The language of intoxication: preliminary investigations

The extensive vocabulary individuals use to describe alcohol's subjective effects has largely gone unexamined in contemporary alcohol research. The present study examined the language drinkers use to describe their own intoxication. It is argued that this language can provide a more complete characterization of alcohol's subjective effects than is available from existing objective and subjective measures of alcohol use and can inform future self-report research.

Toward this goal, a preliminary, cross-sectional, web-based study of the familiarity and usage of current intoxication-related words was conducted in 2 different samples (n = 290 and 146, respectively) of university undergraduates.

Exploratory factor analyses using data from the first sample and confirmatory factor analyses using data from the second sample similarly showed that commonly used terms loaded onto 2 factors, which directly reflected the number of drinks required to be considered moderately or heavily intoxicated, respectively. Gender differences were also found in the familiarity and self-use of some terms across both samples.

The findings suggest that alcohol researchers include multiple intoxication-related terms in future self-report research, and to periodically assess current intoxication-related vocabulary considering demographic, generational, and socio-cultural differences.