julez

I drank for the first time at 14. Drank a whole fifth of root beer schnapps. YUCK!
I blacked out, threw up, ended up in the hospital, stomach pumped, the whole 9 yards..
Wasn't much of a drinker after that...
Fast forward 20 years....
My teenager was going through some rough stuff, the stress was killing me and I began to self medicate.
Nightly drinking to blackouts, or passouts had to stop.
That went on for the last 3 years. I've got almost 3 months sober now. My teen is a mess, but I'm learning to let go and let God.

shameless0109

I was a social drinker in high school and did the big party scene in college until it got out of control and out of hand. I did it mailny to fit in and be social until a certain point where my loved ones slowly went away and life became unmanageable. was on and off on getting sober after i met the love of my life my world. when she walked out bc of my drinking and i realized the impact she had on my life I hit bottom and now will never drink again bc i never want that feeling ever again and want that special someone back in my life. Keep it up its worth it in the end.

peacefulheart

Someone here shared how they were always 'addicted to something' and it really rang a bell for me. From my obsession with books since I could read to never being able to be single from the moment I was old enough to have boyfriends..then add to this the fact that I've always been a curious little mischief maker who loves to see and be seen (and got caught up in 'the scene'). Started with pot in high school..then lsd and shrooms and coke..never really cared for alcohol until I was in early 20s because by then i was a mother and had stopped (right before i got pregnant) substances, figuring booze was safe and socially acceptable since it was legal. Was really good with that (as in sticking to just drinking, not that I ever was good at not blacking out once I got started!) until about 2-3 years ago when started doing lines again most times that I drank. So basically, every weekend for last 2-3 years was drinking and hitting the slopes. Ok..that was HOW I drank/used but why i did it? Because the first many times it was great until it started becoming not so great. I'd get anxiety attacks before going out because I KNEW I would (most likely) be blacking out from drinking or doing something to embarrass myself and then of course I'd drink to calm the anxiety. Lovely little cycle. Disgusted with myself for last time on 12/27/10. We all know what that definition of insanity is and I MUST and will be healthy now and forever. I now know I have this disease and I'll never be able to moderate. Thanks SR for being in existence! Thank God we all live in 2010!

No2

The FIRST time I drank I was about 11-12 years old. My family was moving and my step father was drinking beer (and he never drank beer) when we were packing up the Uhaul and I was helping him. He gave me a beer too and I pounded it pretty fast and spent the rest of the day stealing more beer when he wasn't looking. I think I drank at least 3 full beers, maybe 4 and I was wasted and my family thought it was funny.

I had totally forgotten about that until right now.

As for how I really started it wasn't until I was about 23-24 that I became hardcore 4-5 times a day getting wasted. I had spent 4-5 years in the Navy by then and whenever a ship goes to a port everybody goes out and drinks as much as they can. If it had been a different lifestyle I'd probably have never drank much but it became a habit that whenever we could get off the ship everybody would go out together and drink until we couldn't stand anymore pretty much.

Well when I had done my time on the ship I went on shore duty for a few years and my wife was drinking every day, we were fighting about it too, and then I started drinking almost every night. Then a few months later I got a DUI after leaving the house because we were fighting, we later divorced over it, and the Navy sent me to 2 weeks of Alcohol Abuse live in counseling.

The problem was that I was still in the middle of the problems with my wife. I was going out at night bar hopping alone while in the program and ended up getting caught on their breathalyzer. They kicked me out of the program and recommended that the Navy kick me out of the Navy. That didn't happen because they needed me where I worked but if I was to ever have a single incident for the rest of my career I would be automatically booted. I wasn't able to do the program again because I was a "treatment failure" so I've had no choice but to deal with it on my own. I have been a careful stay at home drunk for 12 additional years and counting now.

I am about to retire from the Navy and am considering trying to get into a program from the hospital on base before I am done and hopefully I can have this accounted for by the VA considering the position I was in and couldn't do anything about this whole time. I've always felt really bad about the drinking and it's all my fault, etc. but I never considered until now that I should have been able to get help somehow, right? I was flat out told in 1998 that I was a treatment failure and wouldn't be accepted back, and was recommended for being kicked out.

recycle

What was missing was felt to be irretrievable.

Onewithwings

I was never a normal drinker-- the first time I drank at 14 I did it to get drunk. by age 15 I was puking in the gutter on a regular basis.

onlythetruth

I started drinking at 13 due to an extremely unhappy childhood; a mentally ill mother and a father who coped with it by escaping physically, emotionally and chemically from the family. I was floridly alcoholic, and anorexic on top of that, by the time I was 18.

I can't remember a particular moment when I realized I was not a normal drinker. I'm not like some people who say they crossed a line from normal drinking to addiction; I frankly don't recall ever drinking in a way that could be called "normal". I will say though that during the last year or two of my drinking I started using the term "alcoholic" in my private thoughts about myself....but by then I had been drinking more than 20 years.

OTT

chebella

Well,

thinking back it kinda makes me laugh a bit.
I was so shy, naive... untill my 16. You guys have no idea! lol

Very much into sport (competing), healthy etc. I remember thinking girls should not drink from a bottle (beer) and sigarettes stink !

The first night I ever went out (really) I was 16, me and my sister.
Someone gave me a beer, I drank it and loved it ever since. Haven't stopped going out since, drinking and started smoking when I was 21.
Within a week I stopped training... and started going out every weekend and drinking. Drugs never interested me, I like alcohol!

I'm doing good now, but I have to admit that I had a lot of good times too getting wasted ha ha! Aaaaaaaah memories!

Snarf

I started drinking when I was 15. My best friend brought over some Icehouse, Red Dog and Zima. We waited till my parents went to bed and then drank it. Warm. Because it had been in a backpack under my bed. I remember the lightheadedness, stumbling as I went up the stairs to use the restroom, and being absolutely and completely in love with the feeling I was experiencing.

I was never a "normal" drinker from the start. I drank more than everyone I knew from the time I started drinking. I got to parties early and was usually the last one awake.

I probably realized it was a problem when I was about 23 or 24. It took me until I was almost 29 before I knew I would end up, rather quickly, in either a casket or a jail cell if I continued to drink. And I'm thankful every day that it didn't take me 1 day longer to put down the bottle.

bochuck

I don't remember when I started REALLY!. In college I drank on weekends and only sometimes got really drunk. I drank mostly beer. Now I hate the taste of it. When I think it got out of control was when I started drinking wine. Which was 8 yrs ago. I lived by myself. Moved to a different state for work 2000 miles from home. Didn't know a soul. So I went to the local bar, I had a hill in the back of my apt, in the winter I had my sled and slid down the hill., walked across the 1 lane little street to the bar. I had to walk around to the front enterance of the apt complex to get back home. the next day I would wake up walk down the hill to get my sled ready for the next sleigh ride to the bar. then in the summer I drank at home sat outside the bar was too depressing no windows. Sice I was by myself I drank more. I remember being mad at my friend back home and depressed at where I lived. I remembe to this day the day I bought 2 bottles and drank them both alone. well I did that more and more some days I was just ok drunk but ok other nights it hit me hard. Then on my days off I would start in the afternoon it went way!!!!!!!!!! down hill from there. 47 days sober today. FEELING TERRIFIC

invisigoth

WOW, that's my story to a T.