I have never tried drugs or alcohol. In fact, I have never been chemically inebriated by anything. Why?
A lot of things. I think that the strongest reason was seeing and hearing what they could do to you at an early age. I knew that not every single person who puffs a joint ends up sucking off hobos for crack money, but I saw enough to know it could happen.
I knew early on that I was an addictive personality. I have no casual interests. I like something, and I like it A LOT. I cannot get enough of anything, therefore getting into something that
propagates itself in that manner would be a self infected virus for me.
I also noticed that when I went out, the trill of getting dressed up, listening to great music, and being around people whom I cared for was a great thing for me. I would see all these 14 year old punk girls complaining that they were bored because they were not drunk or tripping. I always felt that they were missing out on life and maybe even getting a head start on ruining it early on. Kind of like how some people get into college a few years early, but on the
integer scale instead.
I also noticed that, while it does look cool, everyone started smoking freshman year of
high school and senior year went crazy trying to stop. I am a very lazy person, and it dawned on me that I could skip two steps in the process and never start to begin with and end up where everyone else wished they could be at.
The last reason: Influences. My parents were never very controlling. Rebellion was a moot point because I had no desire to piss off my parents because it was not as if they were the oppressive squares who I had to
prove something to. Also, my three favorite musical influences, Devo, Information Society, and
Weird Al never made mention of using drugs. I later found out that Information Societies lead singer, Kurt Harland, never used drugs or
alcohol.
NOW, clarification:
I do not think drug users are bastard ass low lives. Many of the people close to me have been drug users at on point or another, and I figure that if they turned out OK, then who am I to judge.
I went to Michigan one year on a goth road trip. This was around the time that S.H.A.R.P.S. (Skinheads AGAINST Racial
Prejudice) and Vegans (People who never eat or use any animal byproducts EVER) were a big thing. The vegans were the worst because they would try to make you feel like shit about eating a burger. They were consumed by this abstaining lifestyle (in fact, a lot were sexually
abstinent too, but by the looks of them, I would say that the self imposition of that state was kind of robbing the bank after it burned down if you catch my drift)
"Okaaaaaay," I remember thinking to myself at the time, "So now we are defining ourselves by what we are NOT, as opposed to what we ARE" plus you had the S.H.A.R.P.S. going around acting like they deserved a gold star for NOT being racist. Hey, way to go guys, you deserve a lot of recognition for embracing the lowest common denominator of basic common sense (IE: It is bad to judge based on what people look like) Way to go, you get to graduate Sesame Street University now.
At any rate, there you have my views on drugs.