DoubleFelix

I first drank at 16 with friends. I remember the feeling of getting tipsy for the first time so clearly - "So this is what everyone is talking about..."

By 19 I was drinking alone and definitely had a problem by 22.

MelindaFlowers

21.

relena

First drink I was 22 I believe. Started gradually getting worse when I was 25. By the time I was 26 full blown alcoholic. I'm going to be 28 in a month.

Highwind

I was 11, my auntie was lonely and I used to go and stay over at the weekend.....I think she was desperate for me to be another adult she talk to, because of that she treated me like a grown up, giving me booze, unloading all her man troubles on to me.......i don't blame her she was just misguided. I'm pretty sure that is the reason i'm an alcoholic though, my brain had to much alcohol when it wasn't fully developed and I think changed my brain chemistry for the worse.....anyway you just have to work with what you've got I suppose. She had a son as well who is now 16 and she has never let him drink under her roof so I think she understands her error in judgement too.

VirginiaWoof

I had my first drink at around 13 or 14. First time I got wrecked I was 16.

I have never had any self control, once I started I would carry on. Drank fairly heavily to escape from real life in my early 20s, 'dabbled' in my 30's and really went off the rails in the Autumn of 2013 and have been going downhill since.

Ken33xx

Starting drinking regularly around age 19.

By age 23 I began to have blackouts and friends began to comment on my drinking.

But not to worry.... I was still young and people were still buying my act.

shortstop81

My parents let me have my first glass or two of wine with dinner when I was 13. I remember distinctly - we were on vacation on a cruise so it was a special occasion. I didn't think too much about it one way or another at the time. It just made me tired.

I started drinking alcoholically at around 14-15. I didn't drink all the time, but when I did I couldn't stop. And so set the pattern for the rest of my drinking life.

Vona71

I was 14 the first time and got drunk. Starting binge drinking at 15, and remained that way until about 42, when my drinking became very serious and almost everyday. I am 44, and have been sober for five days.

greens

This is rapidly changing

SoberCAH

I started when I was around 12 or 13, maybe a little earlier (like 10 or 11).

I used to get my allowance and ride to the liquor store on my bike and ask hippies (who seemed to be generally sympathetic to the cause) to buy me Boone's Farm, Bacchus or Ripple wine, and a bottle for themselves.

I also liked Southern Comfort a lot, along with Malt Liquor, Champale and some other similar products which produced a nice bouquet on my breath.

I would also take my dad's blue valiums and my little brother's phenobarbital.

I didn't start alcoholic drinking until I went off to college at around age 18.

Got sober when I was 31.

Soberwolf

I first got drunk at 16 around 18 I was going out at weekends by 21-23 I was drinking small bottles of vodka

aasharon90

Good Topic.....

After I had had enough of physical, verbal,
emotional abuse at the hand of a sick parent,
I finally left home at about 18/19 to begin
making up for my painful childhood.

I worked and partied at night which all
came with hangovers, lots of baggage
I couldn't get rid, resentments and so
much more locked up in my addiction.

At the age of 30, married, 2 beautiful
children I was intervened on, taken away
in a police car to rehab where I was evaluated
for my mental state passing all test.

All I had was a drinking problem, addiction
to alcohol, a treatable illness, not curable,
but treatable with a program of recovery
to learn and incorporate in my everyday
life.

With a 28 day rehab stay and an outpatient
aftercare program to complete my program,
I was placed on a path of recovery to take that
seed of recovery planted in me to feed it, nurture
it each day I remained sober.

Some 25 yrs later I am still on my recovery
journey, alive, healthy, happy, honest, free
from all that baggage I carried on my shoulders
for so long, continuing to keep my side of the
street clean so to speak, living with all those
important tools and knowledge of my addiction
taught to me as a guide line.

Today with many others in recovery, I
continue to pass on my own ESH -
experiences, strengths and hopes of what
my life was and is like before, during and
after alcohol to all those who are still sick.

There is absolutely hope for all of us
to treat our addiction with a program
of recovery each day we remain sober.

Treatable Not Curable.

ChiefBromden

I think I'm somewhat proof that alcohol can sneak up on you at any time, especially when you no longer expect it... After my dad died when I was 13 - from alcohol, yes - I had no time for the stuff at all. I didn't like the taste, and I was certainly warned about how dangerous it could be. To top it off, I also disliked drunk people.

As a teen, even though I could be found in discotheques every weekend, I never drank. On occasion I would try a beer when offered, but after one I had more than enough. Cola was just fine. Same thing in college: it just didn't appeal to me, and while social pressure was intense - most student activities were focused on getting hammered - I doubt I drank more than 20 beers a year. Not because I was "moderating" or anything like that: it just didn't play a big role. I even helped create a student society that focused on everything but alcohol, as a counter weight to the silly stuff (and the yearly alcohol poisonings).

It's only much later, when I got married and created my own company, that at times a whisky - which I had to cut with cola as I still didn't like the taste - came in useful to help relax after a stressful day. From there it became a blurred line; my work became way too stressful, I started to have blood pressure problems, then acid reflux, then tinnitus... I was running on empty for a long time, and somehow that one whisky became a few. After bad days, after good days, after "nothing much happened" days.

In the course of 10 years I seamlessly graduated from occasional drinker to "I probably drink too much" to "I definitely drink too much" to a full blown alcoholic needing 1.5 bottles a day, and some Xanax in the mornings to battle withdrawal. It was ugly, and I still have a hard time forgiving myself entirely. I knew so well how it could/would end, it seemed like a very bad joke. Even though I don't believe in "fate", I thought at one point that it was inevitable I would end up like my dad - especially as I got closer to the age he was when he died on his birthday (55).

Still can't express how glad I am that I managed to break the cycle - for both alcohol and benzos. That "fate" was just my addiction talking.

Anyway, just a lot of words to say I was in my early forties.

beautifulpines

Hi - I too did not pick up booze until later in life - around 30 it was becoming a problem, then in my 50s full blown. I thought I probably would die an alcoholic death. Somehow Grace intercepted this downward spiral and at 60 I am not drinking today. 14 days - but this time I feel different. Thank you for your share.

CAPTAINZING2000

I just remembered, the drinking age here where I live was actually 19 for beer and wine. The lower drinking age stayed in effect for a few years after I turned 21.

Chaliec789

I started drinking regularly around age 17, purely for what I thought was the fun of it. I would ride around in my friend's van with a case of beer between us, tossing empties out the window. I am amazed we never got caught and ashamed by how incredibly reckless I was behaving.

BLueWeepingRose

I tried alcohol when I was a teenager and the first time I drank it was a mudslide. I thought it was okay. I prefer mixed drinks though and I only drink beer after I had a few drinks of mixed drinks but I never had a problem until 2013. I realized I was going overboard with my drinking and I cut myself off from it. Now I only have it every once in a great while. I suffer with manic depression so I try not to drink too much which I think is a good thing.

Che

It's a competition of who has the saddest childhood...

I think when kids drink early like that, it's because they want to be tragic. It's feeding an old habit to keep thinking of yourself that way. When I remember what I did, I just think at least I eventually learned better.

Reset

First signs of it being problematic were in college, though I did get drunk in high school.

First ever drink was when I was almost too young to remember. As kids, we'd get a half a glass of wine with dinner on holidays, or we'd get port wine sundaes for dessert. But that was very infrequently.

Zebra1275

Age 17, senior in High School. All my friends started about that time too, it was the thing to do.