Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA.
Sociol Health Illn. 2021 Mar;43(3):732-749. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13250. Epub 2021 Feb 26.
What happens when a friend starts talking about her own substance use and misuse? This article provides the first investigation of how substance use is spontaneously topicalized in naturally occurring conversation. It presents a detailed analysis of a rare video-recorded interaction showing American English-speaking university students talking about their own substance (mis)use in a residential setting. During this conversation, several substance (mis)use informings are disclosed about one participant, and this study elucidates what occasions each disclosure, and how participants respond to each disclosure. This research shows how participants use casual conversation to offer important substance (mis)use information to their friends and cohabitants, tacitly recruiting their surveillance. Analysis also uncovers how an emerging adult peer group enacts informal social control, locally (re-)constituting taken-for-granted social norms and the participants' social relationships, to on the one hand promote alcohol use while, on the other hand endeavouring to prevent one member from engaging in continued pain medication misuse. This article thus illuminates ordinary peer conversation as an important site for continued sociological research on substance (mis)use and prevention.
当朋友开始谈论自己的物质使用和滥用时会发生什么？本文首次调查了物质使用如何在自然发生的对话中自发成为主题。它展示了一个详细的分析，内容是一段罕见的视频记录的互动，显示了美国英语为母语的大学生在住宅环境中谈论自己的物质（误用）使用情况。在这次对话中，有几个关于一个参与者的物质（误用）使用信息被披露，本研究阐明了每次披露的场合，以及参与者如何回应每次披露。这项研究表明，参与者如何利用随意的对话向他们的朋友和室友提供重要的物质（误用）使用信息，暗中招募他们的监督。分析还揭示了一个新兴的成年同伴群体如何在当地（重新）制定不言而喻的社会规范和参与者的社会关系，以一方面促进酒精使用，另一方面努力防止一名成员继续滥用止痛药。因此，本文阐明了普通的同伴对话作为物质（误用）使用和预防的持续社会学研究的重要场所。
