Thursday 1 November 2012

I've got straight edge! Kind of...‏


 

  Baggy jeans, band t-shirts, big black hoodies and bangles up to my elbows. That was my general appearance when I was eleven years old. I'd always been somewhat different from other girls. Growing up, when all the other kids around me were getting baby dolls that did all but defecate, I played alone with my humble model post office. As I got older I got into wrestling and even traded video recordings of the pay per views with a fellow eight year old sports entertainment enthusiast after school. Of course, he was male. None of my female friends were as interested in seeing grown men get hit with foil dustbin lids as I was. I think wrestling was what sparked my interest in alternative music, many wrestlers had themes that were quite rock-based and I enjoyed them. After listening to a number of generic metal bands whose shirts are always available in your local HMV I started to delve a bit deeper into the alternative scene and that was when I found what I'd been waiting to hear, punk.

 
I was on holiday with my parents when I went searching for the one disc that changed my entire perspective on music. The black and white cover with the red writing stamped across it looked pristine in the cellophane wrap. I think it cost around £11 at the time and I paid for it with my spending money, the rest of which I floundered away in arcades along the sea front. We'd taken the coach there and it took a couple of hours so on the way home I was excited to finally try out my new purchase. I put the disc into my portable cd player and put in my headphones. Those first few bass-ridden seconds of Maxwell Murder confirmed it, '... And Out Come The Wolves' was my favourite album and this was the music I saw myself listening to for the rest of my life.

 

From Rancid, I started to broaden my horizons musically and began listening to a lot more punk and hardcore. While doing my research and looking for new music I came across Minor Threat, that was the first time I heard of straight edge. The concept seemed quite strange to me. By this time I'd been to quite a few gigs and had reached the conclusion that the majority of punk fans were beer-swilling lunatics, I had no problem with this, it was actually fairly entertaining, it just baffled me that this movement stemmed from the same sort of music that in some cases promoted drinking. Despite my initial confusion, I did find it quite fascinating. When I found out fully what straight edge was about, I realised that it was me. I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, I didn't smoke and I certainly didn't have promiscuous sex. At that time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. I felt like I was part of a group. It's only now, seven years on, that I realise I wasn't in fact straight edge. I was fourteen years old.

 
By the time I was 16 and in year eleven at school I'd discovered that I could listen to the majority of things in the chart and that I was sick of being completely different. I began to listen to what everyone was playing on their phones on the back of the bus. I started to buy my clothes from Primark, clothes that I'd seen on other people or that were recommended by my friends. I'd lost my sense of individuality, the only things I had left from my teenage avant-garde phase were my piercings which were vastly taking over my face. I loved them but I didn't want to be the 'weirdo with all the piercings'. I took them out when I left the house and put them straight back in upon my return. I didn't feel like myself but at least I felt like I belonged.

 
At the start of my time in college I'd just left a very long relationship. A relationship which I now firmly believe sapped me of my teenage years and forced me to grow up far too fast. This combined with a mass of new people made me feel like I could be myself again. I started to wear my piercings (although I did decide to retire some) and I started listening to what I loved once again. I met my two best friends in college who really helped me stay true to myself, Joe and Kate I love you. When the time came to leave college and the yearbooks were being passed around Kate had left this in mine, 'thank you for being you because you have made me me'. It was true. She helped me find myself. I helped her find herself. That sense of belonging made a swift return except this time it was here to stay.

 
Post-college my life consisted of drinking quite a lot and going out, the same for many university students. I didn't see any harm in it and nothing disastrous ever happened when drunk. Then last year I met my boyfriend, this is where my decision to stop drinking starts. I really have rambled.

 
Without sounding too gushing, I have well and truly fallen for him. We'd had nights out before and they were fun. We both laughed. We both drank a little too much. We both had a good time. There was no reason that this one should have been any different.

 
It was very different.

 
It was the first time we were going out with my two best friends. The club we were going to was kind of alternative which wasn't his scene but I was sure he'd have a good time anyway as we'd been to a similar one before. On arrival he decided to share a bottle of wine with Kate. About half an hour later all he was doing was staring blankly into the crowd of people, I decided to take him outside. I asked him to make a little more effort considering it was Kate's birthday, I thought he was just being miserable. It was only when he spoke to me that I realised how drunk he was. As the night went on things didn't get any better and the whole thing culminated in us arguing in the street. All I wanted was for him to be normal. All he wanted was more drink. We shouted. He stormed off down the street telling me to fuck off. I went after him. At one point he actually started running. I wanted to just cry and go home. Without him.

 
We eventually sorted things out but that night put me off drinking for good. Until then I never really saw it having these effects on someone close to me. Seeing someone you love looking like a zombie, seeing a completely different side of them, thinking they were a completely different person - it really made me question if I wanted to be with this guy if this is what he was like when he was drunk. The fact that his personality and even his behaviour towards me was completely distorted genuinely worried me. What if I were like that? I didn't want to risk making him feel like I did that night. I didn't want to risk ever being in that kind of state. I didn't want to drink.

 
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I ever drank in the first place. Alcohol does not taste nice. I have heard the phrase, 'its so nice, it doesn't even taste like alcohol!' enough times to know I'm not the only one who thinks that. When I drank, the next day would always end up a complete write-off because I felt so ill. I don't want to waste days doing nothing just because I went out the night before. It doesn't seem worth it. Maybe I drank because all my friends did, because I was so desperate to belong to something.

 
As of Sunday the 7th of October I haven't had a drop of alcohol. Its not been long, I know but this is how I'm going to continue my life.



I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't have promiscuous sex and I no longer drink. On paper, am I straight edge? Probably. Will I refer to myself as straight edge? No. I have no problem with people who call themselves straight edge and by no means does this apply to everyone, but for me it's just a way of finding somewhere you feel like you belong. That's the whole reason it appealed to me all those years ago, because I was lonely and different. I no longer have that longing to belong somewhere and I'm no longer lonely.

No comments:

Post a Comment