TEENAGERS don’t really like alcohol but they want to be cool. I can understand if people drink when something bad happens and they want to forget it. But I don’t understand if they do it for nothing. It’s called stupidity. What else can you call it? In all honesty, it would be better if there were no alcoholic drinks anywhere.
I would not be afraid to write a letter to my friends telling them why it’s stupid to drink, but I know they wouldn’t read it. But if I did write, I would tell them that when you start to drink on a daily basis you begin to think it’s normal. It becomes like eating—or drinking water. You don’t even think about it any more. But if you did stop and think about it, you would admit that it’s bad for your health. It also wastes time and money, especially if you’re not rich.
If I did write my friends, I would ask them: Are you happy inside? If you have to do something to be cool, even if you don’t want to do it, then you are definitely not free. You keep trying to find happiness this way . . . and you never find it! . . . and so it will finally destroy you.
It’s more important to me to not drink than to be cool, because I don’t want friends who make me do something I don’t want to do. I want to control myself; not be controlled. I choose to do whatever I want and so you can too. There will come a time when you find friends who love you the way you are. They won’t force you to do things you don’t want to do.
I had a friend who left me to go be with people who drink. I was hurt by my friend’s actions. At first it was hard to forgive, but then I started to miss my friend. If I was honest, I knew that nobody’s perfect; everyone makes mistakes. People have forgiven killers, so how could I not forgive small mistakes? So I forgave my friend. When we were in school my friend came up to me and asked for forgiveness and I said, “Yes, of course I forgive you.”
You don’t want to lose those who are close to you. It’s the hardest to forgive someone very close to you because you trusted them and so their offense hurts more. But you go ahead and forgive because you don’t want to lose those who are close to you because it would be like losing part of yourself.
— A friend from Ukraine