Many, many people took recreational drugs in the 90s. Where are they now?

[perhapsiwill]

I'm not a drug addict and none of my friends were at the time, we just took Es at the weekend, sometimes other drugs. We all went to work or college, seemed like everyone else did this too. We had a great time, weekends were for dancing and hugging, I didn't get on with drunk people and one night stands and it suited me much better.
I moved away from where I grew up, nice area to another nice area.
When I mention partying in my youth to other mums where I live now, they look at me as if I'm an addict who needs help .
Are they all pretending? There were thousands of us doing this so where are they now? And why do people who never took drugs appear to feel so morally superior? One of the women where I live openly talks about cheating the system financially yet looks at me like I'm scum because I went out and had fun 20 years ago. (And probably once a year now!) I feel that because I mentioned this one evening in a pub I have alienated myself from the local mums.

psychoactive - and I used to have arguments with colleagues insisting that the weight gain on Olanzapine was due to increased appetite and over-eating despite me pointing out that most of the people we were talking about were in prison and clearly weren't eating buckets of fried chicken.

They all went a bit quiet when I found a study on rats showing they began to develop a strange fish-egg type subcutaneous fat within three DAYS of Olanzapine being administered.

Someone asked up thread how I'd feel about my dc's using drugs and I think I'd be more concerned about regular weed smoking than the occasional weekend on pills. I'd also be really concerned about legal highs, although I'm hoping by the time my two are old enough it will have been sorted.

I'm not against weed-smokers, or most types of weed, but there is a high percentage of young males (and females) that smoke super skunk and this has been linked to psychosis. This is a concern for me as weed smoking seems to the acceptable drug of choice compared to others, and actually this stuff (which has a high concentration of TCH), can be quite dangerous.

For any nerds out there, researchers have found that super skunk has ten times the THC concentration as it did 10 years ago, and this level of THC is causing damage to the corpus callosum (the connecting fibres that all the right and left sides of the brain to communicate). How do you go about regulating some types of weed and not others?

THC and allow

Trying to type with a wriggling baby!

My pet hate is those former recreational drug users who now take their children to 'baby raves'. Not cool, just a bit sad.

So millennials....Don't take drugs. Don't drink, definitely don't smoke....What vices do naughty teenagers indulge in these days? (Genuine question,no don't know any)

Laughing gas judging by the amount of canisters in our park!

They're all shagging each other BornStroppy Girls, boys, they're all at it. This is what I'm led to believe by my 19 year old anyway.

cloudchasing - teenagers invented sex don't ya know

They invented everything Newbrummie We're just sad has-beens, I'm afraid 🙄

They don't need drugs to escape real life - they have the internet.

If you think none of them are taking drugs, you are sadly mistaken! Half of them do coke every weekend... It's about as 'naughty' to them as having a fag behind the bike sheds was to us.

"They don't need drugs to escape real life - they have the internet."

I really wish those who have zero experience and understanding on a subject would stop repeating the nonsense they heard from their mothers.

People don't take drugs to escape RL. They do it because it's a lot of fun.

Sleep is escape from RL. Reading is escape from RL. Partying on drugs is amazing, long-lasting, whale of a good time.

People take drugs for all sorts of reasons. Escape I guess is one reason, fun another, peer pressure another.

Just because you had one reason cote doesn't mean everyone does it for the same reason.

I certainly did it for no other reason than because it was lots of fun.

And I feel I will never have as close relationships as I did with my friends back then. Some may say that that is an age thing but I really think it brought everyone so much closer. Not coke or weed but Es/MDMA.

There is research to suggest alcohol, canabis and smoking are all down in teenager groups.

Certainly there is much awareness surrounding managing your media presence in young students and the need to work very hard to get a good grade. The talk listening to my DD and friends is work.

Heroin is often an escape as it does what it is designed to do - numb physical (and emotional) pain. Most other drugs are just fun though. People wouldn't bother of they weren't.

Someone mentioned up thread the phenomenon of the heroin addicts coming back from Vietnam who had unprecedented low rates of relapse after detox. The studies concluded it wasn't just that they were no longer in such stressful situations, it was also felt to be that the physical environment had completely changed. That so many aspects of addiction are just habitual and associated with the physical environment and what/who is around.

It's one of the reasons people can do really well in a residential rehab but relapse the minute they go home. It's not just the support in rehab, it's a new environment with no associations with your drug use. But go home to the house you used to use drugs in, the sofa you've sat on a thousand times to get wasted etc etc the associations are so strong the habit is triggered again.

Well it brings you closer because you're in cahoots.
That's true. Everybody now shagging. I was a party once and young people were reminiscing about an orgy they'd been to on a houseboat.....

Hive and Kr1stina keep making statements that I just don't agree with.
Seeing as both of them didn't take drugs, where are they getting these misconceptions from?

Aggressive/violent? Nope.
Depressed? Nope.
Down'er the next day after taking? Nope.
Escaping RL? Nope.
Peer pressure? Nope.

I had the best upbringing, fab life, great friends, uni. No depression. I wasn't escaping anything.
I did it for only one reason. FUN.

I suspect that MOST people did it for that one reason. Yes there's always one or two with severe psychological problems, escaping, but most of the occasional, recreational, was just for fun.

You can't seem to grasp this, can you?

Cote and many others have said the same. But you just won't have it.

Downer the next day -nope
It was the day after that for me. Lucky you Oblomov.

Pretty sad to need mind-altering substances in order to feel close to people though, OP? I'm not sure I'd want to have my relationships with people created or enhanced by drugs (or alcohol, but I don't think I've ever found that about alcohol).

Lots of people use drugs to numb the pain, psychological or physical. Drug use is much wider than recreational! Using it only makes you an expert in your experience.

just because some people do it for fun doesn't mean everyone does.

Oh God suicidal Tuesday! I don't miss that.

I had a bit of a shit childhood but did drugs because they were fun. As did my friends from our very expensive naice private school. I had a scholarship and my family had fuck all but my mates had plenty of funds from their rich parents to buy us all drugs!

I really wish those who have zero experience and understanding on a subject would stop repeating the nonsense they heard from their mothers

People don't take drugs to escape RL. They do it because it's a lot of fun

Don't be so patronising. It's nothing to do with my mother . Why on earth are you so rude ?

I can guarantee that I have spoken to more drug users this week than you have. And all of them are doing it because they are addicted. Most of them have shit lives and they are doing it to self medicate, it's all they have to look forward to.

They are NOT doing it because it's a lot of fun. They KNOW its wrecked their lives. How can you look at someone who has leg ulcers, is sleeping under a bridge and who will never see their kids again and tell me that it's FUN?

Do you now what gangrene looks and smells like ? What it's like to have a leg amputated and not be able to get a prosthesis because your wound won't heal ? To be in and out of prison ?

You are either deluded or the most callous person I know , if you think that's fun.

It might be fun for you in your little middle class protected world . It's SHIT just SHIT for many people and their families .

you don't have to take part in something to understand there might be lots of reasons why someone wants to do that activity.