No. Such a hard word to say at times. But why can’t we say no? Because we want to “fit in.”

Let me tell you that you are violating yourself as a person if your answer is yes! You are NOT staying true to yourself, instead, you are making other people treat you like a puppet, they are treating you like less than. These people do this by making you do things that can hurt you, ruin you or even damage your body.

Peer pressure is most prominent in high school. High school students are extremely impressionable and vulnerable. Drinking, for example, a lot of people are exposed to this kind of behavior and therefore chose to do it because their friends are. I’ve experienced this firsthand, one of my ex-friends started drinking for fun with their friends, eventually, the alcohol consumed her to a point where she didn’t know how to stop it. The drinking was affecting their life drastically, she was losing trust with their parents and friends, however, she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t find happiness without it.

Smoking, vaping, drinking, doing drugs are all things that are thought to make someone ‘cool’. This is one of the leading causes of why they are all done. It was found by The Canadian Lung Association that teens said "my friends smoke" and "I thought it was cool" are two of the main reasons those between the ages of 12 and 17 start smoking.

But smoking, dealing or doing drugs and drinking alcohol is both damaging to the body and the mind. And what's more concerning is that teenagers don’t realize this. Teenagers eventually lose who they are and what they believe is right or wrong because they are being fooled by their friends.

Once they dip their toes into the deep water of drugs and alcohol, they believe they can come out of it, that everything is going to be the same. But is it? After this step you can't ever go back to how it was before, your old self gets lost behind, you cross the line to the wrong side and all of this is because you just weren’t able to say "no".

But peer pressure isn’t only telling people to drink, smoke or do drugs but is also around us in small aspects. For example, just telling your friend to try a certain food they don’t like or even make them go somewhere they don’t want to. And this is all happens because people are just too afraid to say no.

It is important to never change for ANYONE. Although it’s hard, stay true to yourself and never do something you feel uncomfortable doing. It is important to stick to your beliefs and do what you think is right and NEVER be afraid to just simply say “no”.