Teen Drugs - Teen Drinking

April 10, 2008

Drugs - Alcohol
Why do teens get involved with drugs and alcohol? Their peers do it, and it’s a way for them to escape an empty void or they think it impresses others (cool). One thing my dad told me when I was experimenting with marijuana was - “it’s ok to try it, just don’t get hooked”.

Now the effect of my father telling me that did two things. First, it took the excitement part out of it, he said it was ok (no longer a rebelment tactic). Secondly, he left it up to me to decide. Not that I was a heavy user, I just did it because everyone else did. I actually didn’t like the feeling of being high, because I felt I wasnt in control. Plus it made me nauseous.

Pills, cocaine and things like that - I am proud to admit I never did any of those! Even though many of my friends in my college years were doing cocaine, I never did or wanted to do it. And you know what? They respected me for not wanting to do it. What was even stranger, was when someone else outside of our group asked me if I wanted some, my friends would say “no! he doesn’t want any” and they would actually get upset for that person offering it to me. Maybe since I was the youngest in the group, they felt like an older brother. Either way, they watched out for me and respected me and so I had a great respect for them.

Not that I was strong or anything like that, I just didn’t want it. BUT that could have been easily changed. About 10 years later, I was seeing a girl who wanted to try cocaine. I called some of my old friends and asked if they had any. Luckily they didn’t and so we never tried it. The same went for exctasy. She wanted to try it, but since I couldn’t find any, we didn’t try it. Actually I had one friend that had some, but she didn’t want to be responsible if something were to happen, so she refused to give me any.

So true friends can respect you for your decisions and keep you from harm. But a girl I wanted to impress could easily have changed my morals and what I had fought for so many years - keeping drug free.

russ