Beatific and Horrific Futures–Substance Use According to Young Swedish Adults

Abstract

Sweden has a long tradition of restrictive policies regarding both legal (such as alcohol and cigarettes) and illegal substances (such as cannabis and amphetamine). However, research is needed on how regulatory frameworks and cultural understandings of substance use play out in the lives of young adults. Utilizing the logics of critical explanation framework, I explore the different logics that young Swedes draw upon when they conceptualize legal and illegal substance use. The data included 30 interviews with 21/22-year-olds who had previously participated in a prospective cohort study. The analysis shows that substance use played a minor role in the participants’ lives. Overall, it represented an obstacle to becoming an adult with a good life. They drew on social logics related to responsibility, ambition, and health to make sense of substance use, regardless of its legal status. These social logics have been used to explain previous years’ decreased use of cigarettes and alcohol among young people, and this study shows that they may also elucidate why illegal substance use is still rare in this group in Sweden. The analysis further suggests that these social logics were naturalized through the political logics of risk and choice, which emphasize the ideal of always being vigilant and safe. To dig deeper into this discourse, I uncover the emotional and ideological dimensions of the participants’ conceptualizations by discussing how they articulate beatific or horrific futures. The beatific future holds a promise of a bright, independent, and productive life, which includes abstaining from substances or using them moderately and responsibly. The horrific, in turn, holds that careless substance use will lead to social exclusion, addiction, and death. The participants’ hopes and fears strengthened the neoliberal idea that a good life is achieved through choice, vigilance, and by avoiding risk.

Introduction

During the cold Swedish winter of 2023, a television campaign was launched by a non-governmental organization working with the social inclusion of people on the margins. The campaign clip tells the story of a woman who looks cold and ravished as she eats a stolen sandwich. For one minute her life is played back in reverse. An adult woman walks backward and transforms into a little girl through experiences of poverty, domestic violence, acting out in school, and finally blowing out seven candles on a birthday cake. ¹ This is the moment where things could have taken another turn. While no bottles or syringes are visible in the clip, addiction, as well as homelessness, are implied through exteriors and clothing. This path into a negative future has been, and still is, what is at stake in Swedish alcohol and other drugs policies: poor health, social exclusion, and societal degeneration to be prevented through control and care (Edman & Olsson, 2014). According to the Swedish Government, the future of children, adolescents, and young adults is at the core of the alcohol and other drug policies. This is underpinned in the discourse by the assumed vulnerability of these groups, the far-reaching harmfulness of substances, and the threat to society that substances pose (Edman, 2013; Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, 2016). There is a need for research on how such cultural and political understandings of substance use play out in the lives of people growing up in Sweden. This is important since they are targets for prevention and subjected to monitoring and control (Edman & Olsson, 2014; Tham, 2005).

Substance use has been conceptualized in different ways depending on which substance is explored. For instance, research has associated alcohol use with pleasure and youth culture (Pennay & Measham, 2016), smoking tobacco has been seen as a way to construct identities (Scheffels & Tokle, 2017), and studies have explored the relation between substance use and pleasure and consumerism (Ayres, 2023). Certain socio-economic factors may influence the likelihood of use or problematic use. However, the outcomes varies significantly depending on the independent variable. (Landberg et al., 2018) Moreover, neoliberalism has increasingly been influential in elucidating reasons behind the decrease in cigarette and alcohol use among adolescents, as well as the changing cultural meaning of substances (Caluzzi et al., 2020; Ekendahl et al., 2020; Frohlich et al., 2012; Månsson et al., 2022; Moore & Fraser, 2006; Törrönen et al., 2019; Törrönen, Samuelsson et al., 2021). However, little is known about how adolescents and young adults broadly conceptualize substance use across legal statuses. Drawing on interviews with 30 participants sampled from a cohort of Swedish young adults (Sjödin, 2023), I analyze how neoliberal ideals play out in their lives when they talk about substance use. By adopting the logics of critical explanation framework (LCE) (Glynos & Howarth, 2007), the aim is to capture how participants emotionally link substance use to different future scenarios. That is, I explore “what is at stake” (Glynos & Howarth, 2007) for them (e.g., health, career, life, or death) when they imagine what substance use can lead to in the future. LCE has previously been utilized in studies on the emotive force of alcohol policy (Hawkins & van Schalkwyk, 2024), societal melancholia in the aftermath of the Mexican drug war (Hurtado, 2018), and the perceived impact of hope and motivation in work with “delinquent” youth (Silow Kallenberg, 2019). With the help of LCE, these studies have unlocked the emotional dimensions and drivers, such as desire and anxiety, of these phenomena in discourse. As far as I know, LCE has never been used in studies on how substance use is conceptualized among adolescents or young adults.

Substance use and Neoliberalism

The term neoliberalism originated as a description for a Chicago school-inspired market economy. Here, I understand the term more aligned with later critical thinkers such as Michael Foucault and Nikolas Rose (Venugopal, 2015). At the core of neoliberalism is the idea that substance use, poor health, poverty, or social exclusion are the results of individual failures of the self. This notion of neoliberalism has been criticized for downplaying the role of politics, law, or structural injustices in producing these failures (Moore & Fraser, 2006; Rose, 1999). What neoliberalism attempts to do is to redefine what it means to be human, and how social and power relations are organized through work on the self in different domains, including health (Rose, 1999). The related notion of healthism encourages and individualizes healthy eating, dieting, and working out to optimize the self, while medicalizing poor health (Crawford, 1980). Healthism requires the individual to make good decisions and remain vigilant to avoid substance-related obstacles to health (Caluzzi et al., 2020; Caluzzi & Pennay, 2021; Ekendahl et al., 2020; Månsson et al., 2022; Moore & Fraser, 2006; Raninen et al., 2022). This focus on health may also have consequences for other aspects of life. At current, adolescents and young adults seem to reject previous generations’ valorization of “immediate bodily pleasures of intoxication” (Caluzzi et al., 2020, p, 8), in which substance use was integrated into youth culture (Jackson, 2004; Parker et al., 1998). Instead, they now seem to favor the “disciplined pleasure” of socializing and the “ascetic pleasure” of deeper levels of intimacy, without consuming substances (Caluzzi et al., 2020). As such, alcohol, for example, may have lost its cultural status as a rite of passage into adulthood, as other competing activities and ideals are gaining importance (Caluzzi et al., 2023; Törrönen et al., 2019). Given the uncertainty of the future, some researchers argue that young people early on must monitor and develop techniques to optimize their health, school performance, and other everyday practices, and this is also reflected in their substance use (Törrönen, Roumeliotis et al., 2021).

Data and Methods

Research Strategy

From a social constructionist perspective, language is an essential constituent of reality and knowledge, and it is through language human beings make sense of the world (Berger & Luckmann, 1991; Fairclough, 1989). Fairclough argues that everyday talk as well as official communication such as political speech are to be considered concrete articulations of broad discourses. These articulations reproduce to the power dynamics of society, both in terms of enactment and contestation (Fairclough, 1989). As such, I do not regard the interviews studied here as historical records of events, nor do I assume a causal relation between the events described. Instead, I regard the empirical data as descriptions of how the participants understood their past experiences and how they made sense of these experiences in relation to one another.

Researchers have over the past decades developed different theoretical approaches to deepen the understanding of discourses and the political projects and social practices they entail. One of these approaches is the logics of critical explanation (LCE). LCE provides a theoretical lens through which I am analyzing the empirical data (Glynos & Howarth, 2007). Compared to more commonly used approaches such as Critical Discourse Analysis and its emphasis on power relations (Fairclough, 1989), LCE has the benefit of explicitly considering emotional dimensions when analyzing discourse. It is rooted in Lacanian theory and the notion that there is no real, human essence. The closest thing to an essence is a fundamental and life-long sense of “void” within the self. Human beings strive to fill this void through “promises” and emotional drivers such as “desire”, “enjoyment”, and “anxiety”. The emotional drivers may come in different shapes and operate on micro and macro levels. Examples include the desire for a designer item, a work promotion, or societal anxiety relating to climate change. However, these attempts are considered futile as they will only make empty promises, they may only provide a temporary sense of “completeness” (Glynos & Howarth, 2007). Within Lacanian political theory, there is no opposition between individual and collective levels. They co-exist and are united by the sense of void and emotional drivers to fill this void (Stavrakakis, 1999).

Another benefit of LCE, compared to other discourse theoretical approaches, is its strong “conceptual grammar”. This grammar will facilitate the operationalization of the research strategy. At the core of this grammar are three explanatory units: the “social”, “political”, and “fantasmatic logics”. The social logic captures the characteristics of a certain phenomenon; it defines the dominant norms or set of rules and these are typically not contested by the public. According to LCE, the social logic becomes uncontested through the political logic. By de-politicizing and naturalizing the social logic, the political logic “protects” the dominant order and obscures other potential ones. The fantasmatic logic, finally, provides an additional explanatory layer as to why the social logic exists and why it has become naturalized by the political logic. Within LCE, the fantasmatic logic is understood as a powerful backdrop to people's emotional investment in the social logic, and it is also the “force” behind the political logic. The fantasmatic logic defines “what is at stake” for the future and thus creates a sense of “urgency” and “necessity” (Glynos & Howarth, 2007).

Glynos and Howarth (2007) offer different ways to capture the fantasmatic logic. One is to articulate its “beatific” and “horrific” dimensions, which I follow here. The beatific dimension is related to a bright future, success, prosperity, and good health, whereas the horrific dimension concerns a future of disaster, failure, and possibly death. It is within this promise of life or death the emotional drivers can be found. By subjecting to the rules of the social logic and accepting the conditions of the political logic, a person in this discursive setting can keep the anxiety of failing and dying at bay.

The Empirical Data

The Futura01 project has been following a nationally representative cohort born in 2001 since 2017 (Sjödin, 2023). Participants in the present study were randomly selected from this cohort and interviewed in 2023. They were 21 or 22 years old at the time of the interview. The timing of the interview was selected because it is an age of transition between adolescence and adulthood when consumption of substances tends to peak (UNODC, 2018). Of the 30 participants, 14 identified as female and 16 as male. Some had never tried a substance (n = 4), while others had experiences with alcohol (n = 25), cigarettes (n = 17), cannabis (n = 16), and other substances such as cocaine and tramadol (n = 8). They lived across Sweden, in both urban and rural areas. While not asked about their ethnicity, some of the participants mentioned that they or their parents had a non-Nordic background.

The semi-structured interviews were conducted digitally (n = 29) and face-to-face (n = 1). The interviews lasted between 30 and 87 min, and covered topics such as how the participants conceptualized different substances, reasons for use or non-use, and how they made sense of others’ use. Participants were reimbursed with two cinema tickets.

The study was granted permission by The Swedish Ethical Review Authority (reference number 2020–01272). The participants have been given pseudonyms to protect their identities.

Analysis

The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were imported to the NVivo software (version 1.6.1) for management and coding. The coding process was initiated after the data collection was finished. It was an iterative process where I went back and forth between each transcript and the coding scheme under development. The coding process remained close to the empirical data, the codes were therefore more descriptive than interpretive. Thus, the analytical process yielded codes such as ‘own alcohol experience’, ‘coping’, and ‘lack of control’. The codes were structured and analyzed according to the theoretical assumptions of LCE to identify the social, political, and fantasmatic logics. Some of the codes were initially assigned to more than one logic but as the process moved forward, I made theoretically informed decisions to assign the codes to one specific logic. Effort was made to make both the codes and the logics distinct from one another to increase stringency and readability. Codes that captured everyday ideals, practices, and norms were categorized as social logics. The codes that provided the reason behind these social logics were categorized as political logics. Finally, the fantasmatic logic consisted of codes that captured the emotional or ideological dimensions of the participants’ futures.

Findings

Social Logics

The social logics define the characteristics, norms, or set of rules of the discourse that people draw on when understanding a certain phenomenon, substance use in this case. Three social logics were identified in the data: responsibility, ambition, and health.

Responsibility

The ideals of responsibility were understood by the participants through a lens of perceived adulthood. This was characterized by moderate and controlled consumption of mainly legal substances, and domestic activities such as playing video games, having dinners with friends, or watching TV-series.

While some of the participants were still going to parties at the time of the interviews, for most, partying was a practice they had enjoyed in their past, and this seemed generally to play a minor role in their lives today. Thus, early adulthood was not seen as a phase of exploration, rebellion, or pushing limits, but of securing a responsible, steady path forward. Pivotal was to be in control, not only in terms of substance use but of life in general. Loss of control was understood as the opposite of being responsible and as something fearful to be avoided. Noah, for example, feared that loss of control as a consequence of substance use would compromise his ability to make good decisions:

Noah: I don’t like losing control of my consciousness. It's a contributing factor to why I don’t like [to use substances], and I know it's bad for me. So why would I ever do it?

Interviewer: What is it about losing control that you don’t like?

Noah: (…) I need to know what I’m doing and what I’m thinking. And I want somehow to be able to control what I am thinking and how I act, and how I act towards people without being under the influence of something. I want to be able to make decisions that are not influenced by substances. (…) If I take something, maybe my opinion would differ from what I’m thinking normally.

Despite the ideal of responsibility, excessive use of alcohol or trying cannabis a few times was understood as sometimes responsible, given that it was a practice of the past. Here, the participants contrasted a younger, naïve and irresponsible self with the current, more adult and responsible self. One participant, Sebastian, was introduced to alcohol and cigarettes in his mid-teens. During this time, he also experimented with cannabis a few times. Later, he became less social, got tired of partying, and therefore drank less alcohol.

Sebastian: I thought [partying] was fun during high school, but I got tired of it. My alcohol consumption today (…) is pretty much a gin and tonic with my girlfriend on a Friday night in front of the TV. Just because it tastes good. Or a bottle of decent wine with the dinner that I’ve prepared.

Sebastian described his younger years of partying and drinking alcohol as something he enjoyed and he understood it as normal for someone in high school, but that he had adopted more adult and responsible drinking patterns as a young adult. Lucas used the same style of reasoning regarding illegal substances:

Lucas: I can understand that it sounds like fun to try all sorts of drugs when you are 16, like marijuana, and other kinds of drugs. But it sounds more fun when you are 16, than when you are twenty-something.

The participants drew a line between responsible and irresponsible reasons for trying or using substances. Use was deemed responsible only in some circumstances, such as drinking with friends, trying cannabis once or twice, or remaining in control of the situation through moderate use. It was irresponsible when the purpose was to become numb, doing it alone, or when giving in to peer pressure. As Aamu noted:

Aamu: We didn’t talk about [poor mental health] when we were 14, or 15 years old but there were not that kind of problems around compared to today. [We drank] because it was cool, to have something to talk about. We did not drink to get numb or to avoid thinking about certain things.

In this quote, Aamu made a comparison based on her experience of alcohol use but she made similar comparisons when she discussed cannabis.

Ambition

This logic captured the importance of being ambitious and its relation to success and career. Substance use was seen as meaningless and expensive, but also an obstacle to an ambitious and good life. For instance, Penny grew up in a small community and she drank for the first time in 9^th grade and began to party once or twice per month during high school. She then moved to another town, replaced her friends, drank less, and studied hard.

Penny: There are some weekends when I kind of say “I have to study” instead of doing something. You just feeling like crap for a whole day after you have been drinking. A whole day disappears when you could have studied or done something else.

For Penny, being hungover made no sense as it was associated with being unambitious and unproductive; thus, a lost day in her life that led nowhere.

The participants made sense of their ambitiousness in contrast to others’ lack thereof. Lucas understood these others as people from rural backgrounds, those with an early onset of substance use, and people who lacked interest in sports.

Lucas: [It was] often those who did not like school much, and they didn’t care for sports either. (…) They came from [area], which is a little more “rural”. They were more into [partying], smoking, they drank earlier and were into engines and mopeds when they were 15. We who came from [another area], it was posher, we were into things like football, doing well in school. We didn’t drink or smoke, it sounded kind of cool, but we never did it.

Audrey, moreover, described those she imaged did not fit within an ambitious, academic setting: “I’m guessing now, [there are] people who feel that they can’t perform well: ‘I’m not going to make it. I might as well do a bunch of drugs and have fun in the moment’.” She described how she got information from the government, the news and from popular culture about the many negative and far-reaching consequences of substance use: “You can develop an addiction, or only focus on [substance use] instead of [be like]: ‘I want good academic marks so I can become whatever I want’.” For Audrey, substances had the capacity to divert attention from ambitious life goals to substance-related, temporary amusements that lead to addiction and “suffering”. While not focused in this study, it is obvious that some participants reflected on how socio-economic situation influenced their perceptions of substance use.

Health

The participants discussed health in terms of lifestyle-related issues such as working out, spending time outdoors, and sleeping well. Hampus, for example, described that he enjoyed working out and traditional adult activities such as staying home with a partner and cooking meals.

Hampus: I spend time with my friends, I work out a bit. I enjoy cooking a lot. (…) I’m baking, I enjoy cooking. I trade stocks. (…) I live together with my girlfriend so I spend time with her. Yeah, that's about it.

Hampus had used alcohol moderately a few times but did not use it anymore. He argued that cigarettes as well as other substances were bad for one's health.

Hampus: Smoking is completely retarded! What do you gain from it? Nothing! I don’t get it. It's expensive. You completely destroy your lungs. You will die prematurely. All of your clothes smell, you smell. Why would I do something that actively destroys my health?

So, instead of doing something that destroyed his health, Hampus spent time working out. Other participants talked about the health benefits of cardio workout or yoga practice. Substance use was understood as an obstacle to improved gym results and long-term health. This focus on health, however, did not automatically result in choosing abstinence. Rather, it also often provided a reason for moderate consumption in terms of when, where, and to what extent. For the participants, health could be controlled as it was guided by choice. A “good” choice guided the participants towards health and avoidance of harm. Fatima described her choice of not using substances as originating from religious beliefs, but that the notion of harm provided an additional reason.

Interviewer: Does harm affect your choices?

Fatima: One hundred percent. I am very devoted to at least trying to stay away from things that I know cause harm to me, my body, and my health. I care about my health a lot. (…)

Interviewer: What do you mean when you say that you “care about your health”?

Fatima: Well, you know, working out, eating well, getting enough sleep. Yes, but cigarettes, I know they are dangerous, so I avoid them.

Fatima used cigarettes as an example of something harmful, but her stance was part of an overall avoidance of substances. While some participants had read about the possible health benefits of cannabis or psilocybin (so-called magic mushrooms), substance use in general was perceived as an obstacle to health now, or in the future.

Political Logics

Next, I am turning my attention to the political logics of choice and risk. These logics are interpreted as naturalizing the social logics of responsibility, ambition, and health.

Choice

Success or failure were framed as the result of choice; whether one had tried substances or not, if this was done in a safe setting or not, with whom one spends time with, or if one chooses to be ambitious or not. Closely linked to choice were notions of vigilance: assessing risks, detecting dangers, and staying informed were pivotal to the participants. If one made the wrong choice, there was a risk of ending up in addiction: “I think misuse [of substances] is when you choose to do things and do it often. And addiction is the result of those choices.” (Mikaela). For the participants, all dimensions of life could, and should, be navigated through the practice of choice. At the time of the interview, Fredrik occasionally smoked cannabis and had some experience of psilocybin use. Beforehand, he had turned to online videos and podcasts to be able to make informed decisions about future substance use.

Fredrik: You should always be careful and research before you do something. That's true for all things in life. You should be aware of the risks before you choose to expose yourself to them. At the end of the day, you can’t just sit around blaming others if something happens.

Fredrik emphasized two things in this quote. First, the importance of informed choice and a permanent state of vigilance regarding all aspects of life. Second, everyone is held accountable for their actions and potential mistakes. Choice and vigilance were described as practices that separated the participants from others, whose lives would be ruined by substance use. Opposite to the participants’ own experiences of substance use and their emphasis on choice, others’ substance use was often understood as caused by medical conditions (e.g., depression, eating disorder) or societal prerequisites (e.g., living in poor or rural neighborhoods). Despite this understanding that use originated from these conditions, the solutions to the substance-related problems were found within the self: choose to live your life responsibly, ambitiously, and healthily and the negative consequences of substance use will disappear. In other words, the practice of choice provided a sense of control over one's future.

Risk

All substances were understood in terms of risk and harmfulness. The participants coped by acknowledging this, and through the practice of vigilance and choice. Choosing to use substances beyond moderation was for associated with the risk of future problems. The participants spoke of the carcinogenicity of cigarettes, the addictiveness of alcohol, the risks of intoxication and loss of control, and how excessive use of legal substances would make people more likely to use illegal substances. Jens, for instance, believed that alcohol could result in short-term harm such as alcohol poisoning as well as long-term learning difficulties. Therefore, his current consumption of alcohol was limited to occasional informal tasting sessions together with friends.

Jens: There are many horror stories out there. (…) You can see how popular drugs ruin lives, and how they sort of absorb.

Interviewer: What do you mean by “absorb”?

Jens: They remove the will to do other activities.

Jens assigned capacity to substances as they could “absorb” other aspects of life through addiction and by removing the drive to do other things. Relationships, work, and health could be absorbed by substances unless good, informed choices were made. Participants also assigned a second dimension of capacity to substances, that use of some substances would spur more use or use of “hard” drugs. This style of reasoning thus reflected the gateway theory (Fergusson et al., 2006). Some expressed concern that even limited use today could result in daily and harmful use in the future.

Samir: And that is what I’m afraid of. If I say “it's ok to drink during the weekends”, after a year I will add an extra day [drinking per week]. All of a sudden, I started having a beer every day. Maybe I’ll start drinking hard liquor every day. That is what I am trying to avoid.

For the participants, the risks associated with substances could also emanate from the outside world. Being intoxicated meant becoming vulnerable to the violence of others. As Penny noted:

Penny: I’ve heard that you, as a girl, are more at risk of being vulnerable. That you become even more helpless than you already are as a girl. Being drunk, (…) I feel that you become a victim more easily.

This risk of becoming a victim of violence was, according to Penny, more profound if you drank more excessively, and if you were female. The participants disciplined themselves to avoid becoming vulnerable to violence or other harm by avoiding certain settings that they associated with risk. Examples included bars, parks, and large parties, but some also avoided people who they believed could have a negative influence. This practice of avoidance was evident regardless of gender. Lucas portrayed himself and his friends as people who did not drink to get intoxicated but rather enjoyed a drink on occasion. Despite having a very moderate consumption of alcohol, he was concerned that situations could become dangerous and described how this could be avoided.

Lucas: It was during New Year's so I was with three or four friends. We drank [alcohol] and had a good time so it wasn’t in a very unsafe environment. (…)

Interviewer: What is an “unsafe environment”?

Lucas: If you hung out with lots of people you didn’t know. If you were at a large party or in a park somewhere. But we were indoors, celebrating New Year's, had some food, there were toilets if you got sick. It was a very safe environment.

Interviewer: What do you think could have happened that would have been bad?

Lucas: When you get so drunk that you’ll pass out. (…) Then you would have been left outdoors (…) and just lay there on a park bench. (…)

Interviewer: Has it happened to you?

Lucas: No. But I’ve heard that it has happened to others.

Lucas’ quote displays a somewhat paradoxical approach to his drinking habit: the co-existence of responsible and highly moderate consumption on the one hand, and permanent vigilance and far-reaching measures to ensure safety on the other. He drew from hearsay and warnings from authoritative figures such as parents and police officers.

It was not only the consequences of the substance use itself that posed a risk to the participants, it could also include the legal consequences of the use of some substances. Greta described that: “If you get caught [by the police], there will be consequences throughout your whole life”. The participants understood that prosecution would be considered a defining moment and lead to a life of social exclusion and crime.

Fantasmatic Logics

The fantasmatic logic chiefly concerns “what is at stake” in life. Below I will describe two dimensions that Glynos and Howarth (2007) argue constitute the fantasmatic logic; the beatific and the horrific dimensions. While the participants did not believe that there are only two future endpoints possible, according to my interpretation it is these two dimensions that spur them to invest emotionally in the social logics of responsibility, ambition, and health and the political logics of choice and risk.

The Beatific Dimension

The participants were not asked about how they envisioned their ideal future, however, they discussed the matter during the interviews. For them, the beatific dimension was a future of productivity, good health, and a sense of control. Lucas described that for him, becoming an adult meant working as a teacher, establishing your own routines, and becoming independent, albeit within the limits of traditional hierarchal employment: “The best thing will be that nobody will tell me what to do, besides my boss of course.” Typically, the beatific futures never went beyond the mundane. They did not concern things such as becoming famous, doing something highly successful, or becoming financially independent. Rather, the beatific was articulated in terms of making living and everyday pleasures such as shopping, engaging in hobbies, and travelling during vacations.

Isa: So far, I’ve been good at making decisions which bring me forward to a career I feel that I am good at. I’m pretty good at saving up money so I can travel as much as possible, which I absolutely love to do. I’ve established healthy routines and I like to read. It's my whole life.

These bright and productive futures were promised if participants lived their lives according to the social logics. This is what their lives would become if they were ambitious, studied thoroughly, worked hard, acted responsibly, and chose to live healthily. However, it seemed possible for the participants to use both legal and illegal substances without derailing significantly from the social logic and thereby still ensuring a beatific future. This was done by accepting being in a permanent state of vigilance, by recognizing the harm of even limited use, and by making sense of their moderate use through responsibility and choice. Only then was experimentation with substance use adequate, and only then was the beatific dimension ensured.

The Horrific Dimension

The horrific dimension holds a promise of addiction, poor health, legal consequences, social exclusion, and missed opportunities for those failing to submit to the social logics. Some of the participants spoke of family members’ problematic use of different substances, and the negative consequences their use had had for their families. It became a personal illustration of the horrific dimension they strived to avoid by making good choices.

Nova: My mother was pretty much an alcoholic when I grew up, and I’ve never wanted to be like her. (…) I was in the phase of testing a lot, [but] as soon as I felt “oh, I’m looking forward to this a little bit too much”, I paused.

The participants argued that some people were more likely to face a horrific future of addiction or death than others, such as Nova who was the child of an “alcoholic”, people living in marginalized areas, and youth with ADHD or depression. However, the individual was always to be held accountable for failed futures. While Nova had tried substances out of the boredom of being young in a rural area, she, unlike some of her peers who became drug dealers, chose to study hard. She believed that her ambition would open up a world beyond the horrific fate of her peers.

While the beatific dimension was articulated rather low-key, and within the boundaries of the mundane, the horrific dimension was articulated with a greater sense of urgency.

Hampus: You’ll probably fuck up your entire life. (…) You’ll ruin your body. A lot of people who become addicted sell everything they have, not everything, but more and more money will finance your addiction. You can end up with a bad crowd. (…) Cocaine is a dangerous drug since you are buying from someone and then you owe that person money and when you can’t pay, the person may blow up your front door.

In a horrific future of addiction, it would not only be the substances themselves that would pose a threat to health and life; purchasing from criminal networks would pose a threat to one's home and, moreover, one would risk losing freedom through prosecution and imprisonment.

Discussion

This study aimed to explore how a sample of young Swedish adults conceptualized substance use. I identified the following social logics: responsibility, ambition, and health. They serve both as ideals and practices. These three social logics have previously been identified as important factors for understanding substance use among young adults (Caluzzi et al., 2020; Caluzzi & Pennay, 2021; Ekendahl et al., 2020; Månsson et al., 2024; Sjödin, 2023; Törrönen, Samuelsson et al., 2021). Age and the transition between adolescence and early adulthood are intimately connected to what I label as the social logic of responsibility (Järvinen & Bom, 2019; Månsson et al., 2022). For instance, Järvinen and Bom call the age-related decrease in drinking a responsibly “maturing out”, and this process occurs alongside the adaption of the social norms of a specific age group. These social norms also help young adults to predict the future trajectories of their lives (2019). Furthermore, Caluzzi et al. (2020) have shown that pleasure has been re-configured among young people and the data analyzed here corroborate this finding. Drawing upon LCE (Glynos & Howarth, 2007), this study suggests that fear of a horrific future is an important emotional driver behind the re-configuration of pleasure into what Caluzzi et al. (2020) call “disciplined and ascetic pleasures”. These pleasures are characterized by moderation but seem to be ultimately fueled by emotions such as anxiety and fear.

The results suggest that the participants conceptualized substances generically and that they made sense of them in similar ways regardless of legal status. While the participants differentiated between substances in terms of their impact on health and their cultural meaning, the overall conceptualization regarding why people were using, who was using, and the negative consequences of use in people's lives were similar. Substances, both legal and illegal, were conceptualized as obstacles to a good and healthy life both today and in the future (Caluzzi & Pennay, 2021; Järvinen & Bom, 2019). This, however, should not be interpreted as if the participants understood the use of illegal substances as normalized in the sense that the use of these substances was an integrated part of youth culture (Parker et al., 1998).

Gendered notions of substance use were mentioned by some of the participants, mainly in terms of their perception of who was using more or less of a certain substance. However, gender differences were not pivotal through the lens of LCE; the social, political, and fantasmatic logics were shared regardless of gender.

Individual decision-making is located at the core of neoliberal discourse (Rose, 1999; Venugopal, 2015). Aligned with that discourse, the participants in this study described how they navigated everyday life through choice. Beyond the immediate, the participants also believed that they could control their future and ensure the beatific dimension of a successful and bright life by living responsibly, ambitiously, and healthy. Conversely, the horrific dimension for them was a future of social exclusion, addiction, unemployment, poor health, and possibly death. Such horrific futures awaited those who did not choose to live according to the social logics of responsibility, ambition, and health. In other words, no one else could be held responsible for one's flaws: not societal prerequisites, political prioritizations, or pathology. Interestingly, the participants conceptualized other people's use of substances differently. Others’ substance use was seen as the result of risk factors such as certain biographies or diagnoses (see De Looze et al., 2015; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001), and poor choices. Despite this, they too were made responsible if they experienced problems related to substance use. So, while participants recognized that societal prerequisites were linked to substance use, the idea of individual choice was more important throughout the data. However, these were choices with a confined set of options. The participants chose to drink but only in moderation and in certain safe, social settings. Those who chose to try cannabis did so in a way that limited the effect of the substance. Choosing to use substances in other ways would open up a horrific future, which was ultimately defined by its lack of freedom and choice. The participants had to make the right decisions now to be able to be free in the future.

Limitations

The interview guide included few questions to systematically tap into the socio-economic context of the participants’ lives which created limitations in my analysis. However, the participants themselves drew upon their experiences and contexts to make sense of their lives and use of substances, and this is what the analysis covers.

Conclusion

This study aimed to understand how substances are conceptualized among Swedish young adults. The empirical data suggest that they conceptualized cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, and other substances in very similar ways regarding why people are using, who is using, and what consequences use may have in people's lives. Thus, it appears as if the same neoliberal ideals shaping alcohol and tobacco uses underpin decisions to avoid or limit the use of illegal substances as well.

Substances seem to play a minor role in the lives of these Swedish young adults, but they were at the same time charged with meaning and emotions. On the one hand, experimenting with substances may have lost much of its status as a rite of passage into adulthood. Substance use was repeatedly identified as an obstacle to important adult ideals such as responsibility and ambition. On the other hand, moderate consumption of legal substances, and trying illegal cannabis a few times, were deemed responsible and possibly age-appropriate activities. This suggests that minor deviations were consistent with the path towards the beatific future. Choosing more severe substance use would in this discourse inevitably result in a horrific future of addiction, social exclusion, crime, or death.

As I have demonstrated throughout this article, emotional drivers play a significant role in the complex processes that shape young people's choices regarding substance use. Given the theoretical framework in this paper, this is expected since LCE is informed by the Lacanian assumption that emotional drivers are crucial when understanding human reasoning and social practices. In the Introduction, I used a campaign clip to illustrate how emotions are embedded in the prevention messages. That clip is one example of the many emotion-based imageries used in prevention campaigns, produced in Sweden and elsewhere. The aim of such emotional imageries urge young people to stay away from substances and several participants described how they indeed abstained from certain substances or used them moderately because of these emotional dimensions. Based on this, some might conclude that emotion-based prevention is effective in addressing substance use among young adults. It should be noted, however, that this form of prevention comes with a cost, as it fuels anxiety and creates ‘flawed’ individuals who are seen as making poor decisions about their lives and futures.