Old Crutch or New Leg?

Being straight edge is kinda like being black. People look at you funny when you’re at a bar. People look at you funny when you’re at a party. People look at you and talk to you differently when they find out you’re straight edge. They’ll usually patronize you or try to convince you that they “hardly ever drink” as they're sitting on a couch with a twelve pack of Pabst on their lap. Denial.

Bukowski didn’t apologize for being a piece of shit. Why should you?

I’m straight edge. Know what that means? That means I can see right through the insecurities you project: your guilt complex and your fake nihilist attitude. Boloney. It doesn’t work on me. Sporting an attitude like that is like wrapping plastic wrap around a turd. It's still a turd no matter what you doll it up with. If you’ve been a hobo for three decades and you wear banana peels for sport socks, I can see why you’d be a drunk. If you’re a trust fund hipster brat who’s insecure because you dropped out of the accountant program your parents put you in, your booze/cocaine habit doesn’t impress me.

I think of myself as a “progressive” straight edger. I don’t really listen to that much hardcore. Sure, I’m a Minor Threat fan. And yes, I listen to H2O, but I’d rather listen to Miles Davis. I don’t have “X” tattoos on my hands. I don’t beat people up for no reason (usually) and I don’t wear a baseball cap and cargo shorts. Dressing like a junior high-age meathead isn’t cool to me. I just know a good policy when I see one. Plus saying “I’m straight edge” is cooler than saying “I’m 12 years sober and counting.” Just for the record, not everyone who’s sober is a recovered addict. Remember that. Some people are just smart enough to listen to their bodies. Doesn’t mean they go to AA meetings. Not everyone needs 20 other people to tell them that they're a bonehead. Straight edge is a movement worth hijacking. I’m certainly not alone in this thinking…

Here’s why I’m not insecure about being “black” (straight edge): I wake up every morning feeling like a million dollar bill that Uncle Sam pulled hot off the ink press. I don’t play the fool anymore unless I want to (I get to watch everyone else play the fool instead). I don’t have a beer belly. I don’t vomit in the morning or late-night in alleys behind rat-infested clubs. I don’t fall out of touch with my friends for five years unless I decide I want to. I’m properly hydrated (so I can think logically) every day of the week. I can count all my fingers. I don’t get hangovers. I have a college degree instead a pile of regrets and an inferiority complex. I don’t wake up at 2pm wondering why I have some sort of bizarre STD. I can run for 14 miles without stopping. I have more money than you because I don’t get fifty bucks poorer every night from senselessly binge drinking with hopes of getting laid.

Good enough?

I see the sun when it comes up in the morning and I watch the sun go down at night with a pair of sober peepers and that, my friends, is fucking righteous. Whenever I see a bunch of bros forearm high-fiving and drinking Jager Bombs I can honestly say that I’m not anything like them. If you’re out clubbing and barhopping, you’re part bro. Sorry.

Back when I used to drink I missed being sober. I forgot what it was like being a kid. I forgot what a beautiful day smelt like because my senses were jammed full of poison. I got sick of my friends and family dying while I was living like a zombie. That’s why I quit drinking. Now that I’m sober I don’t miss drinking. Not one fucking bit. Does that make sense to you? Is it rocket science? Nah. It’s just good logic. And logic is apparently WAY out out of style.

Sobriety isn't a feeling you can buy. You can’t find a commercial on TV advertising a pill that gives you this feeling. It’s an understanding I have with my body that goes a little something like this: I don’t pour poison inside of you and you don’t make me feel like an existential joke/waste of space. It’s a good agreement.

Make no mistake: I may look like I’m committing social suicide by not drinking. And hell, I may be.

And it gets worse…

I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs, and I don’t take pills either. I can read some Camus if I want to gaze into the void. I don’t need to be swirling into the abyss with a wet headache and 50 pounds of belly fat.

Next time you see someone who’s straight edge, instead of being a passive aggressive shit or making a dipshit remark, you can thank them for being the DD and for keeping the world turning while you sit on the toilet all afternoon with PBR diarrhea and rotgut.

This isn’t a sermon. I’m not a preacher. And I don’t care what you do with you’re life. I just think us blacks are a little bit underrepresented. I’m just a guy who wants to set the record straight.

Thanks for understanding, folks.