title: Studying ritual and individual orientations to alcohol use: Drinking motives and their connection to intoxication in Finland in the 2000s.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Finland was an agricultural country until the 1960s. Thereafter, Finland modernized rapidly. Studies have postulated that as Finland becomes modernized, intoxication-oriented drinking would gradually decrease. Current studies, however, show that heavy episodic drinking has lately become more common among men and women. Simultaneously, drinking is seldom motivated by the purpose of getting drunk. The article tackles this conundrum by approaching drinking motives from a ritual and an individual perspective. We study what kinds of drinking motives currently exist in Finland, their prevalence among different population groups, how they vary by social background, and their association with intoxication.
  
  
  METHODS
  The data were collected as part of the nationally representative Drinking Habit Survey in 2008. It consists of verbal descriptions on the most recent drinking occasion (N=521), estimations of its blood alcohol content, and responses to pre-defined standardized motive questions related to the latest drinking occasions (N=8732).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Besides the motive 'to get drunk', also the motives of drinking as a 'time-out' ritual, 'to get into the mood' and 'I drunk to brighten up' predict a "wet" drinking occasion. Overall, Finns highlight drinking motives of sociability, relaxation, meal drinking and situational factors. The more educated orientate to their drinking more with motives that express mastery of cultural capital and individuality. The less educated and the young, again, orientate to their drinking more with motives that imply intoxication and external expectations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Whereas the ritual perspective discloses what kinds of situations predict intoxication, the individual perspective reveals what kinds of individualistic orientations are associated with drunkenness. These perspectives partly speak past each other and are difficult to combine. The article proposes that situational perspective would serve as a bridge between them and enable the incorporation of results from different research traditions.
authors.affiliation: SoRAD/Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: jukka.torronen@sorad.su.se.
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Törrönen
authors.affiliation: Department of Alcohol, Drugs and Addiction, THL/National Institute for Health and Welfare, Alcohol and Drugs Unit, PO Box 30, FI-00271 Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Janne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Härkönen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D015995:Prevalence; D012922:Social Change; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Drinking motives; Intoxication; Mixed methods; The individual perspective; The ritual perspective