Prioritising a vision of long term cultural change toward the creation of a 'safer, healthier drinking culture' represents a meteoric shift in Australian alcohol policy. Despite this articulation, sensible drinking policy initiatives are constrained within an informational framework promoting alcohol unit warnings on alcohol vessels and standard drink guidelines. The aim of this research is to develop an understanding of the consumer culture of 'sensible drinking' by analysing young adult's constructions of credible identities and resistant motivations for manoeuvring within, and beyond, a culture where excessive drinking is the accepted norm. Using narrative theory approach, young adults' self-generated stories surrounding responsible consumption of alcohol are explored. Informants engage a resistance narrative to the dominant culture of intoxication and legitimise identity through construction of alternate subject positions. Despite underpinnings of belief homogeneity, informants displayed heterogeneity when manoeuvring within intoxicated social spaces suggesting a continuum of resistance behaviour and existence of micro-subcultures within a culture of sensible drinking. Understanding discourses of young people who create a legitimate culture of 'sensible' drinking offers critical, yet often dismissed, insight into the relationship between identity and alcohol resistance for the creation of a safer, healthier drinking culture.