Home drinking practices among middle‐class adults in midlife during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Material ubiquity, automatic routines and embodied states

• Published in: Drug and alcohol review 2023-07, Vol.42 (5), p.1028-1040
• Main Authors: Lyons, Antonia C., Young, Jessica, Blake, Denise, Evans, Penny, Stephens, Christine
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adults; Alcohol; Alcohol use; Automatic; COVID-19; Embodiment; Interviews; Life transitions; Liquor laws & regulations; Marketing; Middle age; Midlife; Pandemics; Policy making; social practices
• ISSN: 0959-5236; 1465-3362
• DOI: 10.1111/dar.13610

Introduction Harmful drinking is increasing among mid‐life adults. Using social practice theory, this research investigated the knowledge, actions, materials, places and temporalities that comprise home drinking practices among middle‐class adults (40–65 years) in Aotearoa New Zealand during 2021–2022 and post the COVID‐19 pandemic lockdowns. Methods Nine friendship groups (N = 45; 26 females, 19 males from various life stages and ethnicities) discussed their drinking practices. A subset of 10 participants (8 female, 2 male) shared digital content (photos, screenshots) about alcohol and drinking over 2 weeks, which they subsequently discussed in an individual interview. Group and interview transcripts were thematically analysed using the digital content to inform the analysis. Results Three themes were identified around home drinking practices, namely: (i) alcohol objects as everywhere, embedded throughout spaces and places in the home; (ii) drinking practices as habitual, automatic and conditioned to mundane everyday domestic chores, routines and times; and (iii) drinking practices intentionally used by participants to achieve desired embodied states to manage feelings linked to domestic and everyday routines. Discussion and Conclusions Alcohol was normalised and everywhere within the homes of these midlife adults. Alcohol‐related objects and products had their own agency, being entangled with domestic routines and activities, affecting drinking in both automatic and intentional ways. Developing alcohol policy that would change its ubiquitous and ordinary status, and the ‘automatic’ nature of many drinking practices, is needed. This includes restricting marketing and availability to disrupt the acceptability and normalisation of alcohol in the everyday domestic lives of adults at midlife.