I first heard about straight edge, by reading a copy of Maximum Rock and Roll when I was a teenager growing up in Coffs Harbour. At the time, I was listening to a lot of punk rock and oi music as well as dabbling in the occasional metal band (VENOM!!!!!). A metalhead friend of mine had already introduced me to hardcore through a lot of crossover style bands such as Agnostic Front, Cro Mags, DRI and I was pretty much into it. As I was reading through MRR I saw the front cover of Youth of Todays 'Can't Close My Eyes' with an angry bald Ray Cappo on the front screaming his guts out into the mic, and thought to myself 'shityeahhhh that's cool'. So the next few times I went to Sydney on a record buying spree I hunted down records by bands such as YOT, Slapshot, Gorilla Biscuits, Token Entry, 7 Seconds, No For An Answer etc etc. Also at the time, I was drinking heavily and had been for a number of years, abusing prescription and non prescription pharmaceuticals, smoking pot and cigarrettes. Basically I continued to live in this fashion for a number of years into my early twenties. I became a skinhead, moved to Canberra and hung with a small bunch of skins, my best mate was on the pension for being an alcoholic and multiple drug abuser, and basically we hung together drinking to excess and consuming ridiculous amounts of speed. While he was getting paid by the government to be doing this, I tried to do other things, I worked on and off, tried to study here and there, was on and off the dole. After the movie Romper Stomper came out, things kinda became nasty for us. Everytime we went out, people would want to hassle us for being nazis, or dickheads would try and befriend us because they thought we were nazis. We fought with an Asian gang in the streets, massive Islander homies would always try and pick us for fights (*shudder*), cops hassled us. Basically our pub lifestyle became fucked for us. It turned destructive, it became much easier to pool our drinking money in and buy heroin and sit around at someones bedsitter and listen to records than to go out. Then bad things started happening. One of my best friends fell asleep driving drunk in his car and had a head on, which resulted in him being blinded, another friend got stabbed in the neck and became a paraplegic, another friend had to move to Perth after continual death threats against him, his girlfriend and his unborn baby resulting from a court case, and countless friends became junkies. Basically the group broke up and I was the only one left unscarred. I ended up getting work through friends in a posh hotel setting up a breakfast buffet, which meant starting work before 6am. Because I didn’t have any transport and there was no public transport at that time. I had to get up at about 4:30 am and walk to work. As there was not many friends to get up to my old hijinks with, and because I had to start work so early, I didn’t get many opportunities to indulge in drugs and alcohol. After I while, I realised, that I had been sober for quite some time, and that I actually liked it. Around the same time I had started playing in a hardcore band and so I was listening to more and more hardcore, which included straight edge hardcore. It was cool to listen to music that said it was ok to live a drug free lifestyle, so I listened to a lot of straightedge stuff . Also one of my best friends went straight edge, and travelling with the band, meant that I met a lot of other drug free living people, which provided a real alternative to the pub lifestyle.

After a while the band broke up, friends moved, and I started to wonder if I had enough control to be able to drink and not get carried away with it. I started drinking again, by myself, going for walks to the bottlo at night and then guzzling down a 350ml bottle of scotch in a park before going home, or drinking by myself in my bedroom. After getting caught up in doing this for a little while, I realised that what I was doing wasn't very smart behaviour, especially considering the alcoholic family history on my father's side. After losing 'the edge' I decided I didn't want to go completely the opposite way and become an alcoholic. I figured the next challenge after seeing that it was easily possible for me to completely abstain from intoxication was to see if I could instil within myself a sense of balance and control without complete abstinence.

This is the stage at which I feel I am now. The complete distance from my previous 'pub' lifestyle that a 'straightedge' lifestyle had provided had given me great insight and self knowledge as to what an addiction free life can be like.

I still listen to straight edge hardcore, along with a myriad of other music that occupies my turntable these days, as it has played a pivotal role in my life. I am still friends with people that I met when I was straight edge. I am still friends with ex straight edgers. I am still friends with alcoholics.

Like I said, I wouldn't know the factors were behind other peoples straight edge lifestyle choice, or the factors for other peoples change from a straightedge lifestyle, but hopefully my little spiel will satiate the more curious among you as to what would drive a seemingly normal person to straight edge, and a seemingly normal straight edge person to break 'the edge'.