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!

@BillieSpain

Are some posters perhaps confusing drug addicts and alcoholics and Baz from The Happy Mondays, with occasional blow out weekends the OP is talking about and we are commenting on (on mumsnet FFS )

I would not take drugs now as DD is 13, but in the future, if someone offered me a line of coke then why the hell not? I'll be 60.

Bez.

I've given everything up a decade since. Gen X here, but I'm still in bits. 😝

@ARoseDowntown

As the body ages our likelihood of having other, non-drug related health problems increases. Why make it harder?

If your body is a Ferrari, you might be able to get away with reckless speeding a few times a year (and as with drug taking, that’s not even sparing a thought for others). But if you’re driving an ageing Volvo, you might want to go easy and increase your chances of making it all the way.

As for those saying drug-taking is a matter of personal choices and freedoms: it’s not. And there’s no excuse these days for kidding yourselves that it is. Selfish doesn’t begin to describe. You’re partying over the bodies of people who’ve paid the ultimate price for you to exercise your “freedom”. THIS is what makes drug taking in adulthood especially heinous. At 15yo youth and hedonism can excuse a lot. In your 40s and beyond: your lack of perspective is disgraceful, small-minded, spoilt, shameful.

100% THIS!

Brilliantly put. 👏🏽

Funnily enough, my DD and her various friendship groups (at home AND at uni,) managed to get through their teens, and uni years, without taking any drugs.

This statement makes me think you are very naive.

Maybe you can know 100% what your own DD did and don’t do while at uni. But all her friends too?

ton of celebs (who regularly took drugs) have died over the past decade. Even being famous and rich - and seemingly 'super-healthy' is not going to stop the constant use of recreational drugs killing you

Being rich makes it more dangerous I think. Constant supply plus no 9-5 to keep you straight.

No-one is going to die because they do a pill every now and then, which is what we were discussing I think? Celebs who die are generally on heroin or prescription drugs + booze.

depends how often, no? Too much, like very weekend, you'll probably end up having a stroke, once in a blue moon probably not much... I do know some people who still take class A's but rarely drink, eat well, quite active so. they look great.

One friend had a stroke and the other died of a brain hemorrhage. Sadly the friend with the brain hemorrhage had one that forced him to review his lifestyle but unfortunately the damage was done and he had another one a year later.
I do think its a bit sad taking drugs in later life. As a youngster I thought I was invincible.
As for the poster who says its fun, good for you. I get my kicks doing street dance (badly) 3 times a week. I know which activity is more fun in my book.

@Hoolihan

It is prohibition that drives the criminality around drugs.

I don't take drugs to 'be cool' but because it's fun.

Very true that the illegality encourages criminal elements. Something I once read said (I'm paraphrasing) 'once you really drill down into it, the function of the DEA (US Drug Enforcement Agenct) is to support the monopoly of the drug cartels', and it's true. The DEA (and European equivalents) crush any drug dealing competition which means the cartels can keep the prices high (with the commensurate profits to match). The illegality forces users to source drugs from dodgy people, so they have no support if/ when things go wrong. Only the huge, mega rich, heavily armed cartels can survive, and the huge profits at stake encourage gang turf wars which leads to more suffering for everyone.

It's like how Prohibition made the Mafia hugely powerful and wealthy. Legalise drugs, take away the criminal monopoly and you will reduce the murders, torture and trafficking that these groups carry out.

@northernsoullover I also enjoy exercise believe it or not 🤣 These things are not mutually exclusive.

I wouldn't dream of taking a stimulant like coke or speed now. I wouldn't allow DH to either - all I can think is heart attack. I gave everything up at about 30, it just wasn't as fun. House music/ clubs had changed and I didn't like how much coke people were doing.

I will have a mild mushroom trip about twice a year. I find it relaxing and nice, no crazy behaviours or danger. Its grown in Holland, you can just buy it retail like anything else. I couldn't handle dealing with dealers or feeling guilty about Columbian murder squads, people dying being drug mules etc.

I'd rather die than hang out with a load of braying, middle-aged coke heads. YANBU OP.

There comes a point when youth leaves us and our bodies no longer can keep us running on its own. I see fit people dabbling occasionally and be fine. I see those who abuse their bodies drop dead from heart attacks in their 40s due to being unfit, overweight and Coke heads.

Personally I think it's a stupid thing to do past a certain age.

Substances are likely to lead to premature aging and bodily decline. Not to mention innumerable cancers. For the majority of those living risky they are unlikely to make 70. Early death in my view (though not medically qualified here).

I was born in the 70's.
My Mum drank her way though all my years with her group of friends.
Died this year. Had a heart attack on the operating table and then her body packed in.

@NewPanDrawer you might be on to something there because they used to do stupid "party game's".

You get dreadfully wrinkly. Just look at pictures of Ronnie Wood and Iggy Pop.

I took coke pretty regularly until I was in my late 40s. It ruined my sinuses.

Ah yes, Ronnie Wood and Iggy Pop, those shining examples of occasional drug use.

My brothers friendship group are all early to mud 50s now and do seem to have various health problems but they caned it for years.
As others are saying those who are generally healthy, not obese and do it once in a while they’ll probably be fine

Seriously though, some people I know in a certain industry are absolutely super healthy, they just do reacreational coke. Why not?

Fashion ? media ? DSis's DP had a heart attack at 49- he worked in one of those industries.

Sorry but if you are regularly (monthly) taking Coke you are not super healthy. I have never known anyone who does Coke and doesn't drink with it. It is like pressing the brake and accelerator at the same time and as good for the engine

I'm ten years older than you, and my contemporaries either started to do this less and less between 40 and 50, coinciding with a general change in their social habits, less going out etc; or they revealed themselves as having real problems, which the social usage had probably masked. Alcolohism, mental health problems and heroin addiction all feature, and three people I knew died in their 50s. A couple after serious decline, loss of family and rough sleeping, and one from organ failure. I don't think it's the age people carry on using thats the issue, as much as their motivation. Most people in their 50s don't want to party as hard as they once did, or at least not very often. Those that do are often using the party as an excuse for the substance use.

I think a lot of people like to other to make themselves feel better about the inevitability of death - if you play by the rules, life will be easy on you, And whilst statistically partying is associated with higher risk of premature death and ill health, it's not a given (as for getting wrinkly, you're supposed to do that as you age, and some sadly will be more wrinkly no matter what they do, others will get lucky) or an absolute anymore more than being super healthy is. It's a sort of moralising that I find ridiculous and my hard partying days are long in the past (I never did stimulants of any sort, not my thing, but smoked loads of weed (no skunk back then) and took hallucinogens), it seems really spurious to finger-wag and moralise at others who chose to live differently and label them all knobs, twats, idiots, they'll all die horribly early, etc.

I do take issue with their being illegal but only because I think it should all be legalised.

I've never done drugs, but I'm drinking more now than my 20's because my kids are adults. In fact the nice thing is we go out for cocktails with all our DD's now!

It depends. Older addicts are usually slow if continuously using for life.
I'm going to do mdna in retirement apparently it's not uncommon amongst retirees.

I am about your age (49) and at uni (early 90s) certainly did my fair share of drink and drugs but I am grateful that whilst there, there was a 'mature' student who hung around (us) - he was about 35 and he smoked weed all the time. It put me off long term drug use!!

I was just reading about the variations in strength with MDMA. Some are dangerously strong apparently. It worries me genuinely. I hate the thought of the friends I love getting ill or having bloody heart attacks.

Nothing I can do though...and maybe they'll just be like carthorses and carry on with no issues till they're all 99 years old! It's a weird one though because chemicals weren't used as heavily in the 70s as they are now.

Much more is known about the drug supply chain now than was the case 20 or 30 years ago. If you take illegal drugs you are supporting crime, the county lines trade, and as disproportionately those arrested, stabbed or otherwise harmed by working in the trade are young black men, you don't believe Black Lives Matter.