Gottalife, you said something that happened to me too, about 'the switch' when you got drunk at 10. I was 14, the same age my abuse ended, maybe 15, but I know I could not drive yet. An older tennis friend was driving me and him home from a tournament 1 hour from home. We were hot, tired and dehydrated and stopped at a convenience store. He bought me a quart of Miller High Life. I had never drank before. I will never forget how I seemed to welcome the escape and drifting into a peaceful place it caused me to experience. I would later remember that as being a telling moment. I did not drink except for weekend keg parties, and I was a binge drinker from my first party, and a chugger. College it progressed to several times a week. After college it because more often, then in my 30's I was drinking daily. My drinking was ALWAYS self medication to escape and not be present. I never drank for the taste or pure pleasure, it seemed I always had a purpose, to get blasted and not be present.
And I am not saying there is a direct correlation between childhood trauma and alcoholism, but I was/am interested in hearing how many of us have the two in the same equation. Yet two so far have not.
I think there is little question though that we get our hardwiring in our childhood and anything to disrupt the normal programming can have a negative effect, but maybe not too. Who knows. But I don't "BLAME" my alcoholism on my childhood. I feel pretty blessed to have figured out I was a drunk and got my sobriety going, which was not easy.