In movies and TV shows, clouds of vape smoke, keg stands, and red solo cups are depicted in many a raucous high school party scene.
Off screen, however, a different picture is emerging: In the U.S., teenagers who use drugs or alcohol are now in the minority. A 2025 survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 82% of high school sophomores and 66% of seniors in the U.S. reported abstinence.
But statistics alone don’t capture the full story. Why have many teenagers turned away from substance use? And what does it look like for those who haven’t? To understand how these trends play out in real life, , we spoke with a dozen Nueva students about their experiences with drugs and alcohol. Their stories reveal experiences shaped by social circles and anxiety, boundaries and overindulgence. From those conversations, we selected four that offer distinct perspectives. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.
Charlie, 18
Charlie first tried weed because of a Fortnite bet he set. If he got more kills in a 1v1, his friend would give him a weed vape pen. Charlie thought that it could be fun. He had been wanting to try it for a while.
“I thought, okay, I’ll indulge,” he said.
That casual first use spawned his current relationship with weed, which has been defined by semi-frequent use, usually in solitude. Every once in a while, he likes to turn on some music in bed and smoke a bit. He described his use as “California sober,” a harm-reduction-based lifestyle that stays away from alcohol and hard drugs, while indulging in recreational cannabis use.
He is aware of the health concerns. Studies have found that cannabis can impair cognitive development and motor capabilities and is a heavily addictive substance; these risks are increased for teens.
Charlie has done his best to safeguard against these risks. He has a couple rules for himself: “no pills, no powders, no needles,” making sure that he is doing something else—like watching a movie or going for a walk—when he smokes.
“The occasion itself shouldn’t be just smoking; that shouldn’t be the priority,” Charlie said.
Rules like these are key for Charlie. One summer, when he felt caught up in an intense headspace from a bad breakup, he began to use more frequently than before. Soon, he realized he had become overly reliant on it and ended up taking a half-year-long break. He likes to think that the break was good for redefining his relationship with weed—when he started using again, he felt he knew his tolerances far better.
He has a different relationship with alcohol. He tried it freshman year at a party where several people were caught drinking. The experience made him more wary of drinking; though he might drink occasionally at parties, he has kept alcohol at arm’s length. More than anything, it’s the culture around alcohol that turns him off—the way people boast about blacking out, or rely on it to loosen up or flirt.
“It’s just corny,” Charlie said. “I think if you’re just [drinking] to talk to girls or to get a little bit of clout, I [wonder], what do you gain from this?”
Instead, Charlie’s “preferred poison” continues to be weed. He might drink in a few social contexts, but prefers to abstain or smoke, maintaining his rules the best he can.
“I’d say in terms of risk mitigation, I think I’ve done pretty well for myself,” he said. “But I’m not gonna call it smart because if I was smart[er about use], it wouldn’t be happening.”
Eliza, 17
For Eliza, drinking and recreational drug use have always been in the background. Her parents drink, her friends drink, and since she started high school, she’s known that a party or a weekend out means a cold cooler of beer and the familiar smell of cannabis.
Eliza doesn’t drink or use, though.
“I’ve always felt more comfortable just being sober,” she said. “I don’t like not being in control. The fear of what I might say or do is pretty scary to me.”
Instead, Eliza prefers to be the “sober sitter” or “designated driver” for her friends. She refrains from judging others’ alcohol or drug use, a stance that she wishes more people would consider.
“When they hear of or see a student drinking, [people think], oh my god, that’s genuinely a bad person, they must be such a partier,” Eliza said. “But I wish they understood that when students drink, it’s often not because they’re [bad] or want to seem cool. A lot of times, people drink because they are under a lot of pressure and that might be their only way of coping.”
Eliza pointed to familial and academic pressure as reasons why teenagers might turn to alcohol or drugs as a means of escape. She’s also seen how some of her peers seem to derive genuine joy from their substance use.
That said, Eliza admits that her experiences have also been punctuated by moments of panic. At a Halloween party in Half Moon Bay, multiple people were puking and one girl passed out. Those nearby quickly propped her up, and within minutes, the party resumed. What struck Eliza most was how quickly everything returned to normal.
“[That moment] made everything feel a whole lot more real to me,” she said.
Over time, Eliza has grown more accustomed to these incidents. But the unease hasn’t faded. She continues to watch over friends, often stepping in as the designated driver.
“When you’re the only one sober, it can get scary because you don’t really know what is going on, or what other people are doing or thinking,” she said. “It feels like you’re responsible for so many people at once.”
Jerry, 18
“If I could go back, I would probably never have vaped in the first place,” Jerry said. “It was a bad decision that was 100% my fault, and I should have never done it.”
Jerry first started regularly indulging in alcohol, weed, and nicotine when he was 16. After seeing all his friends using, he “felt like it was something [he] could do as well.”
Initially, Jerry’s use was limited to social contexts. Whether it was smoking with a couple of friends while at someone’s house or out in nature, or drinking at a party or sporting event, he was always surrounded by people. The decision to use felt more like a mutual agreement to him than the result of pressure.
By junior year, he had increased his usage of nicotine, alcohol, and weed.
“There were a lot of things happening around me, and I hung around some influences who regularly used,” Jerry said. “They were one year older than me, and had finally saved enough money to buy new weed equipment.”
During this time, Jerry was regularly using nicotine by himself at home. He continued to do so for a year—to the detriment of his health—until the day he coughed up blood in the shower.
“I always thought of it as a social crash,” he said. “With college applications and academic pressures around me, I felt like I needed a stimulant to focus and keep myself up.”
Nicotine, widely known for its highly addictive effects, is among the hardest substances to quit. A 2022 CDC study found that while 68% of adults who smoked said they wanted to quit smoking, only 8.8% succeeded in a year. Despite this, Jerry insists that quitting wasn’t especially difficult for him. “Once you see the detrimental results, you [know you] have something to work for,” he said.
Jerry has significantly scaled back his use of nicotine, limiting it to occasional social gatherings with close friends. Knowing the potential damage from regular use, he doesn’t want others to fall down the same path as he did.
“I think kids shouldn’t be [vaping] at all,” he said. “I saw the effects of overuse firsthand, and I don’t want others going through that.”
Gabe, 17
Since he was 14, Gabe has been certain he never wants to use drugs. In middle school, he passed by people experiencing homelessness each day as he commuted by train to San Francisco—some injecting substances, some overdosing. Those images shaped his early perceptions, and he came to associate all drugs, including alcohol and weed, with that kind of danger.
In freshman year, at a party, Gabe had the opportunity to drink but chose not to. A friend he was staying with was barely tipsy, but Gabe still panicked, unsure how to respond.
“I remember preemptively asking friends and family members, ‘How do you take care of people who are drunk?’” he said. “I then told my friend to do all of the things we learned about: lying on your side and other things like that. Looking back, I was overly [concerned], but it was because I just hadn’t experienced anything like that before.”
In 10th grade, his perspective shifted again when a friend he’d met at a math competition died from a drug overdose. The news shocked him; he hadn’t known his friend was struggling with substance abuse.
“I never really realized that someone could be struggling so much on the inside and yet outwardly appear so normal,” Gabe said. “The first time I met them, it was before they had struggled with any of this. They felt like the same kid I met at the math competition the whole time [I knew them].”
As his peer group has started to use drugs more commonly, gradually normalizing substance use for him, the memory of his friend informs Gabe’s attitude toward drugs. He knows he won’t hesitate to let a parent or adult know if he sees patterns of usage among his friends become more concerning.
“We’ve all heard these stories from Drug Ed about people who wish they’d spoken out about something, but didn’t,” he said. “I don’t ever wanna know that I could have prevented something bad from happening.”
Gabe continues to refrain from using drugs or alcohol, worried about addiction and long-term damage to his brain development, a risk that increases substantially with younger users.
“I get addicted to things easily, just by nature,” Gabe said. “I just feel like the safest way to avoid any of that was to not use at all.”
