Negotiating situational abstinence and moderation: a study of regular and heavy-drinking young Nigerians

Abstract

Studies that have examined young people’s drinking behaviour, particularly how they abstain from alcohol or drink lightly and their motivations, have focused on Western contexts. Currently, studies on how and why young Africans abstain from alcohol or drink moderately are lacking. Therefore, there is a need to examine young people’s drinking behaviours/practices on the continent to facilitate health promotion interventions. This study, which uses qualitative data elicited from 53 participants, explores how young Nigerian men and women who consume alcohol and drink heavily enact and negotiate abstinence and moderate drinking and the factors that motivate their choices. Some participants constructed situational abstinence, while others participated in temporary light drinking in their friendship networks, but these attracted some consequences. Peers pressured them, but some deployed the ability to offer ‘valid’ explanations and express self-determination and agency to ward off such pressures and negotiate situational abstinence or moderate drinking. Additionally, the fear of public embarrassment, negative publicity on social media due to intoxication and parental influences motivated some participants’ occasional sobriety. Others relied on previous personal or friends’ negative experiences of drunkenness or the consequences of heavy drinking represented in movies and books to construct occasional light drinking. The findings demonstrated how enacting and rejecting particular forms of masculinity and embodied gendered drinking practices, more generally, in some friendship groups, facilitated situational abstinence and moderation. Policymakers should partner with young people to design interventions that encourage abstinence or moderation and mitigate the current drinking practices in Nigeria, which will enhance health promotion.