I often mention that I have never gotten high or drunk in my blog posts, but I think it is important for my readers to understand how this came about.  Looking back, I feel that it was the work of my Higher Power that protected me from these two horrible addictions, but at the time it was nothing but pure lack of self-esteem motivating me to steer clear of these vices.  Let me explain…

When I was in the third grade, we used to have “health” lessons.  We each had our own worn-out pea-green hard-covered text book with a stylized orange sun with curly yellow rays all around it and we read chapters about personal hygiene, bullying, ethics,…  I guess the teacher would have us read a few pages silently and then answer questions afterwards, but I’m not sure.  The weird thing is that I wouldn’t have had any recollection of any of this except that one sentence I read on one particular day about drug and alcohol addiction really hit me hard.  It went something like this:

“People who end-up having a problem with drugs or alcohol are usually loner-types.  They often don’t like themselves and don’t have many friends.  Many of them may even be depressed.”

At the moment I read those words, I was terrified of becoming one of “them.”  Why?   Because that sentence described the way I felt about myself to a “T!”  I also distinctly remember feeling guilty and ashamed.  And afraid.  Afraid that everyone was going to find-out that I was “different.”  I felt like I had just been told that I was the only person on the face of the planet that didn’t feel good about myself!  I felt like a freak!  And worse…a freak with a SECRET!  Up until that point, I guess I thought that everyone felt the way I did.  Or perhaps I had never thought of myself in relation to anyone else around me before.  But there it was, in a school text book, in black-and-white: “proof” that there was something wrong with me.  I think that a part of me went on “high alert” right at that moment and labeled myself as a potential alcoholic or drug addict, even though I am sure that, at that time, I didn’t even know what those terms meant.

As I got older and started to learn about the judgement-impairing qualities of drugs and alcohol, my resolve grew stronger.  Not out of any virtue I had, but out of fear of drawing attention to myself.  My greatest concern growing-up had always been doing everything humanly possible to keep a low profile.  My biggest goal was to blend into the woodwork.  So nothing would have been worse in my mind than to call negative attention to myself by being drunk or high.

Bottom line?  The only reason why I never drank or did drugs was because the idea of making a fool out of myself horrified me to the point of complete abstinence.