Straight Edge

I have been straight edge for my whole life.

In high school, when all of the cool kids started drinking, I just didn't. The times I spent hanging out with friends was time spent wandering malls, going on adventures, golfing, playing music, etc. Drinking or smoking just never happened. I was curious like everyone, but I never really had the opportunity presented to me. I was a special kid in high school- because of my humor and blatant honesty and ability to make fun of myself and anyone else, I could sit with anyone, and sometimes would sit with the cool kids or the hockey kids (the coolest of the cool), but I primarily liked hanging out with the "losers-" the geeks and nerds who, if I wasn't at a private school, probably would have been beaten up regularly. I identified with them the most- we laughed at the stupidest things in the world and never bowed to any pressure to be anything that we weren't. We never felt like we had to fit in, and, adding to the fact that we weren't exactly invited to parties, never got in the usual high school situation of getting pressured into drinking or smoking. My best friends ran the gamut of cliques, and this meant that I could hang out with different groups or have great one on one time with them, but never really went to the "cool" world, where all the drinking happened. So, I didn't drink through all of high school.

Towards the end of my high school years, we had a class-wide party in a friend's field. You know the party- parents left us alone with a watchful eye from afar, there was a huge fire, the cliques for the most part stayed together but slowly blended, the weirdos (me) threw frisbees in the dark, and the cooler kids drank and made out in the woods. This was my first real exposure to drinking. And it was probably a lot different from most peoples'. I got to hear the panic and rumor mill start up when suddenly two people who weren't even friends were rumored to have had unprotected sex in the woods. I got to see the panic when someone who had had way too many nearly fell into the middle of our campfire. I got to join the rescue party when it was reported that someone had wandered into the woods and was planning on drowning himself in the water down the hill. I got to watch several classmates who I had looked up to or had crushes on turn into quivering, disastrous messes who were throwing up on themselves and crying uncontrollably.

Awhile later, after prom, we all went to some camp on the lake, and I got my first taste of what college would be: I sat by the fire playing guitar and laughing at stories from our past while the cool kids were screaming and cheering each other on, taking drink after drink in a building up the hill. One of these people was my ride back home the next morning, and I got to watch him throw up for a solid half hour after drinking something like 30 beers. A zombie drove me home the next morning. I wondered if he would survive the ride back to his house- he looked dead, and I honestly was surprised all he did was throw up a lot and pass out.

I went to college a few months later, and moved into the Jersey Shore of dorms: "The straight edge maker." Save for my roommate and the kid across the hall (who are still two of my closest friends) and the kid next door (who should be president one day, but won't, because he's not a lying sack of evil), this hallway was filled with some of the worst, should-just-have-been-shot-on-the-first-day-of-college-to-save-the-world-from-them misfits that ever attended Plymouth State College. I had been curious about drinking and wondered if college would be where I, like all of the world, would explore this idea. Nope. A girl down the hall dropped out of college the next year with a 0.00 GPA. There was a stain in front of our door for the entirety of our freshman year because a guy down the hall dropped a bucket of puke there (and continued on down the hall, believing he was still carrying it), and there was a blood stain on the carpet across the hall from where two drunk girls beat each other up one night. Actually, I take that back- I'm pretty sure one was on coke. My neighbor on the other side started his life at Plymouth State with good grades and a promising life. He ended it by failing every class and waking up on his last day with penises drawn all over his face and upper body, as he had passed out from drinking too much, and his best friends cared about him enough to make it worse. I watched people crying in huddled balls on stairways, people passed out on bathroom floors in puke and piss puddles, relationships end, fights happen, etc. You know how it is. I sat in my room on Friday nights and wondered why people wanted anything to do with alcohol, as it became pretty easy to trace every problem these people were going through back to it.

A few months into college, I met someone nicknamed So-fly. We were talking, and I said something about not drinking. He said, "you don't drink? So you're straight edge?" I had no idea what this was, but later agreed that yes, I must be straight edge. Through him, I not only learned about tons of amazing music, but learned all about the world of straight edge. It was based in the hardcore/punk scene, arguably based around a band I never liked- Minor Threat. It was generally defined as no drinking, no smoking, no drugs. Some people added caffeine in with the idea of drugs. Some didn't even drink cough medicine when they got sick because there's alcohol in it. Some (me) didn't even eat food if it was cooked in alcohol, much to the chagrin of friends who didn't understand how I didn't understand that the alcohol was cooked off in the process. Most just defined it as no drugs or alcohol- and caffeine and cough medicine were ok, since you weren't drinking them to really change the way your brain worked (even though caffeine definitely does...)- it was more based on not falling into the idea that you could only have fun and be popular if you drank alcohol. In the early days, there were even gangs who beat up people who weren't edge. There was a subculture behind it, and just like any culture, money to be made on t-shirts and stickers. There was a terrible news report on it and countless documentaries (just search youtube), books, etc. I put X's around my instant messenger names, I wore an XXX necklace, and was proud of having an identifier like that to label myself to passersby who often didn't even know what it meant. Meeting someone at a show or finding out that the weird kid with tattoos and cool t-shirts on campus was also straight edge was always a great feeling- I immediately felt like we were kindred spirits in a world we lived in direct opposition to. I hated a lot of the straight edge bands, but loved the idea of what they were singing about- that these people who hated what they saw drugs and alcohol do to people they cared about decided to take a vow against that world, and unite through music and ideals. It was hard not to get behind Earth Crisis when they screamed "I AM STRAIGHT EDGE" over an enormous breakdown in "Gomorrah's Season Ends." When Converge yelled "You call it your right, I call it your weakness" (in "Fact Leaves Its Ghost), it got me all fired up. I started to become THAT guy- the guy who went through college with loser straight edge kids, hating everyone around me. And it wasn't hard. I let them be, but if I was out skateboarding with my edge friends or friends who just didn't feel like drinking every night, it was pretty much guaranteed that some group of dudeguys would hit us with a "SKATE OR DIE!! FAGS!!" or some other asshole frat boy fight challenge.

I got along with everyone though. For the first two years of college, with the exception of probably my closest friend Nate, everyone I was close to drank. I went to parties, and either just acted like an idiot (which usually came naturally) or sometimes pretended I was drunk or even tripping just to mess with people. I was asked to leave a few different parties because people thought I was "too fucked up." My friends would get destroyed, and, for the most part, they'd be fine with me not drinking. We all had fun in our own ways. I tried not to judge them, and they returned the favor. But I would always return to hell. Walking back to my dorm room was always a nightmare: what would I run into this time? Would I see a body passed out on the way back? Where would there be a fight? Would I be able to use the bathroom, or would there just be piss and puke all over the floor? Would someone be half dead on the floor of the stall? I'd sit in my room and just stew. I lived in headphones and the internet, trying to escape a world I wanted nothing to do with.

A lot of freshman year was spent on instant messenger, trying to stay connected to high school friends. You can imagine how that went. They'd write back drunk, mistyping everything, telling me about what drugs they had done and endless details of their adult world I didn't want to live in. I felt lost and disconnected from people around me and people from the past. We had tons of fun and got along, but there were always the moments when everything would change and things would get weird- they'd get drunk and I wouldn't. Even when it worked the best that it could, it was always weird.

My freshman year was a constant reminder that I didn't belong in this world. I just wanted to go back to high school where I didn't know any of this existed, where I could be crazy and goofy without being asked what drugs I was on. I wanted to go back to a world where every Monday morning class was something other than conversations of who got fucked up where and how fucked up they got and how many beers did you have? Oh dude, I drank way more than that. I wanted to be a kid again (still do). I wrote a paper for a creative writing class, detailing my love of innocence and childhood, juxtoposed with what my friends were doing or telling me they did- I think I scared my teacher. I kind of scared myself.

Sophomore year was better. People got over their excitement about drinking, or at least I was able to escape them more. I also met the people I currently live with- Rich and Josh- two people who loved hardcore and metal, comic books, art, movies and junk food, and didn't drink. They weren't as militant about it as the world I had been learning about- they just did their thing and stayed as far away from what they hated as they could. I spent the remainder of college dividing my time between my friends who drank, my friends who didn't, and the radio station. And I never drank an ounce of alcohol. I learned to be more accepting of other people's lives as long as they were accepting of mine. "You don't drink?! WHY?!"s slowly morphed into more "that's cool man, I totally respect that"s.

Straight edge is often misunderstood- from the violence that happened a lot in the beginning to the idea that if you're straight edge, you hate everyone who isn't. I think much like people going too far when they start drinking, straight edge people go too far when they discover the label and label themselves that way- it becomes incredibly easy to divide yourself from the entire world. You're the outcast, you're the weird one. Yet you're the one who is being smart and not risking your life to have the fun you can have without alcohol- it's easy to see how there will always be a dividing line based on judgement and anger. You're basing a large part of your life on refusing to do something that everyone else around you does. How can the other people not judge you and think you're a jerk for hating their way of life when your identity is partly created by trying to be the complete opposite of them? And how can you not, in turn, hate these people as well? They're judging you right back, and have the entire world on their side. The ability to accept each other and the ability for a straight edge person to hang out with drinkers and not judge or be angry is really only something that comes with conversation, understanding, and most importantly, time. Years pass and you start to find your way. You learn to not have to deal with the things you don't like seeing, and if you do, you accept that as long as the drinkers aren't making fun of you for not drinking, you only have to see it in small amounts, and jokes the next day usually alleviate any stress or anger towards peoples' actions while they were drunk. It's tough, but it's growth.

In the last few years, I've slowly cared less and less about being straight edge. It started feeling stupid to label myself as being against something that literally, with the exception of like 3 people, every one of my friends does, and more often than not, does responsibly and without incident. College was over. A lot of these people are married and have kids. So what if they have a beer with dinner and go out a couple weekends a month and occasionally drink a little too much and get goofy and stupid? I started to see why most people who were straight edge in their teens and twenties break edge in their later twenties or thirties. The anger kind of fades away- it's tiring. The judgement becomes less important. Your friends accept you; you accept them. The "wait- you don't drink!? WHY!?"s nearly completely go away. And the idea that always stuck with me how the very idea that drinking is so accepted and normal that it's mind boggling to NOT drink stopped bothering me as much. I've always been someone who automatically doesn't like being part of something if everyone is doing it. I don't have some urge to always be different, I am just psychologically and maybe even genetically driven to never be anything even close to part of the group mentality- the idea that we're all sheep and the reason we all do what we do is because that's just how it's done. That was always a big part of me not wanting to drink. I was expected to, so I didn't want to. But as time went by, I started feeling like this idea was more of a barrier against living a free life than anything- if I was going to not do something just because other people did and were expected to, wasn't my life being just as constrained by societal expectations and defined roles and ways of doing things? Wasn't I just the opposite of that design, and therefore, just as much a part of it?

I slowly discovered that pretty much all of the kids in the "scene" I went to shows with for years had broken edge. So-fly himself broke. I judged them- I said they just couldn't make it and gave up the fight. My friend Dan from college, who was very militant and had a straight edge tattoo, broke. I hated him at first, but soon saw that he hadn't really changed that much, he just liked drinking from time to time. Rich broke 2 years ago, and Heath shortly thereafter. This was huge, as they were 2 big parts of the small group of straight edge people I knew. With the exception of Josh and distant friend Brian, it seemed like the only people who were still straight edge were people who loved and had always loved the music it came from- that over time, the idea of being straight edge didn't stray far from that world, and when it did, it died out in the hearts of people who didn't want to sing along to songs they never cared about. It had really always been closely related to the world surrounding that kind of music, and as we all got older and farther away from that world, we saw it less and it mattered less. With all of my friends breaking, I changed from feeling like I was truly alive to feeling like I was somehow missing something. It began to feel silly to be against nearly all of my friends. I began to truly feel alone in a belief that I wasn't certain I believed in anymore.

Most people who have ever been straight edge chose that lifestyle after drinking first, then deciding to not drink later. I'm the only one I know who never drank first. I could list the times I had alcohol (except for cough syrup- come on) on 1 hand: A sip or two of Dad's beer when I was a little kid and said "what's that? can I try it?," a glass of champagne at a wedding when I was like 10, a chocolate mousse drink with alcohol in it I had in high school, and the most recent- a hot chocolate with Bailey's Irish Cream in it that was served to me when I worked at Waterville Valley. I drank half the glass and said "this is some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had- why is this so good!?" and was answered with "because I put Bailey's in it." I tried to play it cool, but my chest instantly got hot with nervousness- oh shit, I had just broken edge completely by accident. But I didn't know there was alcohol in it, so did I? I loved it, and I drank the rest. Was I doing that to play it cool and not be the guy that instantly freaks out and stops drinking it just because there's alcohol in it? Or did I really like it and was secretly excited that I could still say I was straight edge and get away with this drink? A lot of people would probably say that I broke edge that day. I'd say 9 years of not drinking after that more than made up for that 1 drink. But I would tell that story to friends, and tell them how I felt weird- light headed, goofy, having trouble focusing, etc. They'd say, "yea, that's a buzz," and I'd laugh with them. I think I definitely wanted to belong- it was fun to both be straight edge AND have that experience. It was the high school cafeteria all over again- I was on both sides. 

I haven't been straight edge for years. I didn't break edge, but over time, I simply no longer believed in the way I was choosing to live. When strangers asked me why I was straight edge, my usual answer of "it's just not anything I'm interested in doing. I never have, so I just kind of stayed that way" turned to "I don't know," and eventually became the brutally honest, "because I'm too scared not to be." People would always get serious with me when I said that- laughing nervously and pulling the whole "oh come on man, it's not like that, you just don't want to drink, and that's fine" answer to try and make me feel better. But I would immediately correct them: "No, honestly- I'm terrified to drink. I'm terrified to NOT be straight edge."

I identified myself as straight edge for so long and it was such an important part of my life- it was such an obvious identity and dividing line that I was terrified to be anything but that. If I wasn't straight edge anymore, who the hell was I? People always thought that I was actually scared that I would immediately become an alcoholic or 1 drink would turn into 20 and I'd be fighting with people, crying, and driving home into a tree. While that's not entirely a baseless fear (I tend to have an addictive personality and am either all in or all out), it was never the reason. When I first started questioning it, I was worried what friends would think of me, but as they all started breaking edge, it became less of a concern. And as I grew older, I have at least started to care less what people think of me. Honestly, it couldn't be more simple- I was just too scared to break edge.

The other part of it was this: If I broke edge, I would be admitting that I couldn't live life without the aid of alcohol. I know this is a strong statement, but for so many years, a large reason I never wanted anything to do with drinking was because it seemed like people only did it to have fun, to fit in, to be more relaxed in social situations, to be able to talk to girls, etc. It was the "social lubricant-" "liquid courage." People drank it as a way to make life easier and more fun. As I often do, I took a big stand on that- my feeling was that yes, they appeared to be having more fun than me, but they weren't living life- they were living a false version of it, with all the hard parts watered down and made easier by drinking some magical potion. I was actually living what life was. My perception and experiences were real, actual life, no matter how boring or depressing it was. Deciding to drink would be admitting to the world that no, I can't make it without alcohol. I couldn't live a true honest life without drinking the potion that makes everything easier, more fun and less depressing.

But I began to see through both of these reasons- If I was too scared to stop being straight edge, all I had to do was overcome that barrier and decide to live a life without that label and crutch. If I decided to drink to see what the drinks I'd been hearing about for 15 years tasted like, would that really be me admitting I couldn't make it through life without them? Wouldn't that really only be applicable if I literally was having a terrible day and just chugged vodka to shut the day out? Or if I was going to a party where I didn't know many people and just drank a ton before I went? I wasn't doing any of that stuff- so would just trying some drinks and exploring the world of alcohol really be me "not being able to live without alcohol?" No, of course not. I could live that way- I have for my whole life. I just didn't want to anymore. Was I "giving up the fight?" No, I had nothing to fight about anymore. I wanted to see what all the drinks my friends have been drinking for years tasted like. I wanted to know what the other side was like. I was tired of being straight edge. So, I decided I'd stop.

I began to tell people that I would break soon. "When I turn 30" I said. People were PSYCHED. I could have sold tickets to 40 people to have them just watch me drink a beer. They were that excited. But 30 happened, and I didn't break. People started getting upset with me- "just drink a beer dude, it's not a big deal" and it felt like college all over again. Yes, actually, it is a very big deal. To you- yea, it's just a beer and I'm the weirdo who chose not to drink and is now scared to. But to me, it would be changing my entire life. I'd say that qualifies as a big deal. But in a way, they were right- I already said I would drink, and I was putting it off and wimping out, over and over again. I began to feel like this was becoming a metaphor for all the things I've been scared to do in my life.

This blog continues to inspire me to try and live a life that is more awesome. And what's more awesome than overcoming your fears and taking a step toward change you want? So, even though most of my friends already know and its painfully obvious by now, I did it. I inspired myself to take a step I've been thinking about for years. I broke edge. I am no longer straight edge.

I had my first drink at Uno's, August 16th, the night that Shawn quit apple. I was met with lots of "are you gonna break tonight?" questions when I got there, and I think I always kind of thought I might. Shawn, on my left, was passing a drink to Alicia and I kind of whispered that maybe I should just drink something and get it over with, and her drink looked neat. He freaked out and started going at me: "Just have a sip. Come on. Not a big deal. It's just lemonade. You love lemonade. Not a big deal. Just a sip of lemonade. Mike needs to taste this. Give him this drink. Mike needs to taste it. Now." I noticed that I was being filmed and a few people were very interested in what was happening. So, I said one of my new favorite slogans of this summer, "fuck it" and just went for it. Shawn put his arms up in an X and then emphatically broke them apart with a crumbling, exploding-in-slow-motion sound that was hilarious (symbolizing breaking the X, if you can't picture it). People were confused. "Wait- did he just drink that? No..." So I grabbed Shawn's beer and had a sip. It was terrible (Guinness). The rest of the night continued this way, with me trying different things, people buying me drinks, etc. My first whole drink was a long island ice tea, which was, as anyone who drinks knows, too much. I liked a few things, I hated more, and that was that. I was there forever and made sure to drink very slowly. I knew everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to get drunk. People started whispering, and I kept having to remind them that yes, I was buzzed, but I was mostly just hyper and having fun, and remember, this is how I've always been since you met me- just because I now have alcohol in my system doesn't mean I automatically turn from "Mike is crazy!!" to "Mike is drunk!!" and it kind of bummed me out that people immediately went there, but I guess that's just a place that people want to go.

Honestly, if I had never drank again after that first drink, I'd still be happy. Drinking that first sip felt fantastic- an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. I no longer had to be the different guy, I no longer felt handicapped by something I didn't even care about anymore. I was instantly happier, and instantly felt more awesome. If I chose to never drink again, I could at least say "yea I don't really like alcoholic drinks," not "um... I'm scared."

Since then, I've had a bunch of different drinks. So far, as it is for most n00bs, most beer is either not good, "tastes like beer," or good for a beer, but I'm still not entirely sure if it's something I am going to seek out and continue drinking, or if I just found one that is acceptable and I'll drink if everyone is else drinking and I want to feel a little silly. Mostly, it's just been exploration. Mixed drinks ("girl drinks") are often pretty tasty, but too many of them just taste like something else with alcohol in it rather than an interesting flavor. Scotch is good, but often a little too strong like a lot of the "hard stuff" is- if I'm honest, some of the interest in that kind of stuff is probably more based around either being a badass and drinking "the hard stuff" or being some sort of fake fancypants, since wine or whiskey are two of the last things that people who know me would picture me drinking. It's been weird, because I keep drinking fancy drinks that most people have to work up to for years. People keep saying that I should be drinking light beers if anything- that the fancy, rich and strong beers and mixed drinks are an acquired taste, and it's mind boggling to them that that's what I'm starting with. But to them, they started drinking as a way to get drunk, and chugging light and/or crappy cheap beer slowly made them want and appreciate stronger flavors. Drinking vodka that tasted exactly like juice or soda they loved made the transition to harder, different tasting drinks smoother. But I'm not drinking to get drunk; I'm drinking to try flavors, so why would I want to waste time only drinking a light beer and not explore and try the stuff they love (which understandably is often gross to me)? There aren't any juices or sodas that taste like scotch or weird liqueurs, so I want to drink those weird liqueurs. They're new and different. I'm looking at this as trying new flavors, not the same flavors I've always had, just with the sting of alcohol- why would I waste my time with vodka that just tastes like Kool-aid? I'd rather drink Kool-Aid. 

Drinking definitely has opened up a whole world of flavor for me, and the fun of trying weird drinks that either friends get or I've heard about on tv shows or movies for years is fantastic- the whole "wait, have you had a ____? Duuuude you gotta have a _____!!!!" thing. And even though I don't really feel like I feel looser and more relaxed and social (what happens to a lot of people), I now have something else to talk to people about, and a whole new experience added to my life. I've really only gotten drunk once and mostly have just had a few drinks or a buzz, so I'm mostly just the new guy, trying different flavors. And it's been fantastic. And it's also been great to reveal to people that I drink now- the moments of confusion and them being excited and curious about what I drank, what I like, etc. It's fun.

To the other side, I'm sorry to my few friends who are still edge, and I'll try to not talk about drinks around you (and I'll try to not get mad when you give me some of the shit that I've given to people over the years), but I am incredibly happy that I'm not straight edge anymore. Being straight edge helped me out a ton through college by not falling into so many of the stereotypes I was trying to avoid, and I can't help but believe my life has been a little bit better from staying edge throughout college and the years after, but at the same time, I feel like it's also better now that I'm mature enough to be smart with alcohol and can try all these interesting things. Life is all about experiences, and I can finally add one of the ones everyone else had that I was missing to the list. I'm proud of myself, and fully believe that I'm going to continue to be the same person you've always known, just with the desire to drink from time to time.

I guess it's really simple though- through all of this babbling and life history, I can really sum it up in one sentence- much like alcohol just wasn't for me through all of college and life after, straight edge just wasn't for me anymore. So I made a change. On to a more open, free, and hopefully awesome life...

currently listening to: The Horrible Crowes- Elsie