Dealing with a straight edge lifestyle

[markeeta]

Just posted in one of our numerous drug and booze threads about my story, but thought I'd add that I try to find people with the same interests as me, although it can be hard. Meeting new people is good, and that's something boxing does for me anyways.

[rj_ct]

on a serious note, dealing with the adversity of not following the social norm (drinking, partying, etc.) is what straight edge is all about. you have to understand your commitment to living a clean lifestyle means you're the outcast. simple as that. straight edge is a rebellion.

pm me if you want me to hook you up with some straight edge bands. it'll get you stoked.

egon- you need to post more, dude.

[Trrmo]

on a serious note, dealing with the adversity of not following the social norm (drinking, partying, etc.) is what straight edge is all about. you have to understand your commitment to living a clean lifestyle means you're the outcast. simple as that. straight edge is a rebellion.

pm me if you want me to hook you up with some straight edge bands. it'll get you stoked.

egon- you need to post more, dude.

great, so I now I am an outcast and a rebel, wow I might be able to rediscover my teenage coolness - do straight edgers have any particular ways of dressing? I want to get into the scene, are fugazi still cool?
should I buy a scooter and paint my fingernails black? where do straight edgers hang out?

[peewee1460]

i've got a similar story to yours. i used to drink and use but i just saw where it was heading. it's a hard, i don't want to say lonely but sparsley populated road. the clip below is bernard hopkins. although i don't really like him, i have a lot of respect for him and what he did with his life. go to about the 2:52 mark and listen to what he says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o__rbickWLs

[mspiegelo]

Since I gave up drinking and smoking I had to make some big lifestyle changes at the same time, stopped going to fav bars, parties, etc but still when there is an important event like a birthday or whatever that I need to go to people try to pressure me to drink or give me the third degree about why I am not drinking or why I wont just have one beer.

Are there any others out there that get the same thing and how do you deal with it?

I mostly have just avoided the social occasions which were normally just an excuse for everyone to get wasted, alot of people assume I am just being anti-social I suppose cannot accept that I am not into the party lifestyle anymore.

i employ a similar strategy. i don't go to clubs, bars, parties, etc anymore. i mean, i used to party a lot. i feel that i have an advantage that i got that out of my system, while guys that started boxing when they were 8 and continue to live austere lifestyles through the amateurs into the pros, well they never got that out of their system and can fall into it later in life.

i went to a music school for college so i drank and smoked a lot of weed and got up to 220 lbs (i weigh 175 now). after graduating i started running 5 miles at least 4 times a week. i had been active before and an athlete at other times in my life, including a stint as the university of delawares men's freshman crew team captain, so i always knew how to get in shape and knew i could do it.

also, now i have a girlfriend so my whole objective of getting smashed and looking to hook up with different chicks has changed. now we can chill and watch a movie at home and chill and i'm totally content. i haven't drank alcohol since april and have only smoked weed like once since then (after i pulled my bicep, had to nurse some bruised ribs and my healing broken nose and subsequently had to stop training for about 4 days). i really am fine without it.

when you do a sport in which not getting hit in the face depends on having every bit of your lung capacity at your disposal, it is quite easy not to delve into old habits. if i get any urges, which are more and more infrequent these days, i just think of the last time i had my nose broken in sparring, and think, '**** that. that's not happening to me again" and the desire quickly fades.

[rj_ct]

great, so I now I am an outcast and a rebel, wow I might be able to rediscover my teenage coolness - do straight edgers have any particular ways of dressing? I want to get into the scene, are fugazi still cool?
should I buy a scooter and paint my fingernails black? where do straight edgers hang out?

i feel like sarcasm reached through my computer screen and punched me in the face.

like it or not, straight edge is synonymous with hardcore-punk. you can not drink, not smoke, not do drugs, and not be straight edge. plenty of people who have never listened to a judge album live that kind of lifestyle. but you're the one who used the words "straight edge" in the original post, not me.

painting your fingernails and dressing a certain way has nothing to with hardcore and punk, let alone straight edge. in fact i would say people who "dress the part" are the ones who don't understand the ideals and ethics that hardcore was founded on.

and fugazi was never cool. or a straight edge band. just an awesome band.

[PunchDrunk]

I've actually been straight edge since the I was 18. And yes, I've been into the whole hardcore punk thing (still am). I was friends with Earth Crisis and Refused, and a bunch of other seminal 90'ies straight edge bands. This was actually the reason why I was out of boxing for a long time.

That said, you can be straight, or whatever you want to call it, and have nothing to do with that stuff. I know lots of people past 30-35, who are still straight, and don't have anything to do with hardcore.

Straight edge was never considered cool, and never will be. People will always perceive you as a threat, if you're in a party type setting, and you don't drink. They will try their hardest to get you to do it, because it is the lowest common denominator in thinking, and someone who doesn't succumb to that makes people feel small. Over the years, I've found that just laying low in those situations is the way to go. Also, most of my friends are either on the same page (my fighters don't drink most of the year, for one), or know and understand who I am.

[Equilibrium]

Since I gave up drinking and smoking I had to make some big lifestyle changes at the same time, stopped going to fav bars, parties, etc but still when there is an important event like a birthday or whatever that I need to go to people try to pressure me to drink or give me the third degree about why I am not drinking or why I wont just have one beer.

Are there any others out there that get the same thing and how do you deal with it?

I mostly have just avoided the social occasions which were normally just an excuse for everyone to get wasted, alot of people assume I am just being anti-social I suppose cannot accept that I am not into the party lifestyle anymore.

I hear you man, i stopped drinking, weed, cigs, speed and a couple of other things i did once in a while like 4 years ago.(3 years ago for the cigs)

Sadly most of my friends are either pot-heads or alcoholics, they know how i am when i drink and they know its for the best, but i always get the jokes when they are smoking weed but it doesn't really bother them. I get offered beers all the time at parties, people seem to think that i'm just shy and don't want to take their beer, but after a while they get it, i don't ****ing drink. At bars it's fine too if they tell me i have to buy something to stay in, i just give them 20$ and tell them to leave me the **** alone, i work as a bouncer and i get offered drinks all the time, mostly by drunk dudes who think i am their new best friends.

Honestly it's not a problem for me, while my friends are getting wasted, im spending my time hitting on chicks. They know im always there if something goes wrong and they are happy i'm sober. I don't keep myself from going anywhere.

Edit: You guys seem to have problems with being straight edge, i mean, if you have friends that won't hang out with you if you don't drink, maybe you should find new friends.

[cotto16]

Keep strong man, my old set of friends nearly ruined my boxing career, i havent had a drink for 2 years and i dont have nothink to do with my so called friends.

[PunchDrunk]

I don't have problems with being straight edge. Sometimes people I encounter do.