What happens if you keep drinking and taking recreational drugs into your 50s?

[FortunesFave]

I'm really curious about it....I'm in my late 40s and gave up all that when I was about 19 or 20. Part of the rave culture I certainly did experiment but got it together and went to Uni late...I've never been very into drinking so only have an occasional glass of champagne or a cider with a pub lunch now.

However it's become clear that a lot of our friends who we've had for years are still doing it and for the past 15 years since kids, DH and I have slowly stopped going to their 'dos' when they get off their faces....we used to go and just drink but they'd all be taking MDMA and coke...all perfectly functional during the week by the way...holding down good careers etc. and we found it uncomfortable.

Lately it's got a bit fake and we don't really fit in any more because we barely drink and they still get off their heads at parties. We have other ways of meeting up with them but then they're talking about this weekend or that weekend where they took whatever...and we don't have that to share...not that we want it but the friendships are running their course.

If, like me, you were born in the 70s you'll know that our parents didn't do this sort of thing into their adulthood....so what's going to happen to Generation X as we age? Will the ones who've never stopped just suddenly die of heart attacks young? It's worrying me a bit as some of my friends I really love...but they're still getting faceless and that can't be good when you're 50 plus!

All the people I know who still take drugs in their 50s are very poor/bad with money, think they are really cool but really aren’t atall, and seem a little bit sad really. Also I have family members who were users of acid/weed from the 60s onwards who died suddenly of brain haemorrhage in the early 2000s. Nothing cool about it. Fun to experiment but if you don’t grow out of it, it’s a bit of a personality flaw.

So true PP.
Ones I know have a lot of money but waste it all and like you say, think they are really cool when they very much are the opposite....

A lot of judgy people on here, who presumably are ok with quaffing loads of wine. Drugs, if used in moderation, like alcohol are absolutely fine, and still fun at 52.

@NannyOggsWhiskyStash

A lot of judgy people on here, who presumably are ok with quaffing loads of wine. Drugs, if used in moderation, like alcohol are absolutely fine, and still fun at 52.

you keep telling yourself that.

Everyone else is cringying for you.

A lot of judgy people on here, who presumably are ok with quaffing loads of wine. Drugs, if used in moderation, like alcohol are absolutely fine, and still fun at 52

Thing with drugs, and often alcohol- is it’s often only the user that thinks they are “fun”. From an outside perspective, not so much.

@NannyOggsWhiskyStash

A lot of judgy people on here, who presumably are ok with quaffing loads of wine. Drugs, if used in moderation, like alcohol are absolutely fine, and still fun at 52.

Yo yo yo! It’s a massive scam isn’t it, the artificial distinctions society has drawn between ingesting substances legal or prescribed to alter how you feel and the use of substances that in some places and times are on the other side of the law. It is bizarre. The pressure to take eg psychoactive medication for psychiatric illness that can leave you with permanent conditions such as diabetes or the destruction of your kidneys and thyroid versus the weed you can buy legally in a shop but you can’t bring it home if home is across a national border (but that’s what a friend does, import from California complete with labels describing the strength of THC etc) or even grow a few plants from those seeds if you want no part in the evils of the illegal trade. It’s a little bit analogous to laws restricting same sex attraction, if you live somewhere where that’s still a thing you might go along with it I guess? It’s just a mindset that is so alien to most of us now.

So it’s fine for big pharma to patent methods of psilocybin extraction to put into foods and medicines in some parts of North America to sell at huge profit to vulnerable people with eating disorders and intractable depression etc but doing mushrooms in the uk to facilitate some thinking and feeling work is not fine? It doesn’t make any sense at all!

It's absolutely fine to be prescribed antidepressants if I need HRT.

It’s a little bit analogous to laws restricting same sex attraction, if you live somewhere where that’s still a thing you might go along with it I guess? It’s just a mindset that is so alien to most of us now.

This is an interesting analogy. There have been attempts on the courts to apply the logic of Art 8 (the right not to have the state interfere in your private life) to drug use in the same way as it has been used to exclude state interference (and other people's morals) from what consenting adults do in the bedroom.

One day the war on drugs and its appalling consequences will seem as absurd as the criminalisation of consenting sexual activity!

Thing with drugs, and often alcohol- is it’s often only the user that thinks they are “fun”. From an outside perspective, not so much.

Ditto football, ballet, camping, an afternoon in the park with the kids ...

Can you imagine where humanity would be today if none of us had ever used any of these substances recreationally? It’s some stone cold dystopian nightmare stripped of all the art and other cultural products and ways of being that are the very best of us as a species. The indigenous Americans (the whole diverse lot of them, north and central and south) didn’t know addiction because they knew about the potential evolutionary advantages of intoxication. There’s something colonial about the attitude that the laws in the British isles are the just and right approach, it’s a bit colour blind especially where cannabis is concerned.

Cringe away. I grow my own, don't harm anyone, and even make balms from it, to soothe my arthritis. It's a far healthier option than having to take opioid painkillers for pain relief. The ill informed judgement on this thread is disturbing.

I know its not the same thing as your talking about a friendship group but when I was between the ages of 17-21yrs I went through a recreational drugs stage. There were s few older people on the peripheral of the group out occasionally and tbh they were generally thought of as a bit sad. Even whilst doing it there was a feeling it was a temporary bit of fun.
A few of my friends I've met as an adult do coke but I've let them slide and don't see them much now. I work in an area that sometimes deals with the aftermath of having a coke habit. It's really sad especially if they have children.