On 11 April 2025, the Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health (CPEMPH) hosted an interdisciplinary workshop at Durham University titled Thinking About Drinking. Supported by the Wellcome Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities, the event brought together scholars, practitioners, and those with lived experience to critically re-examine assumptions about alcohol use, addiction, and recovery.
Key themes included:
- The limitations of dominant epistemological and methodological approaches in alcohol research, and the case for methodological pluralism.
- Revisiting the concept of addiction, including challenges to the disease model.
- Embracing plural and inclusive understandings of recovery.
- Exploring the positive and pleasurable dimensions of drinking in ethical and policy contexts.
- Understanding alcohol use as culturally and locally situated.
The workshop exposed profound differences in how alcohol is understood across sectors, raising pressing philosophical and ethical questions: Who defines harm, recovery, or misuse? What does it mean to live well with or without alcohol? And whose vision of the good life shapes public discourse and policy?
Future directions include collaborative research bridging philosophy, public health, and lived experience.
CPEMPH 