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Friends using less-than-school-friendly substances/drinks

A

Aaron Saunders

Apr 27, 2002
7,384
21
Ontario
#1
...when you have no inclination to. Anyone else have fun with this situation?

Personally, I have no desire to get stoned or drunk off my arse, and if you're gonna do it -- have fun, I won't be joining. I really don't care if it's once a month or whatever, but this is starting to get pretty irritating. I'm 17, and almost everyone my age at my school is at least all about drinking (actually, there's a huge cocaine problem amongst our jock population and has been for the past few months.) Most of my close friends are in the year younger than me, and several of them have gotten into drinking a lot, and one of my closest friends isn't far behind.

Today was not a very exciting Friday night for me, I'll heartily admit. I had a really long, rough week, and to cap it all off, a really stressful day with some series problems and teenage drama at school. After dealing with that junk on far less than standard amounts of sleep for the last 2 weeks, I was so exhausted that I crashed on my bed at 6:30 until 10, then went back down again. Woke up around 1, watched some Mudvayne videos and listened to some Sonny Rollins, and the very close friend of mine who's gotten into drinking came online. I kind of needed her tonight, but apparently she had a really rockin' evening and her older brother got the pleasure of driving her home.

All in all, I'd say one of the most upsetting parts of the last two weeks was that conversation. Does anyone else get this kind of thing, where they just can't talk to people when they're like that? I can deal with people doing that stuff, but I just cannot handle talking to people I know when they're drunk off their arse/stoned out of their minds.
 
#2
I understand completely. I was straightedge in a high school where there was nothing to do but drugs. Even now, though i drink occasionally, I find myself with very few options socially because I don't like to be around people who are frequent users of any kind of substance, its just boring.
 
#3
My thoughts on your situation:
A lot of your friends are going to get DUIs that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Talking to drunks is boring at any age. I think you've got the hots for your female friend- you should have told her when she was pickled, you definitely would have gotten an honest answer out of her. If you are a senior, high school drama is ending in two weeks. You will spend the next 40 years talking about how great high school was.
Stop worrying about all this crap and practice your bass so you can sound like Ryan Martinie by the time you are legal drinking age. :bassist:
 
#4
Regardless of how you may feel right now, you win. Your decision not to drink will have a lifelong impact on you ... a very positive one. I go through life very comfortable in the knowledge that I will never get a DUI, and I will never go to jail for killing an innocent person on the highway. I'll never suffer a hangover. I'll never have to live down stupid drunken behavior. I'll never embarrass my loved ones over alcohol (I don't need alcohol for that). I can buy lots of basses with the money I don't spend on alcohol.

Get some different friends.
 
#5
When i was your age all my friends were like that, and now that i'm a year or two older and graduated and such, my friends are still very much like that. You sound a lot like how I was in highschool, I also don't see the point of getting high/drunk all the time either. I can have a lot of fun without having to take something so i don't see the point of using anything more then i desire. You're right, trying to hold many personal, or important conversations with people in that stateis not worth your time.

Sadly I have a few friends who do have drug/drinking problems one of which I used to be really close with, but really how can i open up to someone whos mind is in outer space? Sorry to hear about some of your close friends getting into a lot of that stuff, especially when you need them, believe me they won't be your last friends to do that.

NICE HUGE BLUE FONT!! :p
 
#6
Even my girlfriend pisses me off when she's drunk - and she's also the best thing in my life. No matter how old you get drunk people are still crap when you're sober.

I also feel that it would be unjust to say that her being drunk and me being sober didn't have... advantages ;).
 
#8
Boy, are you going to enjoy college. ;)

Seriously, though. I'm the same way, and I can tell you this: Prepare for a life of all the stuff Munji said (which is great), and also prepare for your buddies to get drunk and then call you and get pissed off that you don't want to talk to them/can't understand what they're saying/won't help them clean bong water off their cat/whatever. Fortunately, if you wait a day, they'll forget being upset with you and you're cool again.

Seriously, this is pretty rough on the eyes with the "Blues" color scheme. :p
 
#12
I'm mostly straight-edge, I won't run away from beer and I'll crack one while grilling if it's possible (I'm eighteen, and sometimes a nice cool one with the parents is nice) but I never drink to an extent, nor endorse other people getting drunk.

As a matter of fact, I was part of my school's PDP (Personal development program which involves helping a lot of stresses in underclassmen life such as getting adjusted to High School, drugs, alcohol and more) and frankly what it came down to is I was saying: "I know you're going to do it sometime, be careful and don't be stupid" People will heed that advice more than "don't drink, it's bad for you" because that's what everyone's been telling them for years. The freshmen I've worked with say this has affected them very much.

So I leave you with this "I know you're going to do it sometime, just be careful and don't be stupid."
 
#13
It's my experience that the only time you can really hold a conversation with a drunk person is when you are drunk yourself.


I'm 16, and literally everyone I knows drinks every weekend, talks about, every story starts with "So I was f**kin wasted..." Teenagers are like that...a lot of them with grow outta it at some point. My advice is to just deal with it, and if you partake, do it rarely and know your limits.

Drugs...that population is thinning out at my school...tobacco is taking the place of coke and weed...which I guess is a small improvement. Chewing is the new fad here.
 
#15
Govithoy, I'm in a similar situation. In my school, drinking/pot are the two big substances people use. To a lesser extent, there is also cocaine, ecstasy, and methamphetamine going around (a student OD'ed on meth about a month ago).

In my group of friends, there are two of us who don't take any substances; me and another friend. It's definitely peer pressure that gets kids to drink/smoke. One of my friends does it purely to fit in; he's pretty insecure with himself in other aspects. Another one of my friends I'm starting to worry about. He drinks on his own as well, and sometimes shows up to school drunk. He goes out to parties almost every weekend and gets drunk and/or high, then drives home. We've been trying to convince him that if he ever needed a ride back, we'd do it, but he's not taking it. I'm actually pretty surprised and thankful he hasn't gotten into an accident yet; one time he was driving home intoxicated and he parked on his neighbor's lawn thinking it was his driveway.

I don't drink or smoke; I might drink socially in college, but just one or two beers, not go out and get trashed.

Vince
 
#16
An awful lot of musicians seem to believe they can only play altered. An even larger number seem to only be able to stretch or move outside when they're altered. It's a serious bore. Music isn't fun enough? You think you play better? I'm pretty libertarian when it comes to, well, everything, but it doesn't mean I don't get annoyed with most of my musician friends being heads.

So, like, I'm middle aged and still involved in this particular teenage drama. My advice: don't be nearby when people are doing things that could get them (and you!) arrested, don't let them drive if you can stop them, don't get in the car under any circumstances, don't hesitate to distance yourself from dangerous (or useless) friends, and don't use giant blue type ever.
 
#17
Stick to you guns, you'll be so glad you did in so many ways in the years to come. If you could time travel to your 20 year reunion (well I'm 43 and been to mine) and look at the dumba$$es who partyed their faces off in school, you'd be amazed!!!!

Most of the hot party girls are burnt out scanks, The jocks are even more brain dead and have hugh beer guts, and most of the cool musicians still live in their parents basement practicing in the garage waiting for there one good gig.

In contrast most of the strait kids are doing great.

Don't let it get to you, you'll find people on your own level and your own terms to hang with :)
 
#18
alot of my freinds in the sixth grade did marajana(i know that's wrong but bear with me)and actually brought it to school and another kid i knew was a drug dealer he also did lsd crack and some heroin so as you can see my school's were pretty messed up
 
#19
Well, let's draw an analogy. If you're a bass player, and you play a decent number of gigs in clubs, you'll find that it's "impossible" not to talk with and associate with people who drink (or use drugs, or whatever). Seems to me, there's some middle ground that needs to be charted here. In other words, if you're doing your job as a band member, you'll probably be socializing with the crowd, telling them about upcoming gigs, trying to get them to put their names on mailing lists, that kind of thing. That doesn't mean "you" have to drink or do drugs, but it's really hard to avoid people that do that kind of thing, isn't it? Would you sacrifice a lot of your gigging opportunities to play in "alcohol-free" venues? Let's see, to be perfectly hilarious about it, "the more you drink, the better we sound". :D
 

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