Readit NewsI suspect it's similar with the spiritual stuff, in principle. That is, if you're typically not a personality who tends towards that stuff - spiritual connections and revelations and such - then perhaps no substance will necessary make you so.
"""I think the definition of "ruin your life" is different now than it was in the 80s. Stakes are higher for kids now, and one little mistake can put you on the road to the have-nots instead of the haves.
Back when I was in high school, you could make mistakes and still end up successful. You could get a few B's in your grades, you could decide not to do so many sports and extracurriculars, you could get detention, you could even get in light trouble with the police for horsing around--and still make it into a good University and move on to a good career. I know because I made all of those mistakes. Plus, the consequences for being mediocre were not too severe. B students had community college, C and D students had decent jobs at the mill and the factory or could learn a trade, and so on.
Today, the bar for entry into a comfortable, middle class career is so high, that my kid needs to make zero mistakes. She has to get straight As, she has to stay out of any kind of trouble, she has to have the right polished "profile" for all the various career- and life-gatekeepers she will meet and need to pass. And if she doesn't pass the gatekeepers, where is she going to end up? There is no safety net and no real humane jobs left for lower-performers. Life is so much more bifurcated now, the kids know it, and they stress about not making a mis-step.
In the 80s I was competing with my small town. Now, kids are competing with the entire world."""
This nails it, the bar for "normal" life is really high, coupled with social media where every day you're bombarded with what you can achieve if you try really hard or pay enough money for it - traveling, having fun, luxury, having a perfect body and being envied by other people, etc. Being an overachiever try-hard is cool these days. Weed makes you a bit lazy and when you smoke you're not 100% super productive and you're not living your life to your "fullest potential".
But the first time I tried vodka it didn't go well either. I downed like 200ml in a blink of an eye and thought "this ain't go no effect" so downed another. Then another. And then ... came the effect. So maybe my first attempts at marijuana weren't a "glass of beer" but a "bottle of vodka" as an allegory.
How is that not a completely useless waste of energy, time, money and resources?
As a tiny example: I've anecdotally heard that kids in the 5-10yo bracket need their parents in the bed to fall asleep at a higher rate than would typically be normal. Probably because parents cuddled their kids to sleep during the lockdowns as a stress reducer for both of them, rather than turning out the lights and leaving the room.
My son is 6 so it falls neatly in that bracket and if the covid lockdown is the most stressful thing to happen in his childhood I will consider us extremely lucky.
And even so, cuddling more with parents? How will they ever recover?
Another non-parent with an irrelevant opinion.