What do you think about friends that pressure you to drink alchol or do any other negative things? I am 21 don't drink nor smoke never have and probably will never do it because i know the consequenses and besides it is bad, but i have some stubborn friends that keep asking me to drink with them and party in weekends. What should i do? Please i am getting real tired of this some are student friends some girls mostly workers from my job they are becoming annoying. It's every week they keep bugging me. Guys help me please what should i do? Should i just tell them i don't want to?

Why would you consider drinking alcohol a "negative thing"?

As an inveterate smoker and occasional drinker, I find it pretty moronic that people pressure those who don't wish to to participate in either activity.

However, from their perspective that's how they socialize. I don't know your location, but young men in the US and Europe tend to go out drinking. Your desire not to is alright, but they're probably trying to include you in the only way they know how. Sit down with them, and make it clear that under no circumstances do you want to drink, smoke, or toke, and tell them your reasons. If they can't accept that, then find different friends. At the same time, don't judge them for how they choose to spend their time unless it personally affects you. Getting uppity will only make you enemies.

As Coffee said. Make sure that they know your reasons and not budge from them. Offer to be the designated driver and most bars will offer something free, like soda. Or at least that's what I've seen.

Thread concluded. Lesson provided.

If they pressure you a lot you tell them http://funnyand.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/You-think-Im-boring.jpg

But that's a last resort, everyone else has it covered

It strikes me that the pressure to do so is the negative thing. Although I enjoy being a bad influence, pressuring or otherwise hassling someone is a bit uncool.

Well, the OP said clearly "other negative things" insinuating that those things themselves are what is, to him, "negative". I'm just anolyzing the way he put it grammatically; maybe I'm reading too much into it.

It certainly has negative aspects. Its effects on the crime rate and on peoples health are enough to justify not using it if the OP doesn't want to. Its also a pretty expensive habit.

Augh, people pressuring you to drink svcks. I don't have that problem currently at the same age you are, but from about 13 - 18 I had not friends but family, be it my own parents and siblings or just my cousins, trying to get me to drink. As a kid I wasn't all too willful so I kept just sort of pushing people aside that kept offering me drinks saying I didn't like the taste and even tried sips of different drinks when they knew I hadn't tasted whichever brand was being offered, however with each year I grew more impatient of this crap and just in general (not because of this but just because of age ) I got more confident and started just being totally honest and perhaps a little aggressive towards people offering me drinks. Been 3 years now without anyone trying to offer me drinks, never been drunk and never will be, absolutely hate drinking and have a rather strong dislike for people who intentionally get way too drunk for the good of themselves and those around them.

So my advise is just to be absolutely honest to them about why you don't drink, if you think it's stupid you tell them you think it is stupid, regardless of whether you hurt their feelings or not.

Well, I really don't want to open this can of worms but, that's conjecture at best..

"Axes effect the crime rate. People kill people with axes. Axes can slice off appendages." See what I did there? That's just a strawman argument because the problem lies not with the thing itself, but peoples lack of self control. It has nothing to do with alcohol. Just like guns don't kill people, people kill people.

OP, any friend who pressures you to do something against your will, specially something that's against your principles, is not a friend. How would they feel if YOU told these losers not to drink? These clowns don't know the meaning of consideration. If I were you, I should loose these "friends" FAST. Are you going to jump the bridge with them? Are you going to be their slave of their desires?

It don't matter, man. Dude don't want to drink, that's his choice. He thinks it's negative? Good for him. He ain't asking for temperance laws, just how do deal with peer pressure. People can think it's negative for a number of reasons. My buddy thinks that because he grew up in a house with a ton of alkies. gDev might be Muslim, or Buddhist. He doesn't have to justify himself to you. And yeah, people are blamed for those things, but at the same time alcohol can act as a negative force, exacerbating mental or social problems in an individual. It comes down to the person, but alcohol does have an effect, and it's way blurrier than "folks got no self control." Addiction and substance abuse can't be reduced like that.

I kinda have to agree with this. If they really cared about how you feel, they would not be pressuring you.

That.

And anything you dont what to do, dont. You have free will use it, if you do, do it, if you dont, dont do it.

If they keep getting pushy, tell them were they stick their ideas, anyone who really wants you to get involved with something wouldnt be trying to be pressuring you into doing anything, they would just try to include you, many times people have dont it to me but ive never followed the crowd, i have my own will and do what i do and to hell with what others want me to do, one of my best freinds never drank and still came to the pub of a weekend with the group and nobody ever said anything, i have respect for freinds who make their choices.

I disagree. It's entirely dependent on the situation, but it's rarely so simple. A lot of times, it might be an issue of miscommunication. Someone refuses to put their foot down, and as a result, some guys keep trying to get him to go out and have fun. Or maybe a regular invitation is seen as pressure. Of course, there are occasionally your putz kids who do actually pressure, but your D.A.R.E.-style insidious Mephistopheles of a peer-pressurer is not usually the case. Most of the time they're taking a bull-in-the-china-shop approach to trying to be nice.

In contention with this, they are likely showing how they care by asking him to go hang with them. They just don't realize he doesn't like to do those things. They see it as extending a normalized form of inclusion via invitation to an event. They just happen to do things that the OP doesn't approve of. The OP has a couple options imo. Go hang out with them but don't drink,and make that clear. Or just tell them you don't like to drink and go out. He should probably be clear that it is a personal hang up with an activity, and not one with his friends personalities.

Peer pressure isn't negative in of itself. It is just a natural interaction between peers that can result in pressures being placed upon you. Sometimes ones you don't want. My friends pressure me to go drink, and I want to drink, so I go. I am in full agreement with fueledbycoffee here.

This isn't really targeting anyone specifically, but I am starting to think people should really ask for advice somewhere else. This forum is getting increasingly...distant...from reality. Oftentimes people don't seem to have any experience with the issues in question, and still feel a need to voice their opinion completely out of context with a very limited understanding of the situation.

Yes.

They don't sound like real friends if they keep insisting after you told them no repeatedly. I personally don't bother with people like that. There are plenty of other people I can befriend, but I am also perfectly fine on my own.

Tell them to jog on.

No, alcohol affects your behaviour. Axes don't.

Drinking too much alcohol affects your behavior and motor skills, that's still a self control issue.

"Tylanol kills you." No, taking 30 instead of 3 kills you.

Addiction isn't simple.

Agreed, lose these people and make some new decent friends who actually care about you and don't subject you to peer pressure.

If you have friends who don't subject you to peer pressure of some sort, they are not your friends.

Go to any alcohol abuse center. Talk to any psychologist specializing in substance abuse. Speak with any alkie. Alcohol abuse is not a self-control issue. It's a manifestation of a number of chemical, psychological, and social influences that manifest in continued excessive consumption of alcohol. While there are people who sack up and never drink again, for 90% of drunks, "Sack up" doesn't work. That's why drugs, rehab centers, and 12 step groups exist. Most people don't have the godlike level of self control required to resist addiction or learned response. And getting to that point has little to do with self control either. Sit down and talk with an alkie or an addict sometime. Most of the ones I know describe it as a "click" in their brain the first time the get drunk. They feel good, they feel whole, their worries and demons safely at bay. They drink because to not do so is unthinkable when that is an option, not because they are "weak" or lacking in control. They have honest to god issues that they are chasing solace from. This is how they want to feel for the rest of their lives. Think about whatever your greatest fears, anxieties, and pains are. Now imagine being free from them. Now imagine them worsened a hundredfold and having the option of being free from them. The strongest man alive would fold in that case. Now imagine you had to sell your soul to do it. Then you might get a modicum of understanding of why people get drunk. Boiling it down to "self-control" is abhorrently simplistic.

As for behavior, I can't help but wonder if you've ever been well and truly drunk. We do the most inane, stupid, ridiculous stuff while drunk, precisely because our self-control has been taken away. We drink more after we get going because our self-control and inhibitions and cares have been removed. When you're a tenth of whiskey in, it's real hard to quit until you run out. Sooner or later you learn your limits, but even so, you've gone through a lot of pain and embarrassment by the time you get there. Good stories come out of it, but it's easy to remember the good times and forget the bad that come out of it.

Look, I ain't against alcohol use. I'm about five beers in right now. But frankly, go to a rehab center. Roll with guys who've lost families, committed crimes, destroyed their bodies and minds. Then come back on here and say alcohol has no negative aspects. Gain an understanding of what these people live with every day, and then call it a self control issue. Wake up in the hospital or in a gutter or on the floor covered in your own puke time and time and time and time again and lose everything and do it all over again, then try to bring your superior attitude up in here. Because from where I'm standing, a boy doesn't want to drink because he might have reason not to, and that's a good thing and his choice. And you're sitting up there trying to claim he should just do it.