| I don't believe that any one person will sway your opinion with a single comment -- though if anyone should drive the point home to you, it would be DagnyT's response.
With that said, however, I must second whoever made the observation that you seem to be a terribly insecure person. You ask a group of anonymous yet overachieving students whether or not you should indulge in a relatively dangerous activity, but introduce your motivations by listing your accomplishments in school?
Is the fact that you are managing a 4.0 GPA as a freshman in high school supposed to indicate that you are more intelligent than most kids, and therefore will be safer under the influence? Or are you suggesting that your "hard work" this year entitles you to spend the summer making deliberately bad choices?
There were a lot of very bright, very intelligent kids in my freshman class. There are far fewer bright and intelligent students graduating. That gap? It's filled almost entirely with the ones who started partying early, started drinking, smoking, got careless and lazy and lost what they easily could have achieved. And what will happen to them? Nothing too bad. They're all going to decent colleges, except for the occasional hang-over, none have gotten sick from their activities. The alcohol, so far, has had no lasting impact on their well-being.
When they started drinking, however, they set off down a long road of poor-decision making, of rationalizing foolish behavior. You keep asking about the effect of alcohol on the body... that's not where you should be the most concerned. It was the impact that it had on their personality, on their ego, that was the most damaging. Whether they realized it or not, they have wasted a lot of their potential, and that is something they can never get back.
High school is stressful. We get that because we live it, just like you. But it speaks something to someone's character when they struggle through all the daily ********, stay sober, and still make it out on top. It's not a race, it's an endurance contest.
Here's a hint which will benefit you for the rest of your scholastic career: don't define yourself by the grades you receive, the number of extracurriculars you are involved in, or the amount of time spent sorting cans at the Food Bank. Your passions and your dedication to making a tremendous difference, changing your life as well as the lives of others... that is a central component of who you are, not your GPA or officer status in the Stop World Hunger club you half-heartedly joined. |