Religious Affiliation and Drinking Behavior

Abstract

The report deals with how people (college students from the nationwide College Drinking Survey of the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies) from religious backgrounds which teach abstinence compare in drinking habits and difficulties with people from religions which hold different ideas about drinking. The findings show that religious ideas about drinking are reflected to a statistically significant degree in such behaviors as childhood use of alcoholic beverages, the places where students initiate drinking, their parents'' knowledge of drinking habits, with whom they drink, where they drink, how often they drink. These behaviors appear to influence the development of personal and social difficulties associated with drinking as measured by a Social Complications Scale. Here, the statistics reveal a significant ordered relationship as follows: of Jewish students, 4% report having experienced social complications on account of drinking; of Episcopalian students, 38%; of Methodist students, 50%;of nonaffiliates of abstinence background, 57%. The interpretation given to this finding is that abstinence teachings, by associating drinking with intemperance, inadvertantly encourage intemperance in those students of abstinence background who disregard the injunction not to drink. However, frequent religious participation, even among students who drink, seems to diminish social complications.