top | item 37996474

(no title)

What permanent bad effect do you think it has left? I do wonder about this too.

I binge drank between 14-16 years old, started smoking weed around the same time - and smoked daily from 20-25. After that I did a short bout of therapy and walked away from it. I'm now 40 and I do often wonder what damage might have been done.

If I'd have to guess how damage could materialise i'd point to the fact that my thinking was polarised for a long time and I had trouble controlling my emotions.

But those traits could easily be attributed to verbal aggression and a lack of trust and empathy in my childhood - which most likely contributed to the substance abuse in the first place (1) Or it could even just be attributed to the male brain taking a little more time to mature.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/02/shouting-at-...

discuss

pipes|2 years ago

I skateboarded, drank and smoked with this guy when I was about 15/16 (he was just part of our little group that skated etc, not a close friend, more just someone I knew). He was really out going, funny, confident. Whatever happened I didn't see him for another five years or so. Then at about 21/22 years old, me and another mate met him randomly on the bus... Right away it was obvious that something had gone badly wrong for him. He seemed jittery and withdrawn. We all laughed at a joke together, ten minutes later he asked if we'd been laughing at him, it was so surprising. He explained he was no good at doing jobs and had failed at chefing. He also explained he'd been living in a house were they were they had been doing Es everyday (he'd moved out and stopped that). Some of his house mates I knew of vaguely, I knew them mostly as dodgy bastards that should be avoided at all costs.

Anyway he seemed to be a wreck of a person. Judging the character change I doubt it wasn't permanent damage, but I'm no expert.

Bizarrely this encounter was 20 years ago, and I remember it clearly because it was so utterly shocking to me.

Thanks for the link by the way. Ever since my daughter was born I've been stopping my wife from shouting at her or labelling her something negative, because I know all too well what it did to me (it was totally minor for me, but it's there). My wife has finally accepted this and it's stopped. Hrm, one positive impact I've had on the world I guess :)