«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Talking to my respondents, one of the things that struck me was how many students talk about being shy or feeling unprepared for social situations and that alcohol is a resource for them to let their guard down. One of my respondents told me that "alcohol takes a few bricks out of the wall." Mine is not a nationally representative survey, and a lot of my findings should generate hypothesis for larger-scale research, but if you take my informants at their word, there are a lot of shy people with some social phobias, and alcohol helps them to, as some of them describe it, let "the real me come out."
They're more likely to say and do things [when they drink] that they normally wouldn't do -- show affection to their peers, get angry at them, get more emboldened to sing and dance and take risks and act crazy and there's a ton of laughing that goes on. It creates this world of adventure. It creates war stories. It creates bonding rituals. When things go wrong -- the getting sick, the getting arrested, the getting upset -- it gives them an opportunity to care for one another, to deliver social support. So you've got young adults who, for the first time, are taking care of a sick person, staying up all night with them, consoling them when they're upset. It's an opportunity for them to try on adult roles.

-Salon
August 28 2011