For the uninitiated, Straight Edge refers to a lifestyle which grew out of the punk rock scene on
the East coast that refrains from the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs.I first realized that I was Straight Edge when I was about fifteen years old. Up until then, I had only had a few drinks of alcohol and never really liked the taste of it. That was also about the same time that I was getting into punk rock and I picked up Youth of Today's Break Down the Walls. As I tried to figure out what the X's on their hands were about, I learned about a movement that made a lot of sense. Up until then my best friends and I had only barely experimented with liquor, but we were seeing our good friend Debbie screw around with drugs. And she wasn't even doing real drugs, she was huffing a household product that was supposed to get you high. Dumb. That's the type of shit that really kills brain cells, quick. Steve and I tried to get her away from it, but ultimately she didn't want to get away from it, and there's just not much you can do in a case like that. For the next couple of years, Steve and I stayed Straight Edge, but Debbie didn't. We figured at least she wouldn't do anything while we were with her, so we hung out with her as much as we could. Eventually Steve and Debbie got together. Of course that didn't work out, and it fucked up a pretty cool friendship.
Steve and I stayed friends until he had a car accident while I was in Southeast Asia. I came home to find out he was in the hospital. He ended up being ok, but I swear that accident changed him in some weird way. We started spending a lot less time together, and he eventually lost the Edge. With the exception of one night at the end of my Junior year in high school, I didn't have a single drink until well after my twenty-first birthday, and yes, that included three years of college.
That's when I went through a time of re-discovering myself. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship, so I spent a great deal of time realizing that I had been living my life for her. I wasn't sure what I believed in anymore and starting from scratch made a lot of sense. I sort of threw all of my ideals out and examined each one of them before taking it back. Straight Edge didn't make the cut.
It didn't make the cut for two main reasons. First and foremost, I moved away from it in my thinking. I got "experimental." I wanted to learn more about myself and the substances I had been avoiding for so long. Working at a nightclub where I could usually drink for free, I learned about alcohol, what it does to me, and what I do when I've been drinking it. Let me assure you that my research was not academic. I threw myself into it. I did a lot of stupid things that I'm not too proud of. I flirted with alcoholism for a bit. But growing up in a family plagued with the disease, I was able to recognize the warning flags in my own behavior and in my friends'. I slowed down. My last lesson was moderation. The second reason is a bit harder to explain. The majority of the Straight Edge kids I've met are extremist assholes. I don't like being a part of anything that attracts that many fanatics. The all or none attitude assumes that there is no room for someone who enjoys an occasional cocktail, but doesn't let it run his/her life. But also, ever since many Straight Edge kids took up the banner of vegetarianism, they have tried to make not eating meat akin to not doing drugs. While I may agree with the vegetarian cause on many levels, eating meat is NOT the same thing as doing drugs. They may be related, but they are not the same thing. But what really annoys me is the exclusionary attitude. So many kids are like, "Well if you do drugs or eat meat, then you are not a worthy human being." All of this is so contradictory to the original Straight Edge ideals. Let me explain.
In the mythic Sixties, Marijuana and Acid use became very publicly popular. All in all, these are pretty tame in the drug spectrum. Marijuana might lead to dulled wits, but it's pretty tough to really hurt yourself with it. Acid could be a little more tricky, but most of the danger was to the person doing it. However, by the time the punk rock scene was emerging (mostly on the East Coast) in the mid to late Seventies, drug use had turned harder. Heroin and Cocaine were a lot more prevalent. Suffice to say, Coke and Smack are a bit more dangerous than Pot and Acid. These new drugs were especially prevalent in the Anti-Social Punk Rock circles. This not only lead to a lot of kids over-dosing and dying, but the number of fights at shows was staggering. (A far cry from the peace and love generation just ten years earlier.) Anyway, a few kids started looking at their friends fighting and dying, and they decided that the negative attitude of the punk rock scene wasn't doing it for them anymore. They wanted to live their lives more positively. They wanted futures, and they wanted to shape their world in that future. They saw drugs and alcohol as counter-productive to making any kind of change. It's easy to look back at the sixties with hindsight and see how the drug use hindered the effectiveness of any Movement. But mostly, these kids, just wanted to keep control over their lives and live "clean."
There was a club in Washington D.C. that used to draw big black X's on the backs of the hands of the underage kids who couldn't drink alcohol there. These kids that didn't want to drink in the first place starting coming to the shows with X's already drawn on. This is how the X became the symbol for Straight Edge kids to identify each other. And once you have a name and a symbol, you have a movement. In addition to not smoking, drinking, or doing any other drugs, a lot of kids saw the common sexual promiscuity as damaging for them, so they either stopped having one night stands, or stopped having sex at all. But as with everything, it was all about personal freedom and choice.
By the late eighties, a number of SE kids were also becoming vegetarian/vegan. The feelings that started the movement were extending to other areas of life. Some SE kids felt meat-eating was damaging to themselves, and the earth, so they stopped. There was also a movement of kids attempting to become more spiritually aware. A number of kids were drawn to Hare Krishna's vegetarian and drug free lifestyle for direction. But again, it was all about personal freedom and choice.
This is where it starts to go downhill.
The Hardline movement emerged. Hardliners believed everyone should be Straight Edge and vegan. They used violence and intimidation to try to push their views on others. Since the beginning of Straight Edge, SE kids had been accused of being preachy. Some were. Sometimes non-Straight Edgers were just uncomfortable because of the level of some SE kids' convictions. But these Hardline kids were the antithesis of what the movement was supposed to be all about, personal freedom and choice.
Those were the ideals that lead me to the movement, and oddly enough, those were the ideals that forced me to move away from it. I didn't want to be associated with such fanatics. In my struggle to find my own balance and direction, I've pretty much done everything I swore I would never do. I've come close to death on many occassions, and, for a while, I was pretty sure I had sunk into the alcoholism I grew up with. Then I realized that I never gave up control of myself. I have always been able to walk away.
And that's what lead me to realize that I still believe in Straight Edge. I still believe in everything I used to. I still refuse to give up control of myself to any substance. But I'm also a bit different from a lot of other Straight Edge kids. I still drink an occasional cocktail. Why? Because it is a beverage. Alcohol, in small quantities, is not a drug. It becomes a drug when used to the point of impairment or intoxication. Those who are so anti-alcohol that they can not enjoy a drink every once in a while without believing they are compromising or endangering their lives are giving as much power to alcohol as the most die-hard alcoholic. They are continuing to allow alcohol to control their lives. (Of course I fully support those people who are in recovery and don't drink at all because they legitimately have a problem.)
I also realized I was giving up my movement to the assholes. If all the reasonable, moderate, sane kids leave SE because of the assholes, then of course only assholes are going to be Straight Edge. Those of us that feel a claim to the label but aren't extreme about it need to keep using the label, if for no other reason, to keep the extremists in check. I will not allow some new school punk who doesn't know the history, or the original ideals, try to tell me that I'm not Straight Edge because I've had experiences. I live a positive life, looking to the future, bettering myself and my world where I can. And that is what Straight Edge is all about.