Whether we like it or not, alcohol will always play a central role in life and sports. Since alcohol is so popular and profitable, they will continue to play major roles in sponsoring events. This coould potentially lead to alcohol consumption. This could all lead to excessive drinking, especially among athletes athletes.
Sport is generally considered a health-enhancing lifestyle choice. It reduces depression, anxiety and emotional distress and improves self-esteem (Harris, 2023).
There is strong evidence that many athletes – particularly those at university – engage in harmful levels of alcohol use. Multiple studies conducted across different UK universities over the past decade indicate that sport participation may be a risk factor for the development of alcohol use disorders (Harris, 2023).
Past research from Northumbria University showed that 85% of students who played team sports were classified as having an alcohol use disorder, with rugby, football and hockey players reporting the highest levels of drinking (Harris, 2023).
The culture of drinking in sports is deeply ingrained, blending with traditions, team bonding and massive alcohol sponsorship. It creates strong pressures, especially for young athletes. It's used to engage in heavy or binge drinking as a social norm for celebration or coping; despite potential negative impacts on performance and health, though efforts are growing to offer alcohol-free choices. This culture extends from elite athletes to fans, linking alcohol to sport's values like success and camaraderie, often through rituals and post-event socialising.
Key Aspects of Drinking Culture in Sports:
- Social Norms & Team Bonding: Drinking becomes a way to bond, celebrate wins or cope with losses, with strong peer pressure to participate; sometimes feeling mandatory for social survival, particularly in team sports.
- Tradition & Rituals: Alcohol consumption is embedded in rituals, with post-game drinks or heavy drinking at events (pubs, bars) being long-standing practices.
- Sponsorship & Marketing: Alcohol companies heavily sponsor sports, associating their products with fun, endurance, and success, making it hard to separate sport from alcohol.
- Pressures on Athletes: Athletes face pressure from team-mates, coaches and traditions to drink heavily, with refusing sometimes leading to social isolation or lower status.
- Binge Drinking: A common pattern, especially among young athletes, involves binge drinking (4-5+ drinks at once) due to these pressures and norms, often far exceeding healthy limits.
- Sport-Specific Motives: Athletes drink for sport-related reasons like reward, stress relief from performance, or status, in addition to general social motives.
Team sports foster tight-knit bonds, with athletes spending a great deal of time surrounded by their team-mates on and off the field or court. In closed social circles like this, the norms of the team become an athlete’s baseline for behaviour. Athletes may not realise that the team’s definition of a "normal" amount to drink may actually be unhealthy and even considered risky (Blakeslee, 2025).
One common pattern among adolescent and young adult athletes is binge drinking, defined as consuming four or more drinks in one sitting for women or five or more drinks for men. Many are surprised to learn that drinking this amount even once a year is considered a positive screen for possible negative effects of alcohol. In team environments where this level of drinking is normalised or even celebrated, it can be difficult to recognise when alcohol use has crossed a line (Blakeslee, 2025).
Problematic substance use isn’t always obvious, especially when it’s normalised within a team. Paying attention to subtle warning signs, understanding what constitutes risky drinking and creating a team environment that supports well-being can help shift team culture toward healthier norms without losing the bonds that make sports so powerful (Blakeslee, 2025).
It can be argued that athletes can be heavily influenced by the social norms of drinking and by seeing their peers drink. The normative expectations in relation to drinking can cause sports players to drink with other people through a sense of duty rather than for their own desire (Morris, no date, cited, O’Brien, Kolt, Webber & Hunter, 2010).
Therefore, the social norm attached to drinking can be very strong for an athlete as it causes a large amount of pressure for a player to drink (Morris, no date, cited, Foxcroft & Lowe, 1995).
Research has shown that it is common practice for athletes to consume alcohol after a sport event, to help relax, celebrate or drown sorrows (Morris, no date, cited, Davies & Foxall, 2011; Bacon, 1973). Most teams will often engage in drinking after a game on the weekend. In the UK, there is a common pattern of behaviour for males who participate in sport to drink alcohol while watching a sporting event (Morris, no date, cited, Eastman & Land, 1997). Collins and Vamplew (2002) described how important the centrality of the pub is in a person’s sporting life (Morris, no date).
All this research leads to the current situation with the English cricket team in Australia.
According to the BBC, a number of players spent six days drinking; having begun after the eight-wicket defeat in Brisbane. A video of England opener Ben Duckett seemingly drunk and unable to find his way back to the team hotel has gone viral on social media.
Speaking some hours before the video alleged to be Duckett began circulating, England Managing Director, Rob Key, said: "If there’s things where people are saying that our players went out and drank excessively then of course we’ll be looking into that."
"I’m not a drinker. Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol for an international cricket team is not something that I’d expect to see at any stage."
"We’ve added security. We’ve got enough ways of finding out exactly what happened. And everything that I’ve heard so far is that they sat down, had lunch, had dinner and didn’t go out late and had the odd drink. I don’t mind that."
The video of Duckett shows the batsman slurring his words and appearing lost as a bystander jokingly offers him an "Uber to the nets." The incident has prompted fresh questions about the drinking culture within the England dressing room - a topic that has lingered over English cricket for years. Key revealed that both Jacob Bethell and Harry Brook had been warned before the Ashes after being filmed drinking on the eve of an ODI in New Zealand, calling that episode a "wake-up call" for the scrutiny awaiting the team in Australia.
Concerning the video, an England and Wales Cricket Board spokesperson later added: “We are aware of content circulating on social media. We have high expectations for behaviour, accepting that players are often under intense levels of scrutiny, with established processes that we follow when conduct falls below expectations. We also support players that need assistance. We will not comment further at this stage while we establish the facts.”
But the concept of giving the team a mid-series break is something Key has insisted was necessary, citing the packed international schedule and the intense media scrutiny that comes with playing Test cricket in Australia.
Key said: “Harry Brook is going to spend six days at home this entire winter. Jofra Archer will go through to the World Cup and the Indian Premier League. So I think it’s so important that these players, especially multi-format players, can get away and live a normal life. [But] if it goes into where they’re drinking lots and it’s a stag do, that’s completely unacceptable.
"I think a drinking culture doesn’t help anyone in any stretch whatsoever. [But] I have no issue with Noosa if it was to get away and just throw your phone away, down tools, go on the beach, all of that stuff."
Reflecting on it, former England captain, Michael Vaughan, has refused to pin the blame on Duckett, instead stating that cricket suffers from a "drinking culture". "I am not going to point the finger at a group of young people who have had a few beers on a couple of days off. I did exactly the same as them when I played for England, although I did at least know when it was time to go home and that is probably what Ben Duckett needs to learn," Vaughan wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
Vaughan stated that cricketers from nations like England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all suffer from a drinking culture.
"Duckett should not be reprimanded at all on the evidence we have seen and neither should the other players because it is a wider issue: the game of cricket has created this drinking culture. England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all have the same culture," Vaughan wrote.
"You give a group of young people three or four days off to relax and they are going to do something like this," he added.
Vaughan, instead, criticised England's Ashes preparation. Vaughan, who led England to a famous Ashes series win in 2005, slammed the fact that the trip to Noosa had been booked well in advance but no prior plan had been made for warm-up games.
"The thing about Noosa is that it was booked a year ago. But they did not book the Waca a year ago. How did they not prepare for a bouncy pitch leading into a first Test, but at the same time had booked their holiday in Noosa?" questioned Vaughan.
"They also do not have a fielding coach on tour and are dropping catches. They have a spin-bowling coach but do not pick the spinner. They have reduced the role of data analysis. They have got to be better at the attention to detail, but attention to detail is boring," he further wrote.
England captain, Ben Stokes, wouldn't be drawn on the allegations about Duckett. Asked about the scrutiny on his team-mates, e added: "We've got other guys who play all three formats and spend a lot more time away from home than others. It is very gruelling and it is tough when you're here, there and everywhere. I know people have got things a lot worse than what we do. You have to deal with the emotions of being away [and] the scrutiny that you are under, in particular when things aren't going well."
"Everything just gets heightened but there needs to be a little bit of empathy towards stuff that people might not quite understand, but I guess if you're not in it and you're not amongst it, it is hard to understand that. But just in this moment right now, I think a little bit of empathy from everyone would be not too hard to think about, if that makes sense."
Stokes, who took over as captain in 2022, pointed to his own personal experiences of "pretty tough times." The 34-year-old missed the 2017-18 Ashes tour following an incident outside a Bristol nightclub. Stokes was charged with, and later cleared of, affray.
Stokes also took a five-month break from cricket in the summer of 2021 to prioritise his mental wellbeing. The all-rounder later revealed he suffered from panic attacks and feared he wouldn't play again. His struggles were laid bare in a documentary released in August 2022.
"I've had some pretty good times over my career. I've also had some pretty tough times," he said. "I'm obviously aware of reports and stuff that's circulating around. For me as England captain, my main concern is the players and everyone in the dressing room."
"I know what it can feel like when everything just piles on top of you. It's hard. My main thing right now as England captain is making sure that everyone's OK."
Duckett has kept his place in England's team for the fourth Test, with Stokes saying he has spoken to the opener to offer his full support. Stokes described Duckett as an "incredibly influential person" within the group.
The futures of Stokes, Key and head coach, Brendon McCullum, will come under intense scrutiny both for the result of the Ashes and the behaviour of the England players in Australia. Following the defeat in the third Test in Adelaide, which sealed England's fourth successive Ashes loss in Australia, Stokes said he "absolutely" wanted to remain skipper.
"Everything's easy when it's going well," said Stokes. "It's these moments where I guess the responsibility does fall on your shoulders a lot more than it ever has done. I will always do my best on the field. I'll always do my best off the field. I will always, always protect my players, especially in moments like these."
Drinking in all facets isn't good. It can lead to bad and poor decisions being made. These kind of decisions can ruin one's life. Something needs to be done to cure this culture, if possible. Removing alcohol is easier said than done. Some form of prohibition would be ideal.
I believe that it was low for Michael Vaughan to include other countries in his piece. He should've just focused on his own country. Drinking has the capacity to be pinpointed to a single individual. Each one has their limits. It also just takes one to instigate an activity.
I'm shocked that Ben Duckett has been selected to play the fourth Test. To me, this sends the message that it's okay to drink excessively because you'll still be picked to play the game. If I were Key, McCullum or Stokes, I would've "benched" or given Duckett his marching orders to serve as an example to what happens if you're caught up in a controversy.
Reference List
Blakeslee, M. 2025. Work Hard, Play Hard: Rethinking a Culture of Alcohol Use in Team Sports. Available from: https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/culture-of-alcohol-use-in-team-sports#:~:text=Sports%20and%20alcohol%20use%20have,or%20more%20drinks%20for%20men (Accessed: 25 December 2025).
Harris, M. 2023. Student sport has a drinking problem – here’s what needs to be done to change it. Available from: https://theconversation.com/student-sport-has-a-drinking-problem-heres-what-needs-to-be-done-to-change-it-197949#:~:text=There%20was%20also%20a%20fear,receiving%20end%20of%20these%20rituals (Accessed: 25 December 2025).
Morris, A. No date. Understanding Alcohol Addiction in Sport. Available from: https://members.believeperform.com/understanding-alcohol-addiction-sport/#:~:text=It%20can%20be%20argued%20that,in%20a%20person's%20sporting%20life (Accessed: 25 December 2025).