Alcohol abstinence and consumption reduction: Emotions and identity negotiations

This paper focuses on the proposed methodology of a PhD study that addresses the emotions and identity negotiations of alcohol abstainers or occasional drinkers. The majority of the previous studies on social marketing and alcohol have focused on current binge and excessive drinkers, but little attention has been paid to consumers who change their behaviour and decide to reduce their consumption or completely abstain. Understanding about these abstainers and occasional drinkers will provide better insights on how challenging the transition from drinker to abstainer is and what needs to be incorporated in social marketing initiatives to make the transition smooth and to sustain the healthy behaviour. Hence, this study aims to uncover positive and negative emotions and identity negotiations that young consumers experience during the process of giving up excessive alcohol consumption. Social and Self-identity theories are used to illuminate these emotions and identities. Therefore, narrative analysis and diary method are proposed as a suitable research method as it can provide rich data on identity and emotions during a transformation of consumption. This paper focuses on the methodology aspect of this study emphasising the suitability of narratives and diary methods drawing on certain challenges and issues that need to be addressed by researchers while adopting these methods.