An Honest Question

I'm reading through Donkette's latest series of posts about her recovery from what seems to be very heavy addiction. It's informative, and something I hope her daughter is reading and aware of.

But I have a question. Not just for Donkette, but for all the recovering (and non-recovering) addicts out there in our little world. Why?

I grew up in a fairly stable middle-class family and never really wanted for anything. I'd say my childhood was average - filled with friends, extra-curricular activities, school, scraped knees, and all those other things one would expect. I went through a tough stretch in grade school where I was essentially friendless and depressed, but that turned around before high school, and I found my niche. High school was standard, where I got good grades, had good friends, and had fun. But here's where paths seem to diverge - I generally stayed out of trouble and NEVER did drugs.

Bear in mind - I was introduced to booze when still in single-digits. Standard curiosity I suppose - dad would have a beer and I was curious. One day he let me have a drink. I suppose most kids screw up their faces and say, "ewww!" But I liked it and wanted more. This isn't a story of addiction though, as I've never come anywhere near alcoholism. Dad would pour me a shot glass of beer every once in a while when he was having one, and I'd sip it. That was all. By my teen years, wine with big family dinners or the occasional beer were no big deal. I never had the desire to have more.

In high school, I hung out with the druggies and the smokers. Not once was I pressured into trying anything. In fact, I became the guy who could be handed a cigarette to hold because everybody knew I wouldn't even be tempted to take a drag. I didn't see the point. Why would I choose to start smoking? It looks ridiculous to have a smoldering stick of paper in your mouth. My generation was well-educated on the perils of smoking and what was actually IN those things. I had no desire to inhale tar, nicotine, and the countless other chemicals and poisons found in a cancer stick. If my friends did, that was their call. I reeked of smoke, but never once took so much as a drag.

Same with the drugs. I'd watch them take speed, drop acid, and smoke up in the park behind the strip mall. Then I'd laugh endlessly as they freaked out over having two left hands or claiming the drugs hadn't kicked in while they were chasing fireflies that nobody else could see. Again, after being asked the first time and refusing, there was never any pressure on me to join in. Maybe they were actually my friends, and not junkies looking for codependents. Hell, I'm still friends with those that didn't get burnt out or fucked up. The hard stuff was seldom seen - there were a couple of them who discovered coke, and tried heroin, but that was kept behind closed doors.

Ditto in University. More than once did I find myself at a party with a bong being passed around, which I gladly passed to my left without even a thought of trying it myself. I was happy to get drunk and loud... but even at my slurry and wobbly-best, drugs weren't an option as far as I was concerned. By this time, anything harder than weed wasn't really seen among my current group of friends, although many had tried others in the past.

I'd seen the burnouts, the freakouts, the flashbacks, and the pathetic lives that resulted from overindulging and addiction. I knew going in that these were all very real possibilites. The seldom-used rational part of my brain seemed to be working here and it was clear to me that the consequences weren't worth the high. Add in a healthy fear of getting caught and the illegality of it, and I was staying clean as a whistle.

I'm honestly not trying to come off as holier-than-thou here. I'm just trying to lay out why I'm confused by this. Most of the stories of recovery that have come out in our group start with "I had a good childhood." Middle-class, stable families with strong values and lots of love. Then they seem to turn on a dime with "I started using drugs around this time." With little rationale behind WHY people started. Was it boredom? Peer pressure? Rebellion against authority? Straight-up stupidity? I mean, if your stories started with "My dad was an abusive jerk who beat my alcoholic mother and me when I wasn't out with the street gangs." I could understand the cultural and societal pressure to some degree. But these stories start with descriptions that could just as easily be my life... why the other path? I even get smoking and weed, to a degree, as they're fairly comparable to alcohol in terms of recreational use. I'm not asking about why you KEPT doing it, or why you couldn't see you were an addict, or why you turned to harder drugs... I'm asking why you tried it that first time, because frankly, I don't get it.