Results
Alcohol and identities – individual interviews
In the individual interviews, two distinct and contrasting ways of
presenting alcohol use in later life recurred consistently: one
positive, one negative. In positive terms, alcohol was treated as
something that could be enjoyed by older people who consumed it
minimally or occasionally. Alcohol was drunk through choice, and
therefore implied control over one’s actions. Drinking offered
benefits of sociability and relaxation: it kept older people from
losing touch, and was associated with taking things easy. Finally,
drinking alcohol could be portrayed as an integral and on-going
element of community, working or family life. Some or all of these
characteristics were used to account for consumption as something
that maintained the quality of later life. For instance, in Excerpt 1
below, a woman describes her brother’s drinking as positive even
though he is ‘older than me’.
Excerpt 1: … my brother and I both enjoy drink, both enjoy a social
drink. My brother, even though he’s a bit older than me, still has his
lads’ nights out where he has a damn good skinful, comes home after
putting the world to rights and feels great, that can’t be bad.
(Interviewee 22, female, 59 years)
The ‘skinful’ is presented as something taken with friends on
occasions and through choice. It is part of a tradition connecting
later life to earlier years and associated colleagues (‘still has his
lads’ nights out’) and has beneficial consequences (‘feels great’). By
invoking these characteristics the speaker invites evaluation of this
drinking behaviour as positive (‘damn good’, ‘can’t be bad’).
At other times in the interviews, alcohol consumption by adults
in general in later life was characterised as unacceptable or
problematic. In negative terms, alcohol was used to cope with or
‘blot out’ difficulties in life. It was drunk excessively or frequently,
and secretively or alone rather than in company. Consumption
was driven by compulsion rather than choice and therefore
implied a loss of self-control. Finally, drinking alcohol was
presented as being in some way inconsistent with traditional
behaviour or the way things were in earlier years. Some or all of
these characteristics were invoked to present alcohol consumption
in later life as negative. These sets of features, positive and
negative, were always applied separately in interviews. Interviewees
did not, for instance, report losing self-control on occasional
nights out with former workmates; nor did they describe drinking
simultaneously for enjoyment and to blot out difficulties. For
example, in Excerpt 2, one man distinguishes his own drinking as
positive formerly, when moderate, but negative in later years when
dependent.