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!

Keith Richards

I keep reading responses with people saying "Oh it went on in the 70s too!" but it didn't...not to this extent. It wasn't so normalised and there wasn't ecstasy and MDMA etc was there?

Rich arty types did coke....and smoked weed.

Maybe some heroin.

Now the nurse or the teacher or the office worker is whacking pounds worth up their nose every weekend.

I can't imagine using drugs in middle age like I did when I was younger, I'd be knackered! The come downs are horrendous. With the notable exception of mushrooms though, I would definitely do those again without a doubt. They're the only drug that has left me feeling wonderful, mentally and physically healthy for pretty much a week afterwards, and I know how to source them ethically (we know places they grow naturally and have friends who home grow them). Coke I wouldn't touch - it's expensive, makes you feel shit afterwards, and you've definitely got blood on your hands not to mention the destruction of the rainforest that goes into its production.

My sister is a very late Boomer. She has smoked pot heavily since c.1977 and drunk heavily as well. She also smoked proper cigarettes heavily for over twenty years. Her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has been acerbated by all this. At sixty, she has easily lost fifty IQ points, can no longer read a newspaper article, and has severe and chronic depression, anxiety, and mixed personality disorder. Her digestive system is shot, and she has many food sensitivities.
She and my brother are fifteen months apart in age; she looks like his mother. Our mother had gradual dementia in her late sixties onward. My sister has galloping dementia.
Quit today. It may already be too late.

@Ericaequites

My sister is a very late Boomer. She has smoked pot heavily since c.1977 and drunk heavily as well. She also smoked proper cigarettes heavily for over twenty years. Her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has been acerbated by all this. At sixty, she has easily lost fifty IQ points, can no longer read a newspaper article, and has severe and chronic depression, anxiety, and mixed personality disorder. Her digestive system is shot, and she has many food sensitivities. She and my brother are fifteen months apart in age; she looks like his mother. Our mother had gradual dementia in her late sixties onward. My sister has galloping dementia. Quit today. It may already be too late.

Yes and I think pot is more dangerous than is being admitted really. I know a number of people who smoke regularly and suffer from depression and paranoia. I'm sorry your sister is so unwell. :(

@osbertthesyrianhamster

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.

This is interesting Osbert - I'd never thought of it like this. I'm one of the 50+ drug users. I've kept out of the more emotive elements of the discussion, because I'm not really feeling in need of defending myself, and it's a bit off-topic, but this does ring true.

They will look fucked before their time and will have earlier deaths.

You can give yourself congestive heart failure and/or liver damage that can shorten your life and make your quality of life incredibly unpleasant. It can cause gastrointestinal bleeds, stroke,cardiac dysrhythmias. (Cardiac nurse who has seen all of the above)

In all honestly all the people I know who've continued to indulge are still in great health and look amazing although they really shouldn't! I'm talking 50's/60's. Not big drinkers though so maybe that's why.
Obviously consumption nowhere near as high as back in the day and usually just on special occasions though plenty still smoke weed regularly. All successful people/business owners, some taken early retirement.

Easy. You don't make your 60s

@Jaxhog

Easy. You don't make your 60s

Tell 73 year old new father, Ronnie Woods, that!

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.

Yep, but that's always ignored, unless the associated crime comes to their doors.

You go to hell for all eternity for being so naughty.

@Surfschool

You go to hell for all eternity for being so naughty.

Yes, but first you die horribly, well before 60 and single-handedly take the NHS with you and look like a mummy before that.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48853004.amp

Article on Scotland's ageing drug users

The thread is about middle aged ravers taking party drugs at the weekends whereas the article linked above focuses on Scotland's ageing heroin addicts - Renton and Sickboy grow old. It's interesting but not relevant to the discussion.

Short answer from experience of a family member, he was a weekend end partied doing all of the above just entering his 50's had a massive stroke in December. Slowly recovering but has lost sight in right eye, will never drive again docs told him he's lucky it didn't process into a coronary and kill him & it was literally caused by his lifestyle.

Wow sorry for all those mistakes Jesus.
New phone autocorrect doesn't know me yet.

I keep reading responses with people saying "Oh it went on in the 70s too!" but it didn't...not to this extent. It wasn't so normalised and there wasn't ecstasy and MDMA etc was there?

Depends on the social circle. My mother had friends who were Vietnam vets and drug use was very normal and it did involve popping pills and combining it with alcohol and/or weed. Opiates were starting to be an issue in some places in the '70s, and by the '80s ecstasy was more common on the streets - I was taught about it in schools. There is more now, you're right, and a lot of different varieties now than there were then, but in some circles it was used back then with people of a wide range of professions.

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 grin)

The mention of this weekend and that weekend in the OP did lead me to think it was more frequent than other posters' use of every couple of months or so. That's my bias in that though, and I hold my hand up to that.

As decriminalisation has been mentioned, I do think Portugal's model is interesting as is the research into MDMA and mushrooms which have been mentioned as having potential therapeutic benefits. That was being researched in the '70s but was largely quashed under the whole war on drugs thing.

@Fluffycloudland77

You die younger & wish you’d lived a better lifestyle.

Was it 2016 loads of celebs died after being around in the 60s and taking drugs for 40 years?. No ones a special case who’s going to avoid the effects of drugs.

Wondering who you are thinking of

Only drug related death I can think of that year was Prince and that was prescription, I thought.

It’s individual abs depends how much they are taking

Most won’t be able to handle the next day like they could before

Some will slow down to a point of stopping

And some will still be getting off their heads in their 70’s

@FortunesFave

I keep reading responses with people saying "Oh it went on in the 70s too!" but it didn't...not to this extent. It wasn't so normalised and there wasn't ecstasy and MDMA etc was there?

Rich arty types did coke....and smoked weed.

Maybe some heroin.

Now the nurse or the teacher or the office worker is whacking pounds worth up their nose every weekend.

My great grandma used to complain that every generation talked about drugs like they were new and said it was absolutely normal to do coke at weekend parties in her heyday.

I keep reading responses with people saying "Oh it went on in the 70s too!" but it didn't...not to this extent. It wasn't so normalised and there wasn't ecstasy and MDMA etc was there?

I was 17 at the beginning of the 70s and 27 at the end. Everyone I know smoked cannabis at least every weekend, a lot regularly used acid and a few used cocaine. Most of those people still use cannabis regularly or occasionally.

@Hoolihan

The thread is about middle aged ravers taking party drugs at the weekends whereas the article linked above focuses on Scotland's ageing heroin addicts - Renton and Sickboy grow old. It's interesting but not relevant to the discussion.

It's completely relevant!

I have to say it didn't look very relevant to me. It's predominantly about opiate use among deprived communities in Scotland, which is a hallmark of people struggling and self-medicating to cope with disadvantaged and difficult lives, rather than comfortably-off and entitled people looking for recreational shortcuts to having a good time.

But it's your thread, so if you say it's relevant it's relevant