NYCDoglvr

My first drink was at age nine. No one in my family drank alcoholically, I'd never seen anyone slightly high. My father had an occasional shot of Seagrams (only one!) and one day, when my parents were in another room I got out his bottle and put a shot down fast, as I'd seen him do. It tasted horrible, I gagged and almost vomited.

Then I had two more.

NewRomanMan

It's not the drug. It's the person. It's Russian roulette. Which drug is going to be the one that makes you fiend?...that turns your addict switch on? I've known plenty of people that have tried all kinds of stuff and just walked away. Never seen an addict to that, tho. At least not this one.

BrendaChenowyth

I think addiction is a learned behavior in a way.. I know that I never, ever had a healthy relationship with alcohol. But someone had to actually tell or show me "drink alcohol = get this desired affect". If alcohol is not inherently addictive, then what causes some people to become addicted while others can have it occasionally in moderation? I think somewhere along the line, we got the message that alcohol would fix what was wrong with us, or that we needed to use it to fit in or be cool. It's environmental. So in a way, some of us can be addicted immediately, in the sense that the first time we reached for alcohol we already viewed it as a direct path to what we wanted.