Not Drinking and Alone: Alcohol Use and Its Implications for Existential Isolation

Introduction: Research implicates social isolation as a risk factor for problematic alcohol use. However, no known research examines the role that a specific type of social isolation—existential isolation, a feeling of being alone in one's subjective experience of reality—plays in alcohol consumption. In sociocultural contexts where alcohol consumption is normative, existentially isolated individuals may seek out alcohol as a method for experiencing more existential connection. The opposite may also hold true: those who do not partake in the normative, alcohol-drinking culture may “pay the price” with higher levels of existential isolation. This study examined which of these two possible correlations between existential isolation and alcohol use the data support. Methods: In Study 1, we recruited 511 adult participants from Amazon MTurk. We then conducted a regression analysis to examine the unique predictive effects of existential isolation, gender, interpersonal isolation, and a gender × existential isolation interaction on alcohol consumption. Next, we examined whether existential motives mediated the relationship between existential isolation and alcohol use. In Study 2, we recruited 99 adult undergraduate students to determine if the Study 1 findings replicated in a different sample and with different measures of interpersonal isolation. We additionally assessed whether alcohol accounted for self-reported changes in existential isolation before and 3 months after arrival at college. Results: Data from Study 1 revealed that controlling for interpersonal isolation, lower existential isolation levels predicted greater alcohol use and that desire to drink for existential connection accounted for this effect. Study 2 replicated these findings. We observed a significant negative correlation between existential isolation and alcohol use and a negative correlation between alcohol use and change in existential isolation over time. Discussion: Our findings suggest a potential disadvantage to sobriety and an existential risk pathway to problematic alcohol use. We discuss the societal implications of these findings.