Mental health, substance use, and stigmatization: A comparison of Canadian university students who abstain from or consume alcohol
Bibliographic record
Abstract
• Those who abstain from alcohol report higher loneliness but lower cannabis use • Fear of negative consequences is linked to higher self-stigma in those who abstain • Men report higher self-stigma awareness and application compared to women • Alcohol consumption correlates with negative attitudes toward those who abstain • Indifference is the primary motive for alcohol abstinence among undergraduates While alcohol consumption among young adults in Canadian post-secondary settings has been widely studied, the experiences of students who abstain from alcohol remain significantly overlooked. This study addresses this critical gap by examining how alcohol abstinence relates to mental health symptoms, substance use patterns, and loneliness among Canadian undergraduates. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of stigma dynamics on university campuses and inform strategies to foster more inclusive, supportive environments for students who do not drink alcohol. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among Canadian undergraduate students between November 2020 and May 2021. Demographic, mental health, and substance use differences between students who were alcohol-abstinent and non-abstinent were analyzed with chi-squared and t -tests. Pearson correlations examined the links between motivations for abstaining and self-stigma and between alcohol use and attitudes toward those who abstain. Additional t -tests assessed gender differences in motivations for abstinence, self-stigma, and attitudes toward those who are alcohol abstinent. Of the 180 participants, 48.9% were alcohol abstinent. Indifference was the primary motive for abstinence ( M = 2.7, SD = 1.2). Students who were alcohol abstinent reported significantly lower cannabis use ( p < 0.001) but higher levels of loneliness ( p = .02) compared to those who were not abstinent. Fear of negative consequences and dispositional risk were significantly associated with higher levels of self-stigma ( p's < 0.05). Men demonstrated significantly higher levels of awareness and self-application of negative stereotypes related to alcohol use compared to women ( p ’s < 0.05), reflecting a greater internalization of public stigma. Additionally, alcohol use was positively correlated with negative attitudes toward those who are alcohol abstinent ( p < .005). This study reveals the social and psychological challenges faced by students who abstain from alcohol, particularly the heightened levels of loneliness compared to their peers who drink. By identifying the factors contributing to self-stigmatization and social exclusion, our research fills a critical gap in understanding how abstinence is perceived in environments where alcohol consumption is the norm, such as university campuses. These findings are essential for informing targeted destigmatization efforts and shaping public health campaigns that challenge negative stereotypes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".