Risky pleasures and drugged assemblages: Young people's consumption practices of AOD in Madrid (2017)

Background: Drawing on a research project that we carried out on the functionality of "excessive" consumption practices in the lifestyles of young people in Madrid, this article aims to understand how (dis)pleasurable states emerge during young people's consumption of alcohol and other drugs.
Methods: This article claims that these states derive from "drugged assemblages," that is, a set of (human and non-human) actants that intra-act to produce different effects. Although pleasure can be one of these effects, it is not always guaranteed: consumption practices are assemblages that fluctuate between pleasure and displeasure, and the former can be reached or not depending on the characteristics acquired by the assemblage. It is this fluctuation that makes pleasures "risky." Drugged assemblages also configure and are configured by specific spatial-temporal and material apparatuses or dispositifs. We will analyse botellones, night-clubs and raves as examples of this kind of dispositif, focusing on how they work as a holistic frame where drugged assemblages emerge.
Results: Finally, we will focus on the different strategies and practices that young people, in constant intra-action with other agencies, develop in order to achieve and keep a "controlled loss of control" within the limits and potentials offered by these contexts, in a constant effort to avoid the risks that may result from the blurred line that divides pleasure and displeasure.
Conclusion: In this sense, we will argue that, despite the criticisms it has received, it is possible to make Measham's concept of "controlled loss of control" compatible with a post-humanist theoretical framework.