Social Drinking and Drug Use

Post Reply New Topic

Seeing that a lot of my teachers have been heading on a straight course through the "just say no to drugs!" war path over the past week, I have an interesting question to pose to you.

Let's say that you meet someone whom you think might be an "interesting" (define that word at your own leisure) person, and you get to know him.

Let's postulate that he tells you he had a bottle of vodka (how he got it is unimportant) and he invites you over his house to drink the vodka with his friends.

How would you react? Would you be so desperate for social interaction as to accept the influence of peer pressure and say yes, or would you say no and try to explore other means of getting to know this person better?

Personally, even with a lot of thinking, I don't know how I'd react. But here are some thoughts:

My drivers' ed teacher says that anyone who succumbs to peer pressure and says "yes" to a question like that I postulated is automatically a weak person... I beg to differ. If I said "yes" to the proposition of the vodka "party," I think that I am mature enough to know the consequences of my actions, to know that compromises must be made on the road to friendship...

But as well, I could argue, "If this is his way of socialization, is this the type of person I should be befriending?" and continue the search... continue... continue...

I'd suddenly find the person a lot less potentially interesting. On the other hand, if an old friend extended the same invitation, I might feel differently.

I'd say "thanks, but I'm washing my hair that night." I don't want to drink, period, so I'm not going to do so just to make a "friend" (because if getting plastered is their way of relaxing, then I'm pretty sure I don't want to know them).

I would probably feel differently if this person wanted to engage in alcohol related socializing, and decline the invitation. Only because I've had some scary experiences with people who drink

If I had to drink in order to be this person's friend (and like Mark said, not an "old" friend), then I wouldn't.

Free vodka? Sure, I'll come.

I fail to see how accepting the invitation is succumbing to peer pressure, unless you don't want to go and drink alcohol in the first place. If you want that too, then you're making your own decision.

I agree with that completely.

Seconded! Err, I mean thirded! Drink makes me a much more sociable person, and in general I have more fun when I am drunk. I don't drink to excess though... I learnt my lesson about that.

Provided I know them, free alcohol? I'm there!

Being invited to a situation where there will be drinking is much more common when you're an adult (in my case 50) and normal and acceptable than when you're in high school.

When I go out, I generally limit myself to one drink, be it a gin and tonic, or a glass of wine.

Is that Hunter S. Thompson?

I only scanned the original post because I'm getting tired, but you could go to the party and not drink. It's fun to watch drunk people! This really depends if you are not comfortable around drunk people. Personally I prefer hanging around people that are drunk because then if I do something stupid I can just bring up something stupid that they did while they were drunk (the difference is I wasn't drunk when I made the mistake, lol).

But I agree "If this is his way of socialization, is this the type of person I should be befriending?"

I never drank until I was 21 (just recently) and even now I don't understand it. I'm a social ret*d and I don't need alcohol to function in society, yet all these perfectly socially-healthy people feel the need to get drunk so they can socialize. I will never ever understand this behavior.

Although, I've realized that if I just drink a tiny bit to loosen up, and act a tiny bit more drunk than I actually am, I can get away with being a social ret*d because people just say 'boy you're drunk!'. So this is some incentive to drink, but I think the cons outweigh the pros, here.

Before I was 21 I absolutely despised alcohol. Now I'm a little more open to it, even if I don't completetly understand the need for it.

P.S. Don't drink vodka straight out of the bottle, it will mess you up. Who knew?

I think, at that point, it's best not to accept the offer/invitation. From what I've gathered and inferred, it looks as if teenagers drink - for the most part - to get drunk. Wouldn't I - if I may have the liberty to pull a cliche out of the bag of cliches - stick out like a sore thumb if I were the only person not drinking?

Oh, and thanks for the tip abput vodka out of the bottle



I personally think that saying "yes!" to the invitation for alcohol can be succumbing to peer pressure to some people, and not succumbing to others. I simply used that term because my drivers' ed teacher would assume that by saying "yes!" to alcohol, you would automatically be succumbing to peer pressure.

As I stated earlier, I think myself mature enough to evaluate the decision before I make it. I probably would not be succumbing to peer presure...

Well, I'm quite the social scientist; I wouldn't pass up the oportunity to people watch. I'm a wallflower mostly, anyway. No one really notices me if I go to parties where I don't know many people, and if a stranger does notice me I try to pull together as much blunt, crassy sarcasm as possible and I think I pull off that 'cool guy in the corner' personality. That ended up being a really odd tangent. Anyway...

Teenagers do drink to get drunk, and like I said I'll never understand this kind of behavior. But, what I can say is that if you do go and just say 'no thanks' like it's not a big deal, most people respect that (but maybe that's because I'm the cool kid in the corner?). If you really get the impression that they are going to ostracise you, you can offer to be someone's designated driver, or tell them you have a test or something the next day and you don't want a hangover (which I have not experienced, yet).

I'm not sure if my little rant actually helped at all, but it's nearing bed-time so I'll use that as my excuse.

In Las Vegas there is nothing to do but drink. The bars are 24/7 and they never cut you off unless you do something that gets you 86'ed. If you have bad tendencies already, you probably won't even survive if you move out here. This town will eat you for breakfast and fart you out for lunch.

Hmm. So, some dude you've just met wants you to go back to his place with a bottle of booze and some friends. None of whom, presumably, you know.
Call me paranoid (and I do have my moments) but that just sounds off, somehow. That's all just assuming aleclair's male. If it was, say, my daughter asking me the same question, I'd have to seriously re-think my opinion of her judgement. I'm sure they're nice guys n so on, but...
Desperation for social contact is one thing, but not at the expense of personal safety.
You can have social contact, with or without booze/pot/etc, in much safer settings. I'm not sayin' you need to wear body armor and only invite people into your compound after your security men have cavity-checked them and put them through the UV-chamber by any means, just keep your head on straight. People who feel the need to exert that kind of pressure on me are not my peers, at least not by my standards. My homies don't play that.

this public safety announcement brought to you by the letters 'a' and '2'.