Friends at school, and their "recreational" habits...

LegacyUser

I have good few friends at school, primarily some from the dossers and whatever of the year. I'm in Junior Cert year in a town in the west of ireland.

It is daunting to me that there are people destroying their lives doing drugs. Worse again, not only are they trying drugs, they are bragging to their friends, and me about it.

"Guess what! I just took four magic mushrooms"
"Anyone up for a joint"

I'm a lad who's up for the craic, not exactly an angel, and I drink alcohol. But I am seeing lads more sensible than me being dragged down, and down, and down to the addiction level. I've tried a joint before, i hated it, but thats probably the only reason I dont do drugs. Now I ma looking in from the sensible angle, seeing the dangers. It is horrifying to see that drugs are seen as a social idea rather than a dangerous, addictive thing to do.

I have a good friend, who you could call a bit of an eejit, but a brainly lad all the same. He(along with his whole family) were excellent gaelic players. He played gaelic so much so that he got a pain in his leg. He went to the doctor and the doctor said not to play gaelic for two months.

In this time, he began smoking, binge drinking much worse than ever before, and began taking regular joints throughtout the school day. Just the last day, he came running up to us bragging that he'd taken four magic mushrooms.

I am a male by the way, and attend an all boys school btw.

How do you tell a child to cop the **** on? How do you stop these people from turning themselves into total assholes? I, unlike some, do care for my friends, and I would like my friends to grow up with better/equal oppurtunities to me. I can see how drugs have affected other people, including my brother who regularly drives under the influence of recreational drugs, and alcohol.

I understand that I would probably be in the same situation, excpept for I've seen the impacts of drugs from hash to coke to ecstacy, and my circumstances dont really allow me to get the habit in the first place, but when you see friends like the one I described, who's just gonna blow all his oppurtunites in sport for a fag and a joint.

How can i tell this eejit with selective hearing to have a bit of cop on?

/rant

Beruthiel

No-ID wrote: »

How can i tell this eejit with selective hearing to have a bit of cop on?

In short, you can't.
We all think we can handle whatever it is we get up, at your age, even more so.
14 to 18 are toughest years of your life imo. You want to be 'in' with your peers and appear cool. Fair play to you for having a good head on your shoulders and for keeping it there while all around you seem to be loosing theirs.
As for your friend, you could have a chat with him when ye are alone and he is sober.
Ask him where he thinks this will lead him to and is it were he wants to end up.
Other than that, at the end of the day, we all have to answer to ourselves and we are the only ones who can sort ourselves out.

When my daughter was your age, she went through something simular, her friends were getting into stuff she did not want to do, eventually she could see if she continued hanging around with them they would and were dragging her down.
She found some new friends and put distance between herself and her old ones. In this life, you have to look out for number one first.
I know it's difficult for you to get this now, but by the time you hit your twenties, you will have a whole new set of friends and will have left your old ones behind.
This is due to the amount of changes you go through in life and the fact ye no longer have anything in common.
Not much help to you now, but look around, I'm betting you know others who are on your wave length. Other than that, you stick to your guns and be there for your mate if he comes looking for help.

dade

have to agree with Beruthiel on this.
if this guy wants to piss his life away there's not much you can do. When i was in high school I saw the exact same thing only it was my cousin, we grew up together being of similar ages. anyway he was trying everything as a teenager always had money coz his family where well off, me on the other hand had to work almost every weekend so never got into the whole drinking in the fields bit (how empty where my teenage years??) anyway 15 years on every weekend he's out getting smashed drunk and almost always ends up with someones fist in his face, many an occasion he's ended up in A&E over it. this guy had brains to burn but ended up flunking college, the whole lot.

you seem to have a good head on your shoulders you can see the problems these things can cause you. have a chat to the lad and just tell him of your fears for him. if he tells you where to go then you can at least tell yourself that you tried.

Rnger

"I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day."

bill hicks put it better then i ever will

its never a good idea to say drugs arent that bad... but theyre not that bad imo

/bad advice

Tzetze

OP, at your age (mid-adolescence) the mind and brain are still very much in developmental stages. It is not wise to to take mind-altering substances on a regular basis.

If and when drugs become legalised/decriminalised/regulated, you can be sure that they will only be available to adults (18+).

Your friends are perfectly entitled to do whatever they like to their own bodies, but please urge them to do what they can to educate themselves fully with the effects that mushies and spliff will have on a still developing mind.

There are many websites that will do this out there in an objective, non-patronising way.

www.erowid.org
www.drugs-forum.co.uk

-Leelo-

Had a similar situation myself when I was in school. Was a bit older than you though, about 17, and hung around wit a group of girls who were mad into drugs, mostly coke & pills & stuff. I had always been curious and went through a phase of being just as bad as them, staying out all weekend without letting my parents know where I was, struggling in school during the week from the effects of the weekend, I became really paranoid and aggressive until one day I caught myself being really irrational about something trivial and couldn't believe the person I'd become. So I took a step back from all the drugs I was doing. I tried to talk sense into my friends but they didnt see it the way I did, they lived their lives a day at a time and didnt worry about the future.
In the end I broke ties with them and that was it, I've never regretted it. Unfortunately there's just no way of telling people what they dont want to hear. Your best bet is to say outstraight 'listen you're acting the clown and Im sick of watching you destroy ur future' and If your friends dont listen to you and cop on its in your best interest to get away from them, because pretty soon they'll get a name for being into drugs and you'll be associated with them so your name is dragged through the muck too.
Sad as it seems you have to be your own number 1 priority in situations like these.

ntlbell

wow, how do these threads get so dramatic.

Live your own life OP and let others live there's.

If you want tell them how you feel, and if you're not happy then move on and find new friends but being judgmental and assuming people aren't ldeading the correct lifestyle makes you the ars*hole not them.

Look after yourself everything else will look after itself.

togster

Meh...
Drugs are bad full stop. But like ntbell said look after yourself. As you get older you will realise that you can't make people change. They have to want too. A bit of a cliche but true IMO.

I was a pot-head, coke-head, pill head etc. etc. No amount of talking got through but i learned it the hard way myself. Broken relationships,crashed cars, broken bones the list is endless. People will say not everyone is like that" but do you really want to find out? Lifes too short. Live your own and be there when they need you.

Take care:)

PeakOutput

i didnt read all the replies so they may or may not be the exact opposite to what im going to say but regardless

first of all they are not NECESSARILY ruining their lives by taking drugs they will more than likely end up in the majority of recreational drug users who either stop as they get a bit older and smarter or they will recreationally use drugs for maybe the rest of their lives. it is a minority of drug users who end up ruining their lives over it / getting uncontrolably addicted etc. edit; its also a minority who recreationally carry it on threw their hole lives in my experience

thats not to say it does not happen and when it does you need to be there to recognise it and be the mature person and help your mate get help weather he likes it or not. i had to do this with a mate of mine who had a problem with drink and while it did not do much good it was the right thing to do.

my family has been very badly affected by drugs both legal and illegal but i still cant justify the general scare tactics used against anyone who has a few spliffs or whatever as i know countless more people who have had their drugs and progressed threw life from then on fine than i do whos life has been ruined by it

sjaakie

i have a daughter who is now 16 and is very attrackted to drugs, alcohol, sex and all the other edgy things in life.

i have a son who is now 18 who is not at all attackted to the above.

it depends on the person within the person.

you can only hope that your mates will see sense in the future, pointless to try to convert them.

monkey tennis

Your friends are starting to grow into adults, and won't appreciate you sticking your oar in, trying to tell them how to run their lives. By the way, just about everyone I have ever known experimented with drugs (this includes nicotine and alcohol) in their teens, and none of them have destroyed their lives so far.

No-ID wrote: »

It is horrifying to see that drugs are seen as a social idea rather than a dangerous, addictive thing to do.

Yet you drink alcohol. Double standards? Or just overreaction to relatively harmless substances?

Overheal

I picked them up for a while but not terribly - just the weed/hash.

my oldest brother, 23, gave it up this year after many many years of it - cos his g/f hates it. good on him; hes happy.

other brother, 21, drinks and smokes like a fish in a polder: cant convince him to stop - even though he spends half his earnings on it.

I, took em up when I use to visit them, did it for real myself in Leaving Cert, and gave it up after I failed and had to repeat.

All you can do for your friends IMO is to hope they finally have that slap-in-the-face moment and that it happens sooner rather than later.

LegacyUser

Yet you drink alcohol. Double standards? Or just overreaction to relatively harmless substances?

I'm not an angel as i said earlier.

I will go out, get drunk(but never so much as that I havent been able to stand up), I will go to a disco, have the craic, go home, and if I'm caught drinking, I get grounded for a few weeks. Thats the law in my house.

My friend on the other hand does drugs, and i have tried drugs, but the difference is that he is becoming addicted, and not addicted in the way that you have a joint every night because you feel like it, more like you have two joints a day because you need it.

I have a brother who goes out driving for a few hours and will come back drunk to his eyes in the car, and who used to have e-tabs in front of me. He worked in a pub when he was 17/18 years of age. He earned €300 per week during summer and spent every single penny of it(drugs, alcohol and cigarettes). It gives me shivers when he goes driving because I dont know in what state he's going to come back, or if he's even going to come back at all.

I know my friend is going to turn out like that, and I know it for certain. I know drugs are just a phase, but for people like him, it can be sure it's a life wrecker. In other people's cases, I dont mind, because i know that they'll be off the drugs again soon enough.

I don't want to shove my oar in and tell him to cop the hell on, but I'm going to have to tell him in some way or another. I'll be honest, I hpope he gets arrested or gets put in hospital, the sooner the better. There is just no other way of telling him. It's not sopmething I like to admit, but it might be a wake up for all concerned.

PeakOutput

No-ID wrote: »

I will go out, get drunk

My friend on the other hand does drugs

there is the irish mentality all over. I assume you see the contradiction there.

you are probably doing as much if not more damage by getting drunk at the weekends as he is having a spliff or two everyday. im not saying he dosnt have a problem, he might, im just saying 2 joints of hash a day really is sweet **** all.

i would recommend concentrating your efforts on your brother for the moment tbh

Seraphina

look, i've been taking drugs since i was 16
hash/weed pills coke acid mushies you name it ive done it.
did extremely well in my leaving cert, went on to college, did very well there (2.1 honours)
i'm now in another country studying for a masters in one of the best colleges in the world for my chosen field.

drugs dont ruin or 'take over' your life, but some people are idiots and just can't control themselves. your friends might be like that, or they might cop on at some stage.

trying to tell them they're wrong will only drive them further away.

vorbis

I'd do a bit of hash myself from time to time. I'd have to say 2 jounts a day, every day would be a bit much imo. The regular weed smokers I know would only average 1 a day. It does sound like he's getting into it too much. You can tell him you're worried about him but it is really him that has to change.

As for your brother, tbh if that was my brother, I'd tell him to cop the **** on or I'd call the cops. If he ever kills someone on his way home, I'd have a hard time telling myself that protecting my brother was more important than that person's life.

ntlbell

Seraphina wrote: »

look, i've been taking drugs since i was 16
hash/weed pills coke acid mushies you name it ive done it.
did extremely well in my leaving cert, went on to college, did very well there (2.1 honours)
i'm now in another country studying for a masters in one of the best colleges in the world for my chosen field.

drugs dont ruin or 'take over' your life, but some people are idiots and just can't control themselves. your friends might be like that, or they might cop on at some stage.

trying to tell them they're wrong will only drive them further away.

So did you post to tell us...

How intelleigent you are?

You can take a fuc* load of drugs and still be intelligent?

Some people who go to college previously took drugs?

Some people who do well in college's are up to their eyes in all sorts of class A drugs but are just not idiots enough to let it effect their studies?

can you explain your point a bit i'm confused.

PeakOutput

ntlbell wrote: »

can you explain your point a bit i'm confused.

does it sound like his life has been ruined by drugs?

Seraphina

my point is, drugs do not turn people into wasters/idiots/assholes/whatever

people do it themselves by being unable to exert any kind of self control or common sense.

you cannot change people, you cannot 'make them see' what they're doing is 'stupid'. you cannot impose your views on drugs on other people. at the end of the day, people will do what they want, you gotta accept that, and walk away if you dont like it.

the kid is getting all high and mighty about his friends being stupid for taking drugs, when he's an underage drinker himself. his mates are just gonna ignore him.

OP the best you can do is maybe suggest not taking drugs in school, they wont look on it too kindly if they find out, and if they're expelled for taking drugs, they wont get into another school, then they're ****ed.

if they dont care, well they're muppets, and you should go find some other mates.

Dudess

Yeah, I'm in my late 20s now and of all the people I know who were/are into drugs (a lot of people - and some of them took far too much) those who have "ruined their lives" are very much in the minority - a tiny, tiny minority. I'm talking three or four people. Even those who did look like they were gonna hit rock bottom by their early or mid-20s got their sh*t together.
All this "drugs will ruin your life" stuff is created by the Daily Mail and other tabloid media, as well as self-appointed moral guardians like Gráinne Kenny, president of Europe Against Drugs.
Heroin is extremely addictive and will ruin your life, the other stuff might (especially coke) but more than likely won't if you have control over it, not the other way round. There's a reason why the term "recreational" is used - most people only use drugs on a Saturday night or at a party.