I was agreeing with you cause I haven’t really seen or used my straight edge since high school. Here I am thinking I don’t even have a ruler. Then I read the comments. I guess it’s not the literal straight edge.

Davey Havok is still out there, somewhere

So does straight edge strictly refer to not doing drugs? If that’s the definition, then I’m a straight edged person… Hell, I don’t even drink and I work for a Scottish company where all my co-workers drink like fish.

I’m not religious, it has just always seemed dumb to me that people felt they needed to be inebriated to have a good time. Maybe this is just the normal for them so they don’t know any different? But doesn’t that seem pretty stupid? Anyways, I was stubborn in college and resisted peer pressure and by the time I didn’t care anymore, I just never saw the need to start drinking (or doing drugs). But I’m not here preach, I don’t really care what you do as long as it doesn’t affect me (i.e. drink driving).

I’m a CTO for a midsized company. I have three kids and I’ve been happily married for over 25 years. Between my friends, there are less people who drink than those who don’t, but within my work environment, I’m definitely an oddball… But I’m also old enough that I don’t really give a shit what other people think so I’m perfectly happy going along and being the guy who doesn’t drink.

Used to go to the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Maybe once you grow up you become first a Sober person, then a Teetotaler.

I wasn’t really around when being straight-edge was an identity but honestly I think you don’t hear about it as much today because its a horrible time to be sober 24/7. Can’t imagine raw dogging this shit. Props to anyone who can though.

They’re still around. I see them at hardcore shows

They grew up

I mean they may not know what straight edge means, but there are a shit-ton of people who don’t do drugs or alcohol…

I mean, I never really heard about straight edge anyway. It was something someone would talk about every once in a while 15 years ago. My guess, though -

Straight edge started off as a cool way to say “I’m a drug addict in recovery”, which was cloaked in a thin veil of justification about how taking care of your mind and body was the first best step towards dismantling oppressive systems of power.

But pretty quickly, the term got co-opted by teens who were scared to drink at parties because their mom might get mad, and/or Tumblr-style online activists who base their whole identity around vices they don’t engage in. Which kinda kills any amount of cool the term had to begin with.

And of course, there is the very obvious fact that billions of people around the world regularly consume moderate amounts of drugs and alcohol on a reasonable schedule, while continuing to function in their roles as workers, hobbyists, friends, partners, parents, and yes, activists. Having a couple beers every other Saturday isn’t the reason Trump won the election. And even if you don’t like the hangover - or just don’t like alcohol - there are plenty of other drugs you can take recreationally with the same or different effects which give you less of a hangover.

Finally, it just isn’t that hard to say “nah, I’m good” when someone offers you a beer or whatever. You don’t need to come up with a special word, make it part of your identity, or get tattoos about it. Outside of a social scene where intentionally self-destructing is seen as virtuous, everyone understands that some people sometimes just don’t want to indulge for any number of reasons.

To quote NOFX:

It’s not the right time to be sober, now the idiots have taken over.

Sadly, every single straight-edge person I knew (a grand total of 5 people) later became a drug addict. Two of them died of overdoses. This was two decades ago at least and I really haven’t heard anyone use the term in at least 10.

deleted by creator

Straight edge people have been bred out of the gene pool by sex having druggies

The 3 straight edge kids I knew all became public school teachers