Or just “I don’t do drugs”, or “I don’t do recreational drugs”?

Or “I don’t smoke weed” and “I don’t drink alcohol” when they come up, separately?

I wouldn’t generally say it at all unless I’m in a situation where I’m offered recreational drugs such as cannabis or alcohol.

My understanding is the term ‘straight edge’ might be more well known than ‘teetotal’, but neither are completely known by everyone.

I take straight edge to mean not doing any recreational drugs. However I read that straight edge can have punk culture connotations that some people might maintain are part of it. Like I might meet a punk straight edger who claims I’m not really straight edge unless I have connections to the punk scene. They also apparently often claim you need to be vegan to be straight edge, I am vegan though coincidentally but not for reasons relating to straight edge culture.

Teetotal I believe most often means abstinence from simply alcohol, but can be used to mean abstaining from all recreational drugs (I think). It may be more well known as just not drinking alcohol. For example teetotallers often still smoke weed.

Apologies if I misrepresented any of these terms.

  • @z00s
    6•8 months ago

    My dude, I gave up alcohol 12 years ago and I can feel your question in my bones.

    The only responses I’ve found that don’t cause minimize follow-up bullshit are:

    “Oh I’m taking antobiotics at the moment and the doc said I can’t drink while I’m on them.”

    and

    “Sorry, I’m designated driver tonight! I know, it’s so annoying but I promised my gf/friends…”

    Anyone you see frequently enough to know these are white lies should be cool with you not drinking/getting high anyway.

    Yes, it’s bullshit that you have to lie but I’ve found that telling the truth just leads to drunk/high idiots pestering you and basically not accepting any explanation. Using the white lies above shifts the blame onto someone else, and then people just seem to accept it.

    And if your friends don’t respect that you want to stay sober, then you can probably do without them in your life.