I have 2 people who are close to me who this happened to. Many years ago, I had a friend who was very vocal and sickened by the thought of cocaine. I noticed just how much he hated it, spoke out against it, etc. I questioned why, as for most of us, the topic was shrug material. It wasn’t a problem for my group of friends and no one thought twice of it. Now, many years later, the friend is a full-fledged addict, albeit a functioning one (thanks to his very reputation-conscious wife).
More recently, someone close to me started talking about how much he hated marijuana. For those of you in some cities, the smell is everywhere and hard to miss, and he would go on and on about how users are worthless and should be locked up. Most of us don’t care much about the topic, but he had this almost unnatural hatred of it. And sure enough, a couple years later, and he’s a major pothead. And not a functioning one, as his whole life is based on getting high.
As far as I know, neither of these two had ever tried the drug that they despised so much. It’s almost like they knew that they eventually would, and what the drug would do to them.
I know these are just 2 examples, but I’m curious if others have seen the same.
I’ve never encountered this, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen on occasion. Sometimes you can be “programmed” from childhood to be a certain way and then, upon reaching independence, rebel and taste the “forbidden fruit”.
I knew a guy who was raised as a totally proper PK (preacher’s kid). In high school, he underwent a drastic change and became an underage drinker and party guy. Things came to a head when, after leaving a party drunk, he drove into the back of parked police cruiser.
Maybe not precisely what you’re looking for, because this wasn’t a case of hating drugs too much…
But jazz / spoken-word performer Gil Scott-Heron, in songs like “The Bottle”, wrote starkly about how drug and alcohol abuse was holding back the African-American community.
And then – he became an addict. For decades he lived in the special hell of succumbing to and being ruined by the very thing he had become famous by warning against.
There are plenty of people who know - or at least suspect - that they’d be unable to avoid addiction if they ever touched the stuff. That can be both scary and tempting.
And what do some humans do when they’re both scared and tempted by something? They become loud, obnoxious, hate-filled crusaders against that thing. Reference any number of anti-gay crusaders who - shocking absolutely nobody - turned out to enjoy consensual relations with other men.
So it’s not surprising that you’ve known a few people like that.
My son played hockey with a kid that soon became his best friend and we in turn became good friends with his parents. The parents both smoked like chimneys. They were never without cigarettes unless they were in a place that banned smoking. The boy would come over to play and when I’d open my son’s bedroom door, the sickening smell of stale smoke would almost knock me over. The kids (he has a sister) complained very vocally, non-stop about their parent’s smoking - almost to the point where I’d have SHE (second-hand embarrassment) for the parents!
Fast-forward to after high school. Guess who took up smoking? He’s married with 3 kids now, and I don’t know if he still smokes. Something tells me his wife put a stop to that.
He was already a smoker so far as his body was concerned. He probably left home and felt like shit without all that second-hand nicotine in his system.
I think that’s really the solution here. Most of the people who I’ve known who have been the most vocal against some sort of vice turn out to be the most enthusiastic about it when they actually do it. Or vice-versa- nothing like the zeal of a convert, you know.
Granted, most of the people I knew like that were typically high school or college aged people who swore they weren’t going to drink, smoke pot, or have sex before marriage, and changed their tune once they realized what they were missing out on.
When I was an alcoholic, I ran a restaurant. I had zero tolerance for drunks in my establishment. Looking back on it, I didn’t like that I had a problem, so I projected my dislike on others.
I think there’s a fair chance your friends were on drugs way back then, when they are vocal about their dislike.
Some people are just programmed to feel and act in intense ways. The strident atheist who becomes a devout evangelical, the militant leftist who becomes a right wing leader, etc…
This is possible for some people. Its called reaction formation. Its when you have an urge or desire that you’re deeply ashamed of so you project a personality that is the exact opposite. A good example is the anti-gay preacher who is secretly gay, they take all that self rejection and project it outward onto society.
Maybe someone who hates a particular drug too much hates it because they secretly know they’d enjoy it if they did try it, even if they haven’t tried it yet. Someone who knows they would enjoy smoking weed and listening to music all day but who feels doing so makes them lazy and shiftless would probably hate the drug just based on how they see it affect others because they would hate themselves if they acted that way.
Out of curiosity, how did your alcoholism manifest? We’re you drunk while you were kicking people out for being drunk? Or did you only get drunk after your shift?
Yeah, I think even in situations where there is less overt hatred, it’s common for people to vocally deny a thing that they have already subconsciously sort of accepted as the conclusion. The fact that people are even speaking about it, sometimes indicates there is a contest going on inside of them.
