Search

Aims/materials: This reflection piece reviews some of the key results and conclusions from the book Näin Suomi juo (This is how Finns drink, 2018), based on the Finnish Drinking Habits Survey. Our aim was to go through the results taking the perspective of prevention workers and policymakers: how could they benefit from the scientific findings when tackling alcohol-related harm? Results/reflections: The reflections displayed in this article provide some useful arguments and justifications for population-level alcohol policy in the controversial alcohol policy debate. Harms do not only arise among the heaviest drinkers, and efficient methods to prevent harm may be found among the prevention efforts that apply to populations rather than only to the heaviest drinkers. The article also illustrates how the results from a population survey can be used in order to identify specific challenges and solutions for alcohol prevention in a given population. The results help in identifying the population groups and situations with an elevated risk of alcohol-related harm and in characterising the drinking patterns and social situations in which drinking takes place in these vulnerable parts of the population. Conclusions: The review illustrates that a many-sided understanding of alcohol consumption and the related harm, based on survey results, is more far-reaching in terms of prevention and policy than a knowledge base built solely on register data on the development of alcohol consumption and harm. For example, the respondents' drinking patterns are linked not only to their attitudes and risk perceptions but also to what people consider to be appropriate means to reduce alcohol use and the related harm in terms of alcohol policy, informal social control and people's life management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Alcohol consumption and policy in Finland have undergone a variety of changes in the two last decades. In several cases, trends in both consumption and policy have shifted direction when moving from the first decade of the 21st century to the second one. The aim of the overview is to summarise the trends. Data: The overview draws on results primarily from the cross-sectional Finnish Drinking Habits Survey (FDHS) in 2000, 2008 and 2016, and also from the whole series including altogether seven separate data collections carried out every eight years from 1968 to 2016 and mainly covering Finns aged 15–69 years. Response rates show a falling trend (78% in 2000, 74% in 2008 and 60% in 2016). The overview also makes use of data collected within the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) and, for the elderly, the National FinSote study carried out by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Results: After an all-time high of 12.7 litres of pure alcohol per capita 15 years and over in 2007, total consumption of alcohol had decreased by 21% by the year 2019. Underage drinking has decreased ever since the millennium shift. Older people's drinking has continued increasing or levelled out. Along with reduced total consumption, heavy episodic drinking (HED) has also decreased, but the differences between manual and white-collar workers in HED have continued to grow. Drinking alcoholic beverages with meals has also declined since 2008. Liberal and restrictive alcohol policy measures have alternated. Conclusions: Finnish drinking culture seems to change at a slow pace; several typical drinking habits have remained unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The present article summarises status and trends in the 21st century in older people's (60–79 years) drinking behaviour in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and concludes this thematic issue. Each country provided a detailed report analysing four indicators of alcohol use: the prevalence of alcohol consumers, the prevalence of frequent use, typical amounts of use, and the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking (HED). The specific aim of this article is to compare the results of the country reports. Findings: Older people's drinking became more common first in Denmark in the 1970s and then in the other countries by the 1980s. Since 2000 the picture is mixed. Denmark showed decreases in drinking frequency, typically consumed amounts and HED, while in Sweden upward trends were dominant regarding prevalence of consumers and frequency of drinking as well as HED. Finland and Norway displayed both stable indicators except for drinking frequency and proportion of women consumers where trends increased. In all four countries, the gender gap diminished with regard to prevalence and frequency of drinking, but remained stable in regard to consuming large amounts. In Norway the share of alcohol consumers among women aged 60–69 years exceeded the share among men. During the late 2010s, Denmark had the highest prevalence of alcohol consumers as well as the highest proportion drinking at a higher frequency. Next in ranking was Finland, followed by Sweden and Norway. This overall rank ordering was observed for both men and women. Conclusion: As the populations aged 60 years and older in the Nordic countries continue to grow, explanations for the drivers and consequences of changes in older people's drinking will become an increasingly relevant topic for future research. Importantly, people aged 80 years and older should also be included as an integral part of that research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIMS -- The article focuses on the discourse on intoxication and its changes among young women in Finland. According to surveys, drinking among Finnish women has been rising for decades. Especially young women have been in the front line in the raise of drinking and intoxication-oriented drinking. However, statistics are not able to explain the factors behind this change. What has happened to women's attitudes and connotations related to binge drinking during the past decades? How do young women in their twenties perceive being drunk and how has the description of their relationship to this condition changed over the last 20 years? METHODS AND DATA -- To explore these questions, the present article compares interview materials concerning drinking collected among young adults in 1985 and 2005/2007. The article analyses how young women identity themselves with intoxication in these periods and how the way in which women describe this relationship has changed in the meantime. RESULTS -- The greatest change has to do with how young women regard drunkenness while presenting themselves. Whereas in the 1985 material young women distanced themselves from binge drinking, 20 years later they identity themselves strongly with it. The analysis shows that this development illustrates that both the significance of drunkenness in itself and the way in which drinking-related self-expression has changed. CONCLUSIONS - The results relate to the changes in Finnish drinking culture which have been more pronounced in the case of women than men as well as the change of acceptable and desirable images of femininity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes drinking habits of Finnish older adults and their relationship to alcohol The study is based on the analysis of theme interviews among 60-70-year-old urban people. The method was biographical, qualitative content analysis. Alcohol consumption of the older adults was investigated through the analysis of changes in the use of alcohol during life course and the features of current drinking habits. The article argues that events of both life course and changing Finnish alcohol culture have shaped the drinking habits of aider adults. The drinking habits and meanings given to alcohol consumption among older adults vary in many respects. A common factor in the drinking habits of older adults is the everyday nature of drinking; as with other Finns of today alcohol has become more commonplace than before. However, for the great majority of older adults, advanced years have produced skills in controlling the alcohol use and avoiding intoxication. The skill to consume alcohol within moderation has evolved with age and the course of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nordic Studies on Alcohol & Drugs / Nordisk Alkohol- & Narkotikatidskrift is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the distinctive characteristics of present-day drinking habits in Finland. The data are young adults' narratives of their nights out obtained in interviews that asked about ideal, typical, and disastrous nights out. The dataset comprises 117 interviews (60 women and 57 men). The interviewees were recruited from the rapidly growing sectors of information and service work in business and administration; from the meanings assigned by this generation to alcohol we are able to infer which aspects of Finnish drinking habits are still culturally valid and which susceptible to change. Questions covered in this article include: What motivates young adults to drink? What kind of self-regulation do they exhibit in their drinking? Is getting drunk a value in itself, or does it have a secondary meaning to other activities? Are there any gender differences in drinking habits? We look specifically at the roles of alcohol in young people's nights out and how these roles vary during the course of the evening. Furthermore, the analysis looks at how the narratives are structured on the dimensions of goal-oriented linear time and ritualised repetitive cyclical time. The analysis applies the tools of semiotic sociology. Our analysis shows that the drinking habits of young adults reflect a movement away from the goal-oriented time of the everyday towards the cyclical time of one's own circle of friends. These breakaways are essentially an exercise in creating and strengthening a general will within the groups. They do not resemble total inversions or transgressions of the prevailing reality, nor are they about defiance. loutish behaviour, getting legless or locked up. Rather. these breakaways find mainly culturally regulated and ordered expressions. Getting drunk is not an end in itself. The inebriation of young women and young men is not one of defiance or a mythical search for new experiences; they just want to be sociable. Indeed one can infer that sociable drinking habits have gained a stronger footing among young adults in Finland today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finnish drinking habits have changed drastically during the past few decades. Studies on drinking habits, however. consistently seem to come to the conclusion that in Finland. drinking patterns are still traditional, national. and unitary. Such conclusions rely on the notion of cultural lag and are based on stereotypical dichotomies between traditional and modern, and Finnish and European drinking habits. The article shows that analyses of drinking habits tend not to problematise the concept of habit, It is mostly used to refer to the most stereotypical kind of drinking behaviour, namely intoxication-oriented drinking, while other patterns tend to be overshadowed. The studies, which are most often based on survey data, also give little attention to the meanings the actors attribute to their drinking. For a more sensitive analysis, the article outlines a cultural model of drinking habits, which is then adapted to the analysis of the results of both statistical and qualitative studies on drinking habits carried out during the past three- four decades. The analysis shows that it would be vital, firstly, to carry out time series analyses on the epidemiological data, which would test the assumptions of the unitary nature of drinking habits on the one hand, and chart their variability on the other. Secondly, there is a need for efforts to reconcile the contradictory findings of epidemiological and qualitative studies. And thirdly, research on drinking habits should shift its focus towards the situational variability of drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]