a regional community in Victoria, Australia. The research was strongly participatory, and conducted in collaboration with staff of an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation. Twenty-six members of the Sunraysia Aboriginal community were interviewed, with interviews primarily conducted by workers from the Aboriginal organisation. Echoing research from other countries, but with a unique focus on the experience of bingo for Aboriginal people in Australia, this study demonstrates compelling reasons why Aboriginal people in Sunraysia play bingo, and how bingo playing both exposes players to risk and mitigates against a wide range of harms. We found that, for many people in the study, bingo was variously a site that reinforces social connectedness, a source of fun and excitement and a strategy to find solace or respite in the face of personal pain and structural injustice. In contrast with other forms of gambling, bingo presents risks that can generally be managed, largely because of the smaller financial spend involved. However, people also described harms including exhausting the family budget, family conflict and encouragement to commence other forms of gambling. We argue for enhanced regulation of commercial bingo and suggest that not-for-profit bingo be implemented as a harm reduction strategy to enable people to experience some of the pleasures associated with gambling, with reduced risk of financial and social harms.

Volatile substances are an amorphous category, making it hard to build a comprehensive body of research

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 09-2023

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2023.104181

Psychosocial therapeutic interventions for volatile substance use: a systematic review

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 17-01-2012

DOI: 10.1111/J.1360-0443.2011.03650.X

Abstract: Volatile substance use (VSU) is associated with a range of adverse outcomes, including cognitive impairment and death. It occurs disproportionately within young and marginalized populations. A previous international systematic review of VSU treatment identified no relevant studies. This paper reports on a systematic review of a range of study types concerning psychosocial interventions for VSU. Search parameters were developed using the Population, Intervention, Professionals, Outcomes, Health care setting and Contexts (PIPOH) tool with input from an expert committee. Included were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), comparative studies with or without concurrent controls, case series studies and grey literature, published in English during 1980-2010. The initial search identified 2344 references. After two screening phases, 23 studies of VSU therapeutic interventions remained. Of these, 19 concerned psychosocial interventions, which we discuss as: case management counselling recreation and engagement programmes and residential treatment. Studies were conducted in Australia, Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil. No RCTs were identified and studies were generally of low evidentiary levels. Even when a range of study types are included, clear conclusions for volatile substance use psychological treatment are not supported, but three intervention types merit further examination: family therapy, activity-based programmes and Indigenous-led residential approaches. Future volatile substance use research could be enhanced by developing and validating outcome measurement tools. Robust multi-site studies are also required.

Risk and restraint—The key to understanding the decreasing use of alcohol for young people in high income countries?

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 11-07-2023

DOI: 10.1111/DAR.13709

Abstract: In this article we seek to understand the changing social position of alcohol use for young people in Australia by identifying how alcohol has become framed as posing a significant risk to their bodies and futures. Forty interviews were conducted with young people aged 18–21 years from Melbourne, Australia, who had previously identified as light drinkers or abstainers. Drawing on insights from contemporary sociologies of risk, we explored how risk was discussed as a governing concept that shaped young people's views of alcohol, and how it encouraged or necessitated risk‐avoidance in daily life. Participants drew on a range of risk discourses in framing their abstention or moderate drinking along the lines of health, wellness, wisdom and productivity. They reiterated social constructions of heavy or regular alcohol use as irresponsible, threatening and potentially addictive. The focus on personal responsibility was striking in most accounts. Participants seemed to have routinised ways of practicing risk avoidance and coordinated drinking practices with other practices in their everyday life, with alcohol therefore ‘competing for time’. Our findings endorse the idea that discourses of risk and in idual responsibility shape the contemporary socio‐cultural value of alcohol for young people. Risk avoidance has become routine and is manifested through the practice of restraint and control. This appears particular to high‐income countries like Australia, where concerns about young people's futures and economic security are increasing, and where neoliberal politics are the foundations of governmental ideology.

Erratum to Risk profiles for early adolescents who regularly use alcohol and other drugs compared with older youth (Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, (2013))

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 09-2013

DOI: 10.1080/17450128.2013.774984

Becoming a nitrous oxide user on social media: Learning to maximise pleasures and minimise harms

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 11-2022

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGPO.2022.103861

Abstract: In his classic work 'Becoming a marihuana user', Howard Becker (1953) showed how drug use learning occurred in social interactions and settings, which in turn shape drug use. Today, social media offers people opportunities to learn about drugs without physical proximity. In this paper, we identify nitrous oxide (N Data are drawn from a Reddit page (subreddit) dedicated to N Our analysis uncovers practices not previously been reported in academic literature or health information on N In contrast to official health resources, the subreddit offers members practical advice on harm reduction. It provides opportunities for users of N

Gambling in Two Regional Australian Aboriginal Communities: A Social Practice Analysis

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 20-05-2019

DOI: 10.1007/S10899-019-09858-9

Affordances of home drinking in accounts from light and heavy drinkers

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 03-2022

DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2022.114712

Abstract: Home drinking contributes substantially to health harms associated with alcohol consumption. Drawing on practice theory and new materialism, we argue that drinking is a social practice that allows particular sets of effects, or affordances, when it takes place in a person's home. Qualitative interviews were conducted by telephone with 40 Australian adult home drinkers, of whom 20 drank at a level designated as low risk and 20 at a level which exposed them to a higher likelihood of harm. Our analyses identified four substantive affordances of home drinking practice. The first two concern transformations of home life. Home drinking allowed both celebration and smoothing of dissatisfaction with domestic relationships. Through producing subtly different affective states at home compared to in other locations, drinking practice rendered domestic settings home-like: as places of comfort and respite. The second two affordances of home drinking concern how home as a place acts in the co-constitution of drinking patterns. This entailed routinising alcohol consumption alongside other home-based practices and loosening constraints on intoxication. Importantly for our argument, each of these operated with greater intensity for participants who drank at a heavier level than for those who drank more moderately. For ex le, heavy drinkers expressed a greater imperative to alter relationships and affective states at home and emphasised how being at home produced opportunities for, and removed obstacles to, heavy drinking. We show that home drinking is patterned with other activities and entwined in domestic wellbeing and the emergence of home as a space of privacy, autonomy and relaxation for Australians in our study s le. Understanding home drinking as deeply embedded in the constitution of contemporary western domestic life helps to explain heavy alcohol consumption in these settings. It also supports the need for targeted public health responses such as restrictions on home delivery of alcohol.

How do people drink alcohol at a low-risk level?

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 10-05-2023

DOI: 10.1080/14461242.2023.2209090

Fourteen dollars for one beer! Pre-drinking is associated with high-risk drinking among Victorian young adults

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2013

DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.12138

Abstract: Pre-drinking entails consuming alcohol before attending licensed venues. We examined the relationship between pre-drinking, intention to get drunk and high-risk drinking among Victorians aged 18-24 years, to consider whether reducing pre-drinking might ameliorate alcohol-related harm. Variables within the 2009 Victorian Youth Alcohol and Drugs Survey (VYADS) dataset were analysed and compared with a thematic interpretation of research interviews involving 60 young adults living in Melbourne. High-risk drinking was defined as consuming 11 or more standard drinks in a session at least monthly. VYADS data show that pre-drinking was a significant predictor of high-risk drinking, even after intention to get drunk was controlled for. The most common explanation provided by interviewees for pre-drinking was because it is cheaper to purchase alcohol at bottle shops than at bars and clubs. This was particularly emphasised by those who drank at a high-risk level. The study suggests that people pre-drink because they desire to be intoxicated, but also that pre-drinking patterns and product choices exacerbate the likelihood of high-risk drinking. Reducing availability of cheap packaged alcohol has potential to limit both pre-drinking and high-risk drinking among Victorian young adults. The study adds weight to calls to implement minimum alcohol pricing in Australia.

Patterns of family conflict and their impact on substance use and psychosocial outcomes in a sample of young people in treatment

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 18-11-2013

DOI: 10.1080/17450128.2013.855858

Response to commentaries: (de)normalization of drinking and its implications for young people, sociality, culture and epidemiology

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 28-02-2022

DOI: 10.1111/ADD.15848

Five challenges for volatile substance misuse policy and intervention in Australia

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 06-09-2011

DOI: 10.1111/J.1465-3362.2010.00232.X

Global selves: Marginalised young people and aesthetic reflexivity in inhalant drug use

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 09-2007

DOI: 10.1080/13676260701360691

Enforcement of liquor licence provisions: The introduction of civilian licence inspectors in Victoria

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 30-04-2013

DOI: 10.3109/09687637.2012.676106

La Trobe University

Location: Australia

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University Of Melbourne

Location: Australia

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Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP200100492

Start Date: 10-2020

End Date: 12-2024

Amount: $308,303.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP100100017

Start Date: 09-2010

End Date: 06-2014

Amount: $240,546.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP180100449

Start Date: 07-2020

End Date: 03-2024

Amount: $236,657.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP160101380

Start Date: 2017

End Date: 12-2020

Amount: $204,338.00

Funder: Australian Research Council