Drugs: education, prevention and policy

Drugs: education, prevention and policy

Drugs: education, prevention and policy

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People normally acquire attitudes, expectations and intentions about alcohol from childhood, and this knowledge is strongly influenced by the alcohol and drinking culture of the society to which they belong. Alcohol socialization is the process by which a person approaches and familiarizes with alcohol and learns

about the values connected to its use and about how, when and where s/he can or cannot drink. These elements determine the first and most durable individ- ual representations of alcohol (Favretto, 1997).

Many agents have an important role in the alcohol socialization process – parents, other family members,

friends – along with other significant factors like

school, community, the media, religion and culture

more generally (Brody, Ge, Katz, & Arias, 2000;

Casswell, Gilmore, Silva, & Brasch, 1988; Van der

Vorst, Engels, Meeus, Deković, & Van Leeuwe, 2005).

According to his review on the influences on how

children and young people learn about alcohol,

Vellerman (2009, p. 23) states that ‘children learn

about (and develop attitudes towards) alcohol and

drinking behaviour from a number of distinct sources’.

Among these parental modelling seems to have a

significant influence, as often children learn more from

what parents do than from what parents say (Ary,

Tildesley, Hops, & Andrews, 1993; Brody et al., 2000). Many studies focus specifically on age at drinking

onset, as this has been highlighted as one of the relevant aspects in predicting adult drinking behaviour: people who begin drinking at an early age seem to be more likely to subsequently develop problems with alcohol later in life, both in adulthood (Hingson, Heeren, & Winter, 2006; Pitkänen, Lyyra, &

Pulkkinen, 2004; Warner & White, 2003) and in

adolescence (Fergusson, Lynskey, & Horwood, 1994;

Hawkins et al., 1997; Pitkänen et al., 2004; York,

Welte, Hirsch, Hoffman, & Barnes, 2004). Despite the

paucity of empirical investigations, however, some

studies suggest that drinking experiences within the

family environment, even at an early age, may

introduce safe behaviours regarding its use (Bellis

et al., 2007; Bonino, Cattelino, & Ciairano, 2005;

Correspondence: Sara Rolando, Eclectica – Research, Training and Comunication, Corso Francia no. 19, 10138 Torino, Italy.

Tel: þ39 011 4361505. Fax: þ39 011 0200022. E-mail: rolando@eclectica.it

201

Foley, Altman, Durant, & Wolfson, 2004; Strunin et al., 2010; Warner & White, 2003).

Whereas the influence of these alcohol-specific socialization aspects have been investigated by several surveys (see Vellerman, 2009 for a review), the overall process of alcohol and drinking socialization has not yet been thoroughly explored. In fact, not many studies are available describing how alcohol socialization experiences take place, in what kind of contexts and what meanings and values are attributed to them in different cultures (Edgren-Henrichson, 1993). Particularly, the need to focus on the subjective effects experienced by young people when they have their first drink has been identified as primary (Warner & White, 2003).

This study is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the processes of socialization to alcohol in different drinking cultures and how it changes over time.

The overall objective of the study is to show how the ways children and young people in different cultural contexts get acquainted with alcohol generate very diverse experiences with completely different mean- ings. For this purpose we identified two countries that can be considered paradigmatic of the European differences in terms of alcohol consumption patterns: Italy and Finland. Italy belongs to the that group of countries that has developed a so-called ‘Mediterranean drinking culture’, where moderate alcohol consumption is a normal and appreciated part of daily life, which occurs mainly during meals and with strong social and nutritional connotations. Finland, on the other hand, is a typical example of a country with a Nordic dinking culture, where alcohol is separated from normal daily life and its prevalent use and value is connected to intoxication (Room & Mäkelä, 2000).

Whereas in Mediterranean countries children are allowed (and sometimes encouraged) to taste alcoholic beverages – which consist mainly of wine – from a young age, in the Nordic tradition alcohol is considered a dangerous substance to be kept away from children and adolescents (Beccaria & Prina, 2010). Even if traditional distinctions between European drinking cultures may seem to be out-of-date as a result of the globalization process, some differences still persist, even among the younger generations, mainly connected to the experience of intoxication. For example, teen- agers who grew up in the wine-based culture of Southern Europe report a lower proportion of heavy drinking during drinking occasions (Järvinen & Room, 2007; Room, 2010).

Italy and Finland constitute paradigmatic cases to understand how people learn about alcohol in different countries, not only because they traditionally belong to two radically different drinking cultures, the Mediterranean and the Nordic, but also because they seem to show opposite trends in the current changes that are affecting drinking patterns of European

countries (Norström, 2002), as can be seen in Figure 1. In fact, in the last 40 years, total consump- tions per capita have steadily declined in Italy and risen in Finland, so that Finnish consumption levels have now reached and exceeded Italian ones.

In Italy the reduction in alcohol consumption was initially determined by the new organization of indus- trial labour and the massive urbanization phenomenon of the 1970s that introduced new life-styles that were no longer suitable or complementary with the tradi- tional drinking patterns (Allamani & Beccaria, 2007). Later, in 1980s and 1990s, this trend consolidated through the individualization of lifestyles and a greater focus on health, which led to a revived interest for wine, but oriented more towards quality than quantity. In this period, other changes played a role in the downturn of the consumption curve in Italy: the growth in educational levels, the change in the role of women in the family and in society, social mobility, changes in the institution of the family and the increase of consumption opportunities and choices (foodstuffs or otherwise) (Tusini, 2007).

By contrast, in Finland the massive urbanization phenomenon that took place between the 1950s and the 1970s had opposite effects: people moved from the traditionally alcohol-free countryside to urban areas, where alcohol was readily available. Furthermore, in the name of regional equality, alcohol policy was slackened in many respects through the Alcohol Act of 1969. One of the most important changes to be introduced by the Alcohol Act was allowing medium- strength beer to be sold in ordinary grocery stores throughout the country, thus bringing alcohol also to the previously dry countryside. Subsequently, the range of alcohol consumers has expanded remarkably in Finland, particularly among women and minors, who have been relatively rare alcohol users before the

Figure 1. Italian and Finnish alcohol consumption trends (pure

alcohol consumption per capita 1962–2004).

Sources: Cottino and Morgan (1985); Produktschap voor

Gedistilleerde (2005); Information on the Nordic Alcohol

Market (2009).

202 S. ROLANDO ET AL.

1960s. Since then, the Finnish alcohol consumption trend has seen a steady upward trend, curbed only by a few exceptions (Karlsson, 2009).

While in both countries alcohol consumption trends have been monitored by national surveys and pro- capita consumption trends, changes in the socialization process and in people’s first experiences of alcohol have yet to be investigated.

Through the comparison of the experiences of four generations in Italy and in Finland, this study has the aim to investigate:

– what ‘first drink’ means in these different cultures; – the different alcohol socialization process in

Mediterranean and a Nordic drinking culture and possible changes in progress;

– what types of representations and attitudes towards alcohol are connected with different types of social- ization processes.

METHOD AND SAMPLE

The data was collected in Torino and Helsinki in 2007, using focus group interviews. The focus groups were conducted using a common outline structure for both countries. All focus groups were audiotaped, and the data are transcribed and analysed using Atlas.Ti. Specifically, the data used for the present article is based on the following two questions:

(1) When and how were you first confronted with other

people’s alcohol use? Could you describe that situation?

(What happened? Who was present? What were your feelings

at the time?)

(2) When did you yourself first try an alcoholic drink? Please

describe the situation. (Where did it happen and who was

present at the time? How did the event proceed?)

For each country 16 focus groups, divided by age, gender1 and socio-cultural level were conducted. In Italy and Finland participants were recruited according to the snowball technique, where we used different channels and sources (schools, educational institutions, trade unions, acquaintances, etc.) to get in touch with people representing the age, gender and socio-cultural groups we were interested in.

The only criteria required for participation in the research was active alcohol consumption (i.e. teetotal- lers were excluded). No specific information concern- ing drinking habits was obtained from participants. In both countries the cohorts were defined on the basis of the socio-economical factors that have characterized the transformations in the whole society and in drinking culture since the 1950s.

In the Italian sample, the older cohort (born between 1937 and 1940) is made up of individuals who experienced the war during their teenage years and later became the primary actors of the industrialization process and the so-called economic ‘miracle’ – a period characterized by a significant growth in alcohol

consumption. Many of these people were migrants from the predominantly agricultural South to the prosperous and increasingly industrial North of Italy. Participants born between 1952 and 1955, conversely, were adolescents during a period characterized by profound social, economic and cultural changes. They broke with traditional norms regarding alcohol con- sumption patterns: it was a time characterized by an increase in beer consumption and a decrease in wine consumption. The third cohort (1967–1970) grew up during a period of economic prosperity, characterized by a decrease in total alcohol consumption but also by the introduction of new beverages in the Italian market, such as beer and spirits. Finally, the youngest cohort (1987–1990) is composed of the present-day youth, who live in the so-called era of ‘globalization’, where the future hold more uncertainties than ever before. Despite the fact that overall alcohol consumption currently continues to decrease, intoxication episodes have been increasing (Allamani & Beccaria, 2007; Allamani, Beccaria, & Voller, 2010; Tusini, 2007).

Because of different economic, social and cultural circumstances that characterize the two nations, the division of cohorts in Finland was constructed differ- ently. The oldest Finnish cohort was made up of people born between 1943 and 1950, representing the coming of the Finnish welfare state and experiencing the expansion of wage labour, urbanization, increasing education, as well as considerable changes in the relations between men and women. This cohort grew up in a predominantly ‘dry’ but strongly spirits- and male-dominated drinking culture. Significantly, this cohort also experienced the tremendous liberalization of attitudes towards drinking in the Finland of the 1960s. The second cohort, made up of participants born between 1959 and 1966 represent a cohort influenced by the economic boom in the 1980s and the related emergence of neo-liberal ideas. These people grew up in a significantly less ‘dry’ drinking culture which favoured the consumption of beer and, more gradually, of wine. Interviewees representing the third cohort, born in 1975–1982, are marked by the economic crisis in the first half of the 1990s, and later by an intensified reorganization and shrinkage of welfare services, increased competition in the labour market, as well as new mobile technologies. This cohort was probably affected by the rise of drinking among women and the increasing alcohol consumption among minors from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. The youngest cohort, born in 1983–1990, share many experiences with members of the former cohort, but probably grow even more directly into a world characterized by intensified global labour and commodity markets and increasing (national) social cleavages. In terms of drinking this cohort is characterized by inconsistent tendencies, which include: a rise in abstinence among young people, coupled with an increasing prevalence of young ‘street-drinkers’ (Mäkelä, Tigerstedt, & Mustonen, 2011).

FIRST DRINK: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? 203

A total of 190 people were involved, of which 102 were from Italy and 88 from Finland. The final com- position of the groups is represented in Tables I and II.

The focus-group interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. The data was coded by native researchers by using identical principles in coding. After that the relevant passages from the data were translated into English in order to facilitate the joint analysis that was based on jointly agreed analytical tools.

FINDINGS

First memories Italian interviewees found it difficult to remember the first time they noticed the presence of alcohol, mainly

because, in their memories, wine was an every-day presence at the dining table, which did not represent anything special or that would to be remembered specifically. Regardless of age, gender or social class, Italians’ first memories of alcohol go back to early childhood and wine is at the centre of the scene.

17-20 M-H (IT)2

There isn’t a single memory, an actual beginning, as it were,

or a particular moment from which I remember [the presence

of alcohol] . . . it’s just something that’s always been there.

Although it may be difficult to focus on a specific occasion, it is not hard to imagine that the first time they saw someone drinking it could have been their father or grandfather with a glass of wine during a meal.