CAPTAINZING2000

The topic has been on here before I'm sure.

preteen
teenager
legal age on up.

I had gotten drunk before I was even a teenager.
The teen years every chance I got to get alcohol.
Progressed as I became an adult to the point of being an alcoholic.

Bostonsportsfan

Never drank before my teens, but my teen years were alcohol filled. My late teens into early 20's were completely over run by alcohol.

Carlotta

I started drinking alcoholically in my 30s as a way to "self medicate" which is really crazy. Before that I was always a very light drinker (I actually never really cared for the taste of alcohol with a few exceptions like champagne or Bailey's Irish cream).

Aellyce

I don't remember when I first tried alcohol ever... I am guessing it was in pre-teen years. I do recall quite vividly the first instance when I got fabulously drunk though, on liquor in the middle of the day with a friend. We bought a bottle in the store and drank it in the park early afternoon. I was ~13. I drank quite a lot on weekends "socially" during my teen years but pretty little and infrequently between ~18-28, often nothing at all for months. The clear alcoholic pattern for me developed in my early 30's.

Bunny211

I didn't drink til I got to college. I "managed" my drinking pretty well throughout my 20s. I didn't cross the line into alcoholism until I was in my late 20s and then things went down hill FAST.

Carlotta

I have a feeling that when you get all the results of your poll, you might find out that women generally started drinking alcoholically much later than the guys.

Andante

Seems to me there are two questions here: 1) When did you have your first drink?, and 2) when did you begin drinking alcoholically?

The answer is not the same for everyone.

I had my first drink around age 20 but didn't slide into drinking alcoholically until my early 40s.

CAPTAINZING2000

I've heard a lot of stories of women drinking excessively after the kids started school and after they leave the nest

least

I started drinking after I got out of high school. Went downhill pretty fast. Quit drinking in my mid thirties and stayed sober until I was 57, when I started drinking again. Now I'm 64 and have been sober six years.

aussieblue

I was around 14 . Binge drinking every chance when I was young . I cant remember the point I started drinking alone but I ended up drinking heavily daily . I was around 51 when I first gave sobriety a go ,I have managed 9 months as my longest time sober and a couple around the 3 month mark.
I am 55 now and only have 106 days, a dangerous time for me especially with Christmas coming I need things to keep going well for me.

Soberpotamus

My first alcoholic drink (a peach wine cooler) was given to me at age 12 by my alcoholic mother. Ha! Yeah. She was a "cool" mom, she thought. I didn't drink again voluntarily until age 15. I promptly got rip-roaring drunk. I drank sporadically throughout high school, at various parties and get-togethers. My first real problem drinking happened around age 20-21 when I was a sophomore and junior in college. That's when friends and acquaintances began commenting that I might ought to consider "slowing down" my drinking or drinking less. I could hardly contain myself really -- I drank quickly and in fairly large amounts for my size (petite-ish). I proceeded to drink my way through college. I managed to graduate with honors, and that was my justification to continue drinking, and to assuage any niggling realizations that I indeed might have a problem. Age 27 found me genuinely considered about my drinking and so I got sober that year. I stayed sober for one year, succumbing to it once again following a stressful move out of state (and preceding the imminent death of my grandmother). Finally got sober at age 35.

CousinA

Not sure when I had my first drink. It was given to me by either my grandfather or my mother. I was probably Passover wine and my mom would occasionaly let me have a sip of wine or beer. My grandfather has been dead since 1966 and Mom is still going strong. Neither of them had a drinking problem. Sometime around 9 or 10, I began taking hits from the Robitussin cough syrup we had in the medicine cabinet. That's drinking and back in the 60's one of the ingredients was probably codeine so that was the beginning of my opiate use to boot. This was before I had an understanding about what it is I was doing, but I enjoyed the buzz.

I was done just after I turned 22.

-allan

48heath

I was 18.At the AA meetings I attend the common age to start is 14.

ScottFromWI

I drank occasionally starting in my early teens - at parties, stealing from the parents liquor cabinet, etc. By 18 or so I was drinking a few beers at least almost every day I think. I binge drank a lot on weekends in college and in my 20's. In my 30's I drank several beers every day and lots more on weekends. By my late 30's and early 40's the only time I didn't drink was when I was sleeping or at work.

Gottalife

First intoxication at about 10 years old. When I look back at the whole picture, I see "instant alcoholic".

FBL

Started drinking beer at age 14 and didn't stop until I was 43 and on the verge of a total breakdown (physically, mentally and spiritually).

Bettalife

13 -14 became a real problem at 17 and has remained a real problem

SusanE

I tried alcohol in my teens but actually hated it. I worked as a bartender in my late 20s and learned to like it, I'm sorry to say.

LiveInPeace

I had my first drink at 12 and the effect was amazing. I only drank one more time until I was about 18. I spent the years in between 12-18 and the rest of my years until I joined fellowship trying to chase that awesome buzz, though not just with alcohol. I knew I had the beginning of a problem with alcohol when my wine drinking alone was getting out of hand.

KAD

First tasted beer at 14 and thought it was horrible. Didn't drink again until I was 17, which is when I first experienced a buzz and that "escape" from inhibitions I tried to recreate for decades to follow. Drank off and on, mostly weekends until I began drinking alone at 22. Within a couple years I was drinking every night.