Because most people don't have a gun pointed to their head and say "take these or die!" (some do). Most people chose whether or not to take drugs. Yes it is very hard to get off them once you're addicted but no-one made him take that first hit. I really don't know why you think it is somehow not a matter of choice. You could easily go and get some stuff from your local dealer on the street corner right now if you wanted to probably, but you remain a straight edge. Why? Because it is a choice. Don't try to pretend it is something that it is not.
Here, let me ask you a few questions. If you have choice.
For the weekend, or anytime, choose to *hate* the people you love. Secretly. They don't need to know. Or better yet, choose to do it when they aren't around so they couldn't be affected by your hate. Go ahead, it is just your choice, right?
Or for a day choose to love someone that you despise..the person you despise the most. Choose for a day to love them more than anyone. It's just a choice, right?
Or, choose to love a food you hate. A food that sickens you...choose to love it for a weekend. It's just a choice right?
I'll give you an example to try and help the point. There are monkeys in the Caribbean on some of the islands...brought over by ships in the past. The one island is a tourist island. The monkeys there have learned to run up and take the plastic cups full of alcohol that the tourists are sitting at the beach drinking. The monkeys steal these drinks to drink them.
Those monkeys have been studied. They found that in that population of monkeys there is the same percentage of teetotalers (those that don't drink at all), social drinkers and complete alcoholics as are found in human populations. Humans and monkeys have the same percentage of non drinkers and alcoholics when exposed to alcohol. People do not "choose" to be the non drinker or the alcoholic anymore than the monkeys do. It is in the genetic gene pool to be those things.
And I can speak to this well since I've never had a drink or a drug for recreational highs. You apparently think I chose this. I didn't. How do I know? Because I don't want to do it. I don't want to experience it for many reasons. The key here is...why don't I want to? Those are things created in our genetics and experiences that shape the things we enjoy and things we don't enjoy. I could go on and on here, but I'm hoping you see my point by now.
If a person doesn't choose what their base drives are..the things that make them enjoy stuff or not enjoy stuff...then they don't choose what they pursue for enjoyment or choose to avoid a lack of enjoyment.
I can assure you that no one that is straight edge chooses that. I can also assure that no one that tries a drug for the first time really chooses it. I know, by how you are using the word it is a choice...but go back to my earlier questions.
If you have children, at what point did you choose to love them? I'm sure you didn't. The person that agitates you at the office or in the neighborhood or whatever, the qualities that makes you irritated by them, when did you choose to find those qualities irritating? Or did you just start feeling agitated? And those traits that you like or dislike in someone, you didn't choose those things that make you agitated by those traits.
I realize that this post isn't going to go over well. I just get agitated (not a choice though!) when people claim that an addict chose to be an addict and therefore chose to die. I know you are going to say he chose to start doing drugs. Again, I didn't choose not too. It wasn't a choice. I couldn't choose to do drugs...that would have made me less happy, or at least I would have thought so (and still do). The thing that makes me think it would cause me to be unhappy...that thing...I did not choose.
And even though we all make mistakes, we all pursue happiness. I'm sure Layne thought that doing drugs made him happy. If he felt that way, he didn't choose the fact that he thought that doing drugs would make him happy. He was just trying to be happy. He was wrong, from accounts I've read on his own view of his happiness, but I'm sure at the time before he became addicted, he thought it was a good thing.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear. I tend to speak better than write.
To use your statement, no one put a gun to my head and told me I couldn't get high. Why didn't I? You'll say because I chose to. I'll tell you again, I'm just trying to be as happy as I can be and I feel getting high would lessen that for me. And, to keep beating that dead horse, I didn't choose whatever leads me to believe that. Therefore the "choice" to not do drugs so to keep my happiness as great as possible wasn't a choice.