Going to tell a story here. It's a long one that spans many years but I will try to make it short. I married at 17 because I did not do drugs or drink alcohol, never fit in with the groups and felt I had nothing to gain by staying in high school, took summer classes to graduate in 11 years. Married a good Christian man and we had 2 beautiful kids. In our 3rd year of marriage he decided to open a package store. The man was brilliant and everything he touched was golden. He made a lot of money, very fast, and opened a nightclub, which was also very successful. Then he had to have gallbladder surgery. I have no doubt that he was in pain and needed the painkillers. 3 months later he got into a fight at the store and broke his right jowl which had to be operated on and wire together for 8 weeks. Took a lot of pain killers for that. Then 6 months later while still taking the pain killers, he dove into our swimming pool and broke a bone in his neck. Very lucky he wasn't paralyzed. Then eventually, I realized there was a problem. We later divorced because of drug dealers coming to the house, drugs dropped out of shirts that my son found and ate at the age of 3. He was 29 and began a long period of rehabs, rehabs, and rehabs. At the end he was taking 50 lortabs a day. The man was a millionaire but died at the age of 43. He was living in a half way house, awaiting a trial for robbery and had nothing with the exception of 23 bibles which had been studied extensively. He was straighter than I had known him to be for the first time in over 20 years and he was hit by a drunk driver and killed. The only good thing to come out of this was our children. There was no lie that could be told to them that could make drugs enticing. They knew the truth. Their Dad lacked the coping skills he needed through his life. Being a Christian raised Baptist he went against all he had been taught and sold alcohol. He never could justify that with his religious beliefs but he also could not find a way to let go of the easy money that came with it. It does not matter what the issue is, if a person cannot live within themselves, they have to resolve the issue or dull the senses enough to numb the feelings that come with it. Recreational drugs or casual drinking are not in and of themselves the problem. Some walk away, or "grow up" as many of you have stated, but there is a underlying danger of reliance that becomes a silent killer for so many without coping skills. You wake up and realize you are using that drug as a crutch for what ever you cannot deal with. It creeps up slowly and then bang, you need it. Do most later over come? Yes. But for those who need that crutch, it becomes life consuming. He was a good, kind, giving, brilliant mind, who had a weakness that that the drugs feed on and ate away at all those attributes until only a shadow of the real man was left.
So say what you want, but the DANGER is there, even if you want to deny it. Sorry for the post being so long, but maybe it will help one person who reads this. Yes, I will probably get blasted, blast away, I know the TRUTH. I had a front row seat.