Finding the meanings of college drinking: An analysis of fraternity drinking stories

College drinking has traditionally been studied from a public health perspe ctive that attempts to quantify behavior as a means toward description, exp lanation, and intervention. This article offers a critical and cultural app roach to understanding the meanings and functions of high-risk drinking and the ways in which those meanings are reproduced within the culture. Data w ere collected via an ethnographic study of fraternity members at a large mi dwestem university to explore the communication of excessive drinking norms . Viewed from various narrative and structural theories, the study examines collected drinking stories as a source for analyzing the construction of m eanings surrounding drunkenness for the fraternity subculture. Five themes emerged as functions of drunkenness for the culture, Implications for preve ntion are discussed.