Instead of giving you the history and
definition of straight-edge like you see on most straight-edge
pages, I thought I'd give an explanation of why I chose to be
drug-free as well as why I chose to label myself straight-edge.
In middle school and high
school, when my friends were experimenting with drugs and
alcohol, I always had a feeling inside that it was something I was
never meant to take part in. As I put more and more thought
into it, I realized that getting high or drunk would be
disrespectful to myself. First, such behavior
would be obviously destructive to the body, and I had no reason
to engage in self-destructive behavior...I was a pretty happy kid!
Second, I figured people got high or drunk to fill a void in
their lives. They did those things as a way to have fun or as a
way to escape reality. I thought drinking, or smoking up, or
whatever, would've been like telling myself that my life was somehow
not good enough and incomplete. We all have voids in our lives, but I
knew drugs/alcohol were only artificial fillers. I respected
myself too much to embrace such a lifestyle. That was sometime during
my freshman year of high school when I made that realization, and
I still believe now what I believed then. However, I didn't always call
myself "straight-edge." In fact, I didn't claim
straight-edge until my sophomore year of college - the reason being I used to
be reserved about labelling myself. Also, I
didn't really see any purpose in labelling myself "straight-edge," but
as I became more conscious of the forces at work in the society that
surrounded me, I saw so much injustice and inequality. I
wanted to make a change and I understood the importance of educating
others to bring about change. I knew there was no
better way to teach others than by example, so I decided to take a stand
against those things that contribute so much to the sickness of
our society. My first action was claiming straight-edge. In straight-edge, I found
a solid ideal to cling to that would let people know that I
didn't approve of putting my mind to sleep, because there was too
much to live for and too much to be done to spend one minute in a
chemical haze. I think straight-edge allowed me to be a positive example for others and
showed my peers what it meant to have a sense of self-worth.
In retrospect, I think claiming myself straight-edge was a good decision, but after a while, I started to see a problem within the straight-edge movement. Sure, it's good to be sober and drug-free, but what use is sobriety without a goal, something higher to acheive with that sobriety? For many people, straight-edge becomes a reason to become puffed up and proud, as if being straight-edge is the highest goal to be reached in life. Well guess what? It's not! Anyway, I decided that because of this problem with the straight-edge movement, I would disassociate myself with it and give more time to living my Catholic faith, which, unlike straight-edge, has a clear goal: to love and serve God and neighbor.
As a sidenote, I don't think it's a good
idea to do drugs or drink/smoke in excess, but it is not my place to
look down upon someone if they choose to do these things. Obviously,
there are forces at work in the lives of such people that have drawn
them to partake in chemical pleasures, and it's wrong for me to assume
that they make the decisions they make because they are
immoral/weak/unintelligent/etc.
Back to Ideologies /
Back to Index / About Me
