Summary
Contents
How do we understand drug use? How are drugs related to our social worlds? How should drug use be understood, approached and dealt with? Insightful and illuminating, this book successfully discusses drugs in social contexts. In an elegant manner, the authors bring together their different theoretical and practical backgrounds, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction that opens up a wide scientific understanding moving beyond cultural myths and presuppositions. Powerful and engaging, this book discusses main questions within the field of psychoactive drugs research, such as: Why do people take drugs? How do we understand moral panics? What is the relationship between drugs and violence? How do people's social positions influence their individual involvement in drug use? This is an invaluable reference source for students on criminology, sociology and social sciences programmes, as well as students and drug service practitioners in social work, social policy and nursing.
Binge Drinking
Binge Drinking
Binge drinking refers to the excessive consumption of alcohol within one drinking episode. The term was originally used in clinical practice to refer to an extended drinking session from which everyday life was suspended. From the 1990s, the term was more narrowly defined as a (much lower) quantity of alcohol consumed over and above recommended health limits within one drinking session.
The original clinical definition of a binge referred to both the excessive consumption of alcohol across an extended time period and also the consequence of such consumption for the user. Clinical definitions of the length and outcome of a binge vary and can include characteristics such as continuous dependent drinking over a period of a day or more to the point where ...
