CHANGING SOCIETY, CHANGING DRINKING - SOLITARY DRINKING AS A NONPATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR

This study describes solitary drinking as it appears in a general popu lation. The data are derived from a telephone survey carried out in Ap ril 1993 on a representative sample of 2015 adult drinkers from the Mo ntreal metropolitan area. Thirty-one percent of the respondents (n = 6 33) reported drinking without being in the company of other people. Fi rst, solitary drinking is described according to drinking contexts and drinking patterns. Secondly, a comparison of solitary drinkers with t hose who did not report this behaviour is presented according to socio -demographic characteristics, social representations of drinking and o verall drinking patterns. Finally, a logistic regression analysis is p erformed to identify the main characteristics of the drinkers associat ed with solitary drinking. The results show that solitary drinking occ urs mainly at home, at the end of the day, to accompany a meal, to mar k a transition between work and leisure or to accompany a rest time. T he quantity involved in solitary drinking is generally moderate. The r esults also show that solitary drinking is associated with gender, liv ing alone, employment status, tension-reduction and harmful representa tions of drinking. However, the main predictor of solitary drinking is overall drinking frequency, indicating the constituent place of alcoh ol in solitary drinkers' life-style.