Blog Challenge: Day 3

If you are just tuning in, I'm participating in a Pinterest BLOG CHALLENGE. This is day 3. (I'm a little behind because of a mini vacay we just got back from)

Day three's challenge is: my views on drugs and alcohol.

Personally I've "been there, done that" with the party scene, in the sense of drinking heavily. I did it when I was a senior in high school (it is legal in Canada to drink at the age of 19) and throughout college, as I was dealing with a break up! Drinking for me was just an escape from my misery and the very next day when I awoke in the morning all that misery returned along with a hang over. It was pointless. Alcohol did not change anything. That's not to say I don't enjoy a drink or two. Because I do. I am a very social drinker. I will have a beer or cocktail with a friend over dinner or appetizers, or just hanging out and then I cut myself off. I am too practical I guess. I know that anyone beyond that I will have the "after effects" which will interrupt my sleep and it will make me grouchy the next day and my kids will STILL wake up at 6:30 and I will STILL have to be mom for the day, so there is no point in starting the day off on the wrong foot with a hang over.

I think it's sad to see people using it as a way to be social or to be the life of the party because I know all too well that the alcohol is only disguising something bigger going on with them. We had a friend commit suicide because he drank away his grief when his best friend died. Suddenly one night in his drunken stuper, he decided he could not handle it anymore, and he shot himself. All of us felt responsible for that because we knew he was struggling but accepted him as the party animal instead of the grieving friend and didn't do enough to help him. It became all too real when my high school friends and I were attending his funeral on CHRISTMAS EVE. That whole series of events changed my perspective completely on how I view alcohol and why I make conscious decisions to not drink too heavily; especially when I am going through my own personal struggles.

As for drugs, I have never done them personally. As a teenager growing up, I knew plenty of people who had, but the practical side of me just didn't see the need to try it myself. In my opinion, I already had an outgoing personality and I could legally drink as a senior in high school, why add the downer? I just didn't get  why people would take it to the next level.

I still don't. But again, I use my common sense too much I guess! :-)