Karen Elmeland

Associate professor

Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research

University of Aarhus

Jens Chr. Skous Vej 3

8000 Århus C

Why is it fun to be intoxicated?

In this paper I will discuss celebration and partying in the combination with alcohol intake. The use of alcohol is not only consumption – the use of alcohol is also language. In this paper the drinking act will be seen as a ritual act – an act in which we find an initial phase, a final phase, and then something in between. This “something in between” the anthropologist van Gennep and later Turner have described as the liminal phase. If we look at the alcohol drinking act – there are in Denmark at least two kinds of alcohol drinking rituals: 1) Transition rites – and 2) Rites of togetherness. The paper will present and discuss these two kinds of drinking rituals and the implications they have for the “party-member” s experience of intoxication.