A friend of my first husband's, an artist, the guy I should have married, not mr hankster, I remember him saying at one point (we kept in touch for a while) that yeah it was all cool and fun while they were in school, and even after, but for him it turned out to be a really really big problem, and it was not cool at all. And he was just really mad, like he'd been tricked or fooled into doing something light and fun in high school, that ended up practically costing him his life. He totalled cars, he wrecked jobs and relationships, he ruined his health, he was poor because of it - he was just pretty angry about it. Not ugly angry, more of a, there was all this pressure to do it, but they didn't know it could end up hurting people like this, it was just supposed to be fun. For what it's worth. This can be said about any unhealthy coping mechanism, but I guess the point was, we just think we're having fun, right? It's not like we're having SI parties? But maybe that's what a bar or an ice-cream parlor really is? For some (most?) people?