[Iconico74]

So I remember a few things as a kid. I remember feeling depressed, I remember many fears, I felt very awkward, for most of my life, sluggish, "off". I have had plenty of positivity don't get me wrong, I just can't recall much of a balance.

But one thing I remember specifically as like a 3rd grader in DARE, creating this idea that I would try as many drugs as I could, fantasizing of feeling great on drugs. This lasted with me dormant until high school. Then after high school doing drugs was one of my passions, it bubbled down to where I am now, still not done with college, spending my money on alcohol and drugs.. they don't work the same any more at all, but they work somewhat.

In a retrospective way I feel like I desired at least trying drugs or getting high since elementary school. I wasn't raised around drugs, although there are family members from both sides that have or have had drug problems.

Is this what a predisposition to alcohol/drugs could look like?

[Altered Moment]

To answer your last question. Yes

My dad was an alcoholic so I probably had my first drink of beer when I was five. I am sure I figured I would drink when I thought about as a young kid. It was part of my culture. I didn't think about drugs until 13. That's when the bad depression hit. I fell in love with drugs and alcohol. And as you say they worked for a long time......until they didn't. In the end caused a lot of destruction in my life. After getting clean and sober it was like looking back at where a tornado had just gone through.

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i fell in love with the IDEA of weed. not hard drugs. just weed and alcohol.

[Mygrandjourney]

Originally Posted by 8888an8888

i fell in love with the IDEA of weed. not hard drugs. just weed and alcohol.

I fell in love w/ weed at age 14; I was already drinking for two years by then. While I didn't come from an alcoholic family, I did feel the need to fit in with a peer group (common for adolescents) and I wasn't necessarily academically or athletically gifted or motivated, so getting high was an in with a group, which seemed incredibly important at the time.

[Hellion]

I think the D.A.R.E program just sparked my curiosity about drugs more than it deterred me from trying them. I also remember when I really got into Pink Floyd at the age of 14 I learned what acid is as I tend to read about anything I am intrested in and beings they are 60's psychdelic rock that bit came up and that its theorized syd barrets decline in mental functioning may have been attributed to overdoing it with that drug(still not sure that's the case, maybe it was bound to happen either way) anyways I wanted to try it since than until I finally did at the age of 20. Didn't try anything aside from trying to puff a cigarette a couple times till I was 16 and tried alcohol and marijuana when I was visiting relatives in another state a lot where my cousins around my age.

I still smoke cannabis that is probably the most frequent one, drink sometimes and on occasion I am still intrested in other drugs...mostly psychdelics and mdma, though cannot say I dislike opiates and stimulants and I still smoke cigarettes. But at this point it does not seem this is interfering with my life in any negative way. I drank pretty heavily for a while but have cut down quite a lot since not really appealing to me to get all that drunk anymore.

[tallulahxoxo]

Predisposition makes sense to me, yes! I feel like some humans really enjoying putting different substances in their body. I'm one of them. (:
I've never done meth/heroin but when I am depressed out of my mind it makes perfect* sense for some reason.
Trippy!!!!

Plus I've always been fascinated with books and documentaries about drugs. They are romantically tragic to me or something..

Oh Yeah!!!!!! And if your parents drink/do drugs, that stuff is IN YOUR DNA!!!!

[cbdagency]

Most drugs people choose to take recreationally are actually being currently prescribed by doctors or are in experimental trials with human or animal patients. For example Cannabis it prescribed for many conditions, Methamphtamine is prescribed for ADHD in the USA and Chile as 5mg Desoxyn tablets MDMA is being trialed for PTSD, as is Silicyban (the active ingredient in most magic mushrooms). LSD has also been tested extensively in humans, albeit not recently. Cocain works very similarly to ADHD meds and many people is it to stay focused. All these so called drugs are dopaminergic so they effect the pleasure center of the brain, so its natural that anyone with deression is drawn to them. Also many people have ADHD whether they know it or not, which is a deficiency in dopamine in the midbrain. Through a process called retrograde inhibition all those drugs provide ADHD sufferers withte ability to focus (while for "normal people" they provide euphoria). In short all these drugs are actually medicines. Almost all medicines can be dangerous if misued. The most dangerous thing about them is that they are illegal and unregulated, but the fact that many people use and survive use of these chemicals shows that even unregulated they are mostly safe. Going out dancing all night on drugs might seem like a waste of time to many but for those drawn to those experiences the therapeutic benefits could be enormous.

[EddyofCalm]

Yeah. Ages 15-17 I took LSD probably 60-70 times. I was curious at first having read about it then loved the self-exploration it assisted. I experimented with a lot of other things after, and stayed with them longer when I was depressed, but this and mushrooms was always my favorite. I felt, like, more in myself than before. Which is funny as it was the total opposite of everything else which disconnected me from me. I hope that makes sense cause it does to me.

[Bradleyxl]

Oh DARE, I remember that! I think that did more bad than good to be honest, I don't know if it's still a part of education now?

Yeah I felt it too and unfortunately succumbed to it in my early teens, I drank pretty heavily and smoked weed a lot. I tried a few other things too, LSD, ecstasy and Magic Mushrooms.

I think when you are educated about drugs and know about the certain affects if you do end up feeling down they pop up in your brain as a possible 'release' and curiosity ofc, well that's how I felt it was with me anyway.
I don't do any of that anymore it's hard though, I'm at university now and there's a lot of culture around drugs particular when you go on nights out etc which sometimes makes it difficult. Alcohol is the only thing I can sometimes still end up having a problem with If I don't moderate.

None of my family are drug users though and my mum doesn't even drink alcohol so it's interesting considering whether there is a thing as 'predisposition' to drugs outside of having a family history in it.