Making sense of alcohol experiences: young adolescents' accounts of alcohol-related critical incidents.

OBJECTIVE This study explores how alcohol use is incorporated in the lives of young adolescents in the Netherlands. To this end, critical incidents involving alcohol use situations are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the consequences associated with alcohol use, the role of the parents, and the way adolescents evaluate incidents and link them to behavioral intentions. METHOD Data were collected in 45 interviews using the critical incident technique. Participants were asked to mention salient alcohol-related incidents, which they had either experienced or observed. The participants were 45 adolescents, aged 15 and 16, who were recruited at high schools. RESULTS A total of 145 incidents were described. Many different, mostly adverse, consequences were associated with the incidents. Parents only played a minor role: they were not always aware of incidents, and if they were, they often did not take them seriously. Two tendencies were found in adolescents' sense making of incidents: the tendency to link adverse consequences to positive overall experiences, and the tendency to not translate negative overall experiences into lower drinking intentions. CONCLUSION The study shows that alcohol is already deeply rooted in the lives of adolescents. The role of parents appears to be problematic. Furthermore, the study underlines the complexity of the problem of adolescent alcohol use. If their own negative experiences and first-hand observations do not substantially lead to lower drinking intentions, it does not seem plausible that alcohol information and education materials focusing on consequences will.