joshlyman

I'm 28 days sober and have been thinking about my drinking a lot... I'm only 23, started drinking when I was 18 and I really don't think my drinking was ever "normal". Ever since the day I started drinking I always had to be the drunkest. Always was the last one to leave the bar. Always the one saying and doing the craziest stuff. Always the one ready to do it all again the next day while everyone else was satisfied for a long time. Always looked for any excuse to go out and have a night of drinking. I don't think my drinking was ever "normal".

Dee74

Never. The object for me was always to get smashed.

D

dotboston

I wasn't super crazy at first. It creeped up on me slowly.

Sudz No More

I don't think there are too many of us here that qualify as normal when it comes to alcohol. Even when I tried to moderate it was controlled moderation, my drinking still revolved around a habit. An unquenchable obsession that I only kept at bay for a while.

Normal drinking is to not even think about it other than you are thirsty and think a beer or wine would taste best. I can't even comprehend what that is like, I never thought about drinking other than for the fact that it would give me a nice buzz. Over the years I developed a fine sense of taste for good beer but the underlying motivator was still the habit despite the enjoyment for flavor. Normal? Never...

cascademn

Joshly, started when I was 15. It was never about a casual drink. It was always, always, always about getting high. The times I could only have a few just made me angry and anxious.

Acheleus

Never normal here. Blacked out the first time I drank.

FeenixxRising

Yes, I drank normally for about 30 years (15 to 45 years of age). I was the responsible drinker, the one in the group who kept his wits about him. I drank maybe 10 times a year on average during that period. I was also one of those people who didn't understand why some of my friends could not control their drink intake once they started to drink.

And then for some reason, I became that guy who couldn't control his intake once he started drinking.

Looking backing I can see how my reaction to alcohol slowly started to change when I was around 40 years of age. I didn't really notice it then. By the time I was 46 or 47, it was apparent I had a bad problem with binge drinking but I was either in denial, didn't care, or wrote it off as a "control" problem, not an "alcohol" problem.

zjw

I drank when i was about 4. Beer was all they had so they gave me a beer at a picnic. I drank just one and was still thirsty. Probably the only time i ever drank normal. Later I'd swipe some whiskey from the cabinet for that buzz or toss some rum in coke for the buzz I dunno I was probably 10-14 years old when i'd do that. Sometimes I'd sit with the whiskey bottler taking swigs but just a buzz. I didnt wanna get caught. But when I was about 15 or oso I was able to score my first QTY of booze no longer did i have to worry about my step father seeing missing beers or something. I had my own. I got the neighbor to get me 2 12 packs of bud ice. I drank them both in 2 days. I was smashed from then on I never drank just for a drink or two. It was always to get smashed and only smashed. And as fast as possible.

beatle

I always enjoyed alcohol since I started in my late teens, but it didnt get out of control until my early 40's. i was the typical binge college kid, then tapered back in my 20's to occasionally during the week and weekends. In my 30's the responsibility of family and career made it impossible for me to overindulge, but I began drinking a few nightly to take the edge off. In my 40's my drinking time started earlier and earlier, then just got out of control. So the answer is yes, I did drink normal for a majority of the time, but it quickly progressed to an out of control point where I had to stop, or die. I'm almost 2 years sober now.

bigsombrero

I didn't start drinking until I went away to university. My second night there, I drank a terrible mixture of alcohol and Dr. Pepper out of a huge McDonald's-style plastic cup, urinated in front of a crowd of people at an outdoor concert, came home and threw up all over my bedroom floor.

The answer is no.

83mama0f2

I had my first drink when I was 12. Was allowed a 1/2 glass of wine occasionally (special occasions) until I was 15 when my parents let me drink as long as I drank at home and did not drive. I drank too much occasionally but I don't remember it affecting me a whole lot. By the time I was 18 I drank a lot on a regular basis. I was a stupid teenager and chocked it up to that. was drinking a lot more back then than I do now because I had a lot of physical pain due to what I felt like at the time might be cancer. I am a bit of a hypochondriac and instead of going to the doc, I just worried myself sick thinking I had cancer and was months away from dying, so I drank to numb the pain. I finally went to the doc, had bloodwork done and got my thyroid under control and took care of some hormonal imbalances and felt much better after that. drinking got back to a reasonable amount, but it always got worse. The only time I was truly moderate and drank like a glass of wine every couple of weeks was during both of my pregnancies. Wasn't hard at all. Another life was at stake and that was enough for me. Sunk into some depression after the birth if my son and up to the birth of my daughter too. Started having some serious moderation issues when my daughter was 6 months old because my marriage was in a dark place. We're doing better than ever and my relationship with my kids are much better and I'm still struggling with moderation. I always figure my drinking was directly related to depression, and my hypochondria, but my life is better than ever now and I still have issues with alcohol so I know it's a problem for me and that's why I'm here to give it up for good.

Gravel

The truth of the matter is we could all drink normal here if we wanted to - we just like to get wasted.

When I was in my 20's I didn't abuse. When I hit my 30 I abused because I wanted to. I had something on my mind and needed to take it away. But I started to like that feeling and dug in to the party life for all my 30's.

honeypie

Only if "normally" means, getting smashed as a teenager in high school on sweet rum drinks, getting blitzed in college for 4 years and having many walks of shame down frat row...getting sloshed on sangria in graduate school in Spain, getting toasted in my 20's with my work colleagues, drinking wine nightly in my 30's, then tapering down in my 40's to white knuckled "control" drinking... popping in and out of AA rooms, befriending AA women like me but also tippling wine with neighbors on my street...and asking myself over and over..."what is normal?"

Er - no!

ReadyAndAble

I think if you asked people I knew in the course of my drinking debacle, they'd give you two answers. They'd say I sometimes drank normally, and that sometimes I drank to extremes, with all the fallout that entails. But the truth is, even when I appeared to be drinking normally, I was obsessed over alcohol.

Yeah, me neither. So... no, I never drank normally.

alphaomega

Never. Not ever. Not once. Seriously.

Well maybe only if I was too hungover to bring myself to choke down the second glass.

foolsgold66

Define normally.

mick3580

In my mind, what I was doing was almost always normal. That's how I could justify it. I do not think I was always alcoholic. I crossed a line. It's hard to tell when exactly that happened.

jaynie04

I have said here that my drinking didn't really catch up to me until my mid-forties. However, recently I have been remembering instances from much earlier on that should have woken me up. I recently remember being in my mid 20's in a car home after a business dinner. I felt like I was going to throw up but I was too embarrassed to ask the driver to pull over so I opened my briefcase and puked in it. Good times, good times. (not).

davaidavai

I never understood the point of drinking normally. To sample the fine flavors? I don't get it.

alphaomega

Lol !!! Jaynie. I once barfed in a Louis Vuitton.


Knockoff of course.