★ A joint work by three leading scholars in the fields of addiction research and gender sociology, including Helen Keen, Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University and Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA), as well as a professor of social work at Stockholm University!
★ This book is the result of long-term collaboration among distinguished scholars. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective that spans sociology, public health, and social work, it focuses on the issues of alcohol, health, and the regulation of life, exploring the social problems associated with drinking.

Alcohol is ubiquitous—present in our daily lives, in public debates, and increasingly at the heart of public health policy.
This book examines alcohol as an object of contemporary research and policy from a critical perspective. It argues that drinking behavior is shaped by a host of complex concepts, including risk, well-being, gender, and race. The author challenges the dominant disciplinary frameworks that frame sobriety and moderate drinking, while highlighting often‑neglected dimensions such as sociability, pleasure, and personal transformation.
As public attention to the health implications of alcohol continues to grow, the author calls for a rethinking of what “healthy living” means in an era when health is both a matter of individual responsibility and a site of regulatory discourse.

Helen Keen
Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA), and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy.

David Moore
Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University, and former Editor-in-Chief of SAGE’s journal Contemporary Drug Problems (2010–2020).

Mats Ekdahl
Professor of Social Work at Stockholm University.

Introduction: Practices, Problems and Politics
1. Creating Certainty: The Making of Low-Risk Drinking Guidelines
2. ‘Alcohol’s Harm to Others’: Stabilizing Research Objects and Expanding Regulation
3. Alcohol, Health and Wellbeing: Fear and the Imagining of Desirable Futures
4. Gendering Drinking: Women as Subjects of Risk and Harm
5. Intoxication, Addiction and the Racializing Biopolitics of Alcohol
Conclusion: From Certainties to Contingencies