"What Kind Of Drinker Are You?" Brief - 26th January 2011

For the last week I've been working on a brief advertising the dangers of alcohol, focusing on the idea that all drinker fall into one (or several) of the following nine drinking categories:

• De-stress Drinker - Drink to calm down and regain control of their manic life. Typically from a middle-class background with a stressful home life or working in a high pressure job environment, making them feel burdened with responsibility. 
• Conformist Drinker - Driven by a need to belong and seeking a structure to their lives. They are generally males, aged 45 to 59 in clerical or manual jobs. Regular visits to the pub are a part of their routine.
• Boredom Drinker - Solitary drinkers who drink to pass the time. Alcohol makes them feel comforted and secure but they also drink as they seek a degree of stimulation. Boredom drinkers are typicall women, aged 35 to 50.
• Depressed Drinker - These people crave comfort, safety and security. They aren't from any age, gender or socio-economic group in particular. They feel their lives are in a state of crisis and tend to drink heavily and often, more often than not whilst home alone.
• Re-bonding Drinker - Driven by a need to keep in touch and re-connect with those close to them, re-bonding drinkers want a release and stimulation, generally drinking most evenings. They don't have any particular favourite drink but will indulge in whatever their drinking partner is knocking back - Everything is about reflecting the actions of others.
• Community Drinker - Motivated by the need to belong, community drinkers seek stimulation and release from the grinds of every day life in the company of others. They are usually lower/middle-class men or women who drink in large friendship groups. They tend to drink many, many pints of European larger.
• Hedonistic Drinker - Crave stimulation and want to abandon control. They want to stand out from the crowd and frequently drink to get drunk up to three of four times a week. They tend to be divorced with grown up children, drinking cheap spirits with energy drink mixers.
• Macho Drinker - These people almost live in the pub. They're mainly men and feel a need to stand out from the crowd, drinking to feel a release. However, they also drink to feel control (of others rather than themselves), playing alcohol themed games, downing beer and spirit concoctions, alongside "challenging" chasers.
• Border Dependants - Consider the pub a home-from-home. They make regular visits to the pub during the day and the evening, on weekdays and at weekends. They drink fast and often. They drink the bar dry in an effort to quell their boredom and conform.

I decided at first to pick out just one of these categories, focusing on macho drinkers. My idea was simply to take iconic macho figures and impose them in the lifestyle of an alcoholic, illustrating the dangers that alcohol can have and that nobody is immune from it's influence.
  Due to my love of graphic novels and comics there was only one idea to pursue in my eyes when thinking about iconic macho figures - Superheroes!
  Here's my first coloured drawing of some of the greatest of all time at their AA meeting. I'll keep you updated on my progress!