!Young fogeys
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agk's diary 
12 January 2026 @ 03:00 UTC
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written on GPD MicroPC
in bed as Evy sleeps before her shift
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At work I taught teenage boys a group about how
stressors and triggers differ, and how recovery
differs. It's one of my standards I can teach with-
out prep, and it isn't paternalistic.

The boys started out cynical and dubious, but I was
being real, and the group wasn't a tired retread of
something they'd heard a thousand times.

One of the boys is a homeschooler who got in trouble
with his dad for drinking at a friend's house. One
shot his mom. One has grown up in dozens of foster
homes and residentials. Two hear voices telling them
to kill themselves, which indicates early childhood
trauma that overwhelmed their coping capability. One
walked in on his dad molesting his sister.

At one point in group, I was talking about how I
don't consider coping to be "bad" or "good," but
some coping runs the risk of becoming compulsive and
making your life narrower and worse -- like drinking,
getting high, vaping, or cutting. Working out and
video games could move you out toward freedom or in
toward the hell of compulsion.

One boy said, "Drinking's fun, though."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I had fun drinking til I overdid
it. Now I've been sober 18 years because I couldn't
drink right."

I went on with the group, but my response bugged me.
It was paternalistic in a way I'm determined to not
be with the boys. We watched Ready Player One a
little. Then I paused the TV for dinner and apolog-
ized before they went to the cafeteria.

"Sorry about what I said about alcohol. It wasn't 
fair to you. Most people who drink never become
alcoholics. Let me be real with you. The data says
that since the 1970s there has been a steady decline
in teenagers drinking, teenagers doing drugs, teen-
agers getting pregnant, teenagers partying. For most
of y'all, the problem isn't that you party too much,
it's that you don't party enough. You should party
more. Have a good dinner."

At my Saturday night Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I
repeated what I'd said to a guy I respect who got
sober in the facility where I work in 1988. He used
to roughneck on barges. He's a tough guy.

He said, "I don't know if you know this, but I drive
a schoolbus. I look at the kids on my bus, and I
think, good Lord, these kids are a bunch of young
fogeys! I wish they made more trouble."

I told my brother, a chef. He said, "I don't know
what's going to happen to restaurants. My dishwasher
has never come to work hungover. Nobody sneaks out
back to smoke weed on their break anymore. I'm
genuinely worried."

How will you take that crazy leap into love, friend-
ship, political or moral courage, marriage, parent-
hood, membership in or leadership of something, if
it's your first risky leap?

Phrase of the year: young fogeys. Task for youth:
find unsurveilled spots to party, take risks, and
usually not get caught. The only record: memories.