<p>It’s not a drug, 1337scrub, in the way you define it: essentially equating it to hard drugs, which it’s not.</p>
<p>Neither am I saying it’s a conspiracy among “all adults.” I’m not sure where you picked that up from my post. Yes, in large amounts, alcohol is bad for you. In small doses, even in medium-sized ones, it’s not going to kill you.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you should take 21 shots on your 21st birthday or something like that. That’s stupid and it will most likely kill you. But the idea that a few shots in high school is going to ruin your life is absolutely wrong and is indeed being falsely perpetuated.</p>
<p>Well if you were really going to go through with this then i don’t think you would be posting it on here for the entire world to see AND ask us to stop you.
BUt yeah its stupid and if you get caught (dont think its easy to get away with) its really gonna **** up your chances. i was just reading an article yesterday that said that colleges look more at behavior and criminal records cuz of all the crazy stuff thats been going on (VA tech, other shootings etc)</p>
<p>but yeah on top of it all its really stupid. Trust me its not fun either</p>
<p>I’m not sure how I equated alcohol to hard drugs with a general definition that would also cover everything from caffeine to ibuprofen to penicillin. In other words, that definition covers both legal and illegal drugs. Note that all of these have side effects which start to become problematic if you take too much (caffeine is probably the worst of that particular list). Note also that using them for fun tends to mean taking more than you should for simple utility.</p>
<p>Alcohol happens to have absolutely zero useful purpose as an internally taken drug. It’s literally a poison; hence we commonly use it to sanitize materials. It is a biological waste product when derived from fermentation; organisms expel it because it is poisonous.</p>
<p>Is it a “hard” drug? That really depends on what qualifies a drug as “hard”. If “hard” means it has heroin-like addictive properties, then no, it is not a “hard” drug, but it still has strong addictive properties. Alcohol addiction just creeps up much slower. If the effects that abuse of the substance can have is what qualifies a drug as “hard”, then YES, it is. Alcohol’s short-term negative effects are relatively minor (hangover, dilation of blood vessels), but its’ long term effects are as bad as commonly accepted “hard” drugs (liver destruction, serious damage to the brain, and a host of others). It also happens to have more serious withdrawal symptoms than any other commonly abused drug, period.</p>
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<p>I picked up the conspiracy part from the fact that you insist that all adults are so overhyping the dangers of alcohol as a way of guilting us even though they “probably did things 10x worse”. Basically, you tried to make a point in such an arrogant (and possibly sarcastic) way that it came across as being haughty “I know first-hand that they’re feeding us bull****” speak.</p>
<p>As for your, “ok in small amounts” argument, you are entirely correct. The problem is, that may be how it starts, but statistically, a fair percentage slowly slide into drinking larger amounts and more frequently, just like an addiction to basically anything. I certainly know plenty of high schoolers who started drinking small amounts with friends and now drink to get drunk whenever an opportunity to get away with it arises.</p>
<p>Further, just having 2-3 drinks carries significant indirect risks. If you get caught, you’re still screwed. If you’re female and drinking with other people, you take some risk of getting your drink spiked with something else (and at a party situation where you screw yourself over by admitting you were there, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place if it happens). If you weigh less than average, then alcohol will have a greater effect on you per drink than those around you, making you the least coherent at any equal number of drinks and thus the easiest to exploit (again, being female means you’re likely taking a bigger risk by drinking). </p>
<p>Not to mention that, since alcohol lowers your inhibitions, if you’ve got friends egging you on to take that 3rd/4th/xth drink, it becomes much easier to ignore a previous decision to limit yourself.</p>
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<p>A few shots won’t ruin your life, but that’s not the message that adults try to perpetuate. The problem is that, statistically speaking, it rarely ends with a few shots, and for a significant proportion, it also spirals beyond getting drunk at the occasional party. Certainly, those that become alcoholics are in the minority, though it is significantly easier for a teenager to become dependent on alcohol than the general adult population</p>
<p>The point that is being perpetuated is that the risks far outweighs the fun, and no matter how well you think you can control yourself, people with the strongest of resolves have fallen to alcohol in droves. Females also risk sexual abuse and rape. You may not be the unlucky guy, but if you are, then you are completely screwed. Your expected value from drinking is indisputably negative.</p>