I'm Straight Edge

I'm Straight Edge. And this year I'll be turning the big 3-0. I grew up around skaters and straight edge kids since I was around 10 (most my friends claimed edge when we were around 14) yet I never liked hardcore music growing up and thus never felt the connection they did to the scene and thought I needed to be hardcore to be straight edge. Some of my friends and others from my school broke edge after graduating and when I went to college I drank (recall I never claimed edge, thus I never broke edge.) And to this day I regret ever having that first drink.

While in college I also gained an appreciation for music, especially punk and ska. Rancid [...And Out Came the Wolves] being the first punk CD I ever bought drew me into punk like a hyena to a rotting carcas. After school I got into hardcore music and started going to shows more often since I finally had time and that's also when I drank more. I then started realizing that I didn't like being drunk. I looked back onto my years with my SxE friends and the X's on their hands and how they were what I wanted to be but never was.

So I claimed edge and threw away all the shit that I felt was dragging me down. Of course I got shit about it from some of my friends, but once they realized what it meant to me they we're totally cool with it. Some aren't and I'm not friends with them any more, not cause they drank, but cause they couldn't be okay with me not drinking.

Now I'm Straight Edge and proud. My real friends accept me and are proud of my commitment to my life.

Update: acutally just reposted this because blogger doesn't let you delete comments from a post unless you had some stupid setting enabled before the spam was posted.