Friends in High Places: Drinkers’ Perceptions of Gender, Sobriety, and Relationships with Nondrinkers

This study examines the sociological questions of how sobriety impacts friendships or relationships between college student drinkers and nondrinkers, and how drinking and sobriety influence perceptions of gender and sexuality in the eyes of college student drinkers. Researchers in the past have tended to focus on the population of students in college who drink, and significantly fewer studies have discussed issues involving students who do not consume alcohol. Ten college student drinkers, consisting of five men and five women, were interviewed in this study. Participants tended to have very few to no nondrinking friendships, primarily associating this separation with conflicting ideas of “fun.” Drinkers also tended to judge the gender or sexuality of other drinkers significantly more than of nondrinkers