To ask: if you are an occasional cocaine user, are you aware how you appear to others?

Yes, that's been my experience too. People take it at work or at social events where you're meant to be acting civilised. It isn't just a party drug anymore.

I think it's because it's so easy to get hold of. You just need to look online. In the olden days you needed to know a guy who knew a guy and go round to his flat to pick up. I think they just deliver it to your doorstep now.

Realise I'm getting all "back in my day" aboht class a drugs which is quite funny.

I do not do drugs at all and barely drink either fwiw

Agree with you OP, I think most people know that coke makes you act like an absolute knob but presumably they like the way it makes them feel more.

Now wondering if it's actually the other way round and people with more selfish, arrogant personalities are more likely to do coke 😂

This.

I used to love taking it

when out clubbing yes it makes people more intense when dancing it off it’s not as bad when standing around chatting at a pub or party it makes people come across as self absorbed arrogant twats

it very much sets the tone and then you are carried on that that’s why so often leads to aggression

Yeah I'm talking mid - late teens, not as a proper adult. Wouldn't touch it now

I think that’s the main difference between coke and ketamine , pills etc. Proper grown ups take coke, as you put it. Parents, senior professionals, - I know someone who takes a line before he goes on live television! Coke is most certainly not just a drug one indulges in in their youth (least of all because of how expensive it is).

Maybe it's just because you aren't taking it as well. It's really no different from booze. I do both and booze is the one I'm trying to quit!

I used to use coke on occasion. I knew it made me chatty and full on, but I enjoyed it. That said, because I knew the chat was dull as fuck for everyone else I would only take it if the rest of the group was too. Otherwise it's incredibly tedious for other people.

YABU and unclench. It's just a drug, and it helps some people feel more relaxed. You are also unreasonable to say it is worse than alcohol, it actually isn't.

I think it's become really common among proper grown ups now. Especially in big cities. I hate it as you'd think they actually would give a bit of a fuck how they come across on a night out and also, I always think they're playing roulette with their heart, especially if they mix it with booze.

So I never tried cocaine in my youth. It was always a “hard” drug in my head that was a definite no.

i now work in substance use and cocaine is rife. The eyewatering cost of daily use and debt is insane! It just seems crazy that people can spend upwards of £500 a day on it!

The problem with coke is that it’s EVERYWHERE and so, so normalised in some circles.

I know a lot of people who take it regularly and they’re lawyers, doctors, accountants, journalists etc. Some just dabble, others are high functioning addicts.

I don’t know how we, as a society, take this kind of rich-middle-class addiction seriously. Or if we even should.

I did my fair share in my youth and during that time I honestly did not give a fuck how I came across

Agree with @mindutopia about booze though- groups of tipsy/pissed people can be awful. Groups of drunk men are often lairy and intimidating as well as annoying,; drunk women usually just really, really fucking annoying.

Coke turned my ex into a twat. Cold, obnoxious and arrogant. The come down the next day was grim too - no sleep so mean.

I took it a fair bit in my early twenties in the context of house parties or raves/big club nights. I think it’s a weird drug to be on at a restaurant or at the pub- it makes you want to dance and dance (or at least that’s the effect it had on me). And yes it affects behaviour and demeanour in a strange way- monologuing at people in a disconnected way. When I took it, it was always in loud dance music contexts so everyone was dancing and it was too loud for much conversation! Plus the rest of my group were taking it too, so when we did manage to have a conversation we would just take turns to monologue at each other 😂

I had no idea of the human rights atrocities behind the industry at the time because I was young and foolish, and this was some decades ago. I grew out of it luckily and haven’t taken any for a long time. I think it’s a particularly nasty drug, both because of the ‘industry’ and the damage it does, and also for what it does to the individual. It’s incredibly risky for health, increasingly so as you age I would imagine. It makes people behave like arrogant wankers, it costs ££££ and the comedowns are horrendous. So I don’t miss it and wouldn’t recommend.

Plus there is the whole 'sneaking off into the bathroom/shared private joke' thing that I just find incredibly rude and excluding to those who aren't involved. If it's so socially acceptable why not just do it off the dining room table, in the same way you'd happily enjoy a glass of wine alongside teetotallers?

Because then they'd have to share.

Except for aggression. It definitely heightens that.

I'd play gigs most weekends and a perfectly routine gig with just a couple of loud twats at the back would change the moment the bloke with the gear arrived. It would start with a couple going off to the toilets, then another two or three - by the time there were nine or ten of them back there, they'd get really lairy with the bar staff and seeking out any smaller or not dressed like them male to have a go at in the hope of provoking a fight. And if they didn't react (what with being 1-2 surrounded by at least four of the pricks), the pricks would start it themselves.

I agree with this, my friends who do aren’t awful when they take it, similar to being a bit tipsy. I have seen strangers out who are complete arseholes, but not sure if that’s just who they are usually!

I have one friend who turns into a nightmare when she’s had too much to drink though!

Agree that sloppy drunks can be just as bad, but op is talking about coke

Cocaine notoriously makes people act like arrogant twunts op. I am amazed people think "it just makes them a bit more chatty"! No, definitely not. It can make people overly confident/cocky, arrogant, lacking in warmth. That is very well known

I don’t do coke, but I also don’t drink. The exact same can be said for people who drink alcohol. It’s bloody tedious listening to them bleat on with the same stories I heard last year at this party.

I can definitely tell the cokeheads in any crowd, but I can also easily pick out the sloppy ones with a drinking problem because they are also incredibly annoying. There is a whole group of mums from school that I just want to hide when I see them come stumbling and cackling by, because I’ve heard them bitch about the same people already and I already know how someone will bust out the shots of tequila rose at some point before 10pm. Bores me to tears. I avoid them as much as possible at school events I can’t easily get out of.