Women, alcohol and femininity: a discourse analysis of women heavy drinkers' accounts.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 women who were heavy drinkers, as part of a larger, longitudinal study of heavy drinking in the West Midlands of England. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyse the interviews, and resulted in the identification of two main discursive constructions: drink as self-medication, and drink as pleasure and leisure. However, women need to resist and negotiate stigmatizing subject positions of the ;woman drinker' in order both to justify their drinking and to protect their moral status as 'good women'.