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Young Australians and the staging of intoxication and self-control

In 2007, according to newspaper reports, Melbourne streets had become ‘booze battlegrounds’. In the year that followed, binge drinking by young Australians was a major news focus and a subject for heightened public anxiety. Young drinkers were perceived to be out of control. In this paper, I draw on two qualitative research projects with young Australians to explore the contradictory social forces shaping their contemporary drinking landscape. Paradoxically, self-control is a major theme in the way participants discuss the management of their alcohol consumption. The concept of ‘staging intoxication’ is developed to explain how contemporary youth seek to enhance the pleasure and manage the risks of drinking. Ultimately, individual self-control is a weak moderating force on alcohol consumption in the face of market exploitation, incongruous state control and heavy drinking cultural expectations.