Originally Posted by
Supercrew 
I just have trouble equating the two addictions, because I was caught off guard by my alcohol addiction because everyone seems to drink, and I never thought I had an issue, until I realized that I couldn't quit drinking once I started. But I was taught since I was very young that drugs, heroin, meth, coke, are highly addictive, so I could never understand how someone would find their way down that path unless they had a death wish. Kind of like, I know that lacquer or oil based spray paints will give you a buzz, but I also know that if you huff them from a bag they can kill you. I have never been willing to trade a buzz for the chance of death. When I started drinking, being that I never thought it would physically kill me, because everyone does it, it was easy to get hooked on it because of the social aspects of drinking and the media's portrayal of it. I guess I can't understand what would drive someone who is in their right mind to begin with to try something that you know you are going to be addicted to and could possibly die from on the first try. So even though meth is an epidemic, I still don't understand what would push someone to use it in the first place, whereas alcohol is almost seen as a rite of passage.
Well first of all just because you try meth or coke once doesn't mean you will get addicted. There are people who use it off and on and it's not a problem, just like alcohol. I did coke, too, but I have no trouble with it at all. Don't want it, don't think about it. Though if I did it consistently long enough I probably would be addicted to it. It was just a fill-in for meth when I couldn't get it, but in that way it perpetuated the cycle.
"I guess I can't understand what would drive someone who is in their right mind..." That's just the thing though. I really wasn't in my right mind. I was raised that drugs are bad, that you shouldn't do them, all that stuff. My mom has never touched drugs, my dad smoked a joint once and decided it wasn't his thing. The only alcohol in the house is a bottle of cooking wine, and every other week my dad gets a 6-pack after he mows the lawn. He usually manages to finish it before he mows the lawn again, but not always.
But change the circumstances a little bit, so maybe you aren't quite in your right mind. I'd been through a few things in a very short period of time, stuff that pushed me mentally and emotionally past what I knew how to handle. So I was out getting drunk with some friends, just blowing off steam (a pretty standard college thing to do, though I think I did it far more often than is typical) and someone had some speed. I was desperate for some way to deal with all this stuff going on in my life, so why not. "One time won't hurt, right? Maybe it will just take my mind off it and let me relax for a couple hours." Famous last words. The combination of friends who were offering it up, my need to escape, and being drunk was all it took. You would sleep with people you wouldn't otherwise touch with someone else's 10-foot pole because you were drunk, it's not that outlandish to think you might dabble in drugs given the right set of circumstances, even with the good parenting you had and the negative images of drugs in your head.