spikeman

Just wondering how old people where when they first 'picked up' and if I'm 'normal' as such.

I remember I got busted in junior school in the uk when I was 10 for being drunk. A friend had pinched a few of his dad's minitures and we had them at lunch time. Strangely enough, my friend is now an alcoholic (though he doesn't know it) and his dad died in his 50's from alcoholism.

I also remember drinking the leftover beer in the bottom of cans the morning after my parents had house parties. I must have only been 8 or 9 then.

I think I was about 16 when I started really drinking. I looked older than my age and started going to pubs. By the time I was 18 I was drinking every night.

That was 26 years ago. Where has all that time gone?

aeo1313

The first time I got drunk was when I was 16. I drank off and on through high school, but in general was a pretty good kid- back then eating disorders and cutting were my thing- easier to get a hold of than alcohol. Once I got to college I started drinking and blacking out regularily. I was also a daily pot smoker. College was an awful time for me. I suffered from drug addiction, alcoholism, and anorexia. Got married at 21 and had my first child at 23. By this time I was pretty much all cleaned up and went years with no issues. From 23-29ish I barely ever drank. Maybe got wasted a few times a year- whenever I did drink it was when I was at a party etc and always got drunk. Started drinking more regularily again about 5 years ago and it got heavier over the past 2 years. Added daily vicodin last year as well.

As the kids have gotten older and more independent my drinking increased. I had also stopped working weekends so that left them wide open to drink. Etc etc etc

Anna

I was 45.

BoozeFree

I was14 and a daily drinker by the age of 16. It was easy for me to get alcohol bc I had older friends that could buy it.

Fatale

I have always loved the taste of wine - especially white -, so my parents would always let me have a small glass from I was 9 or so. When I was 14 I would start experimenting with drugs and I drank more. I had ritalin (there's speed in them) on prescription and would trade it for booze, other pills or drugs. Then when I was 16 I started drinking on a daily basis, and taking whatever was available. My parents bought me alcohol so it was easier to save money for drugs - and I had just tried heroin and was completely hooked.

So I'm turning 22 the 5th of july and just had my first "going to bed and fall asleep"-experience in many years. Before it would just be me passing out and waking up sometime. A few things have improved since I was younger: I haven't done heroin for a year and I'm not so desperate for drugs anymore that I will just take them from whatever stranger on the street.

jstar

when i was very young, my parents used to let us kids have a glass of champagne on holidays, but it wasn't until i was about 14 or 15 when i first started experimenting with alcohol. it didn't really start to become a real problem (ok at least a problem that I was aware of) until the last 2-3 years for me.

Emma18

When I was 13 I started drinking, then at 15 started smoking weed, at 16/17 I've been doing it on an everyday basis thing but adding more drugs as well...Someday I will get clean.

MalkavianEmily

crumbs. difficult to say. I think the first time I got drunk was when I was 14. [I forget exactly, but from other things, I know I couldn't have been older than that.]
It wasn't the first time I'd had a drink - I'd had cider on holiday in Cornwall before that and liked the feeling I got - but I definitely had no control that night. I was at a sort of party and there was homebrew. I had one or two (small) glasses and... yes, there was the buzz again. And then I carried on drinking. Think I threw up when I got home. Had a rotten hangover in the morning.
Didn't drink again till I was 18.

NewBeginning010

I remember my brother & his friends giving me beer while camping at about 12 years old (they were 15 or so). I recall walking down a dirt road drunk & lady getting mad at my brother because she could tell I was drinking/drunk at such a young age... scary stuff.

I hope that I never see an adult or older teen ever giving younger kids a drink... I will definitely step in (18 is legal in Canada where I live).

DarkDays

Started at 14, oh so sad. Imprisoned myself for 32 years with it. Now free for 158 days and never ever going back.

gasher1985

My dad and mom are drunks so i never wanted to be like them. So i didnt drink at all till i was 20. Then i dated some one when i was 21 that drank alot. Like every night and now 5 years later im a drunk. Sadly he my ex has been sober for like 2 years and im still drinking.

tomsteve

i dont remember the 1st time i drank. the 1st reall good memroy i was 14. 14 is the age at which an open speaker i heard got sober.

hypochondriac

I was 12, it was at a party with my parents and I got drunk on beer. And I stole some beer from the party too which I drank another time. Sounds awful. I have a photo somewhere of me, drunk at that party, and that image is really helping me stay sober now. I also used to sneak bits of alcohol from my parents drink cabinet and hide it in a bottle under my bed. I only ever drank that out with friends though. I was drinking weekly at 14 (pubs and parties) and daily at 18 (everywhere, including alone at home).

Saying that, I'm not sure that made me an alcoholic. It does sound pretty bad that I was drinking with my parents consent from the age of 12, and if I had kids I wouldn't do the same, but I have a friend who first got drunk aged 8 on whisky and she's not an alcoholic (that I know of!).

Love your avatar spikeman

desertsong

I had my first beer when I was 3. My mom gave it to me because I had a stomach ache and she thought it would help ...

But I don't think I really started drinking until my teens. Lots of parties, lots of beer and weed. College was even worse. But then I got married and started having babies, and just quit. I might have the occasional drink here and there or glass of wine, but I had no interest in booze at all until about 3-4 years ago when a series of events in my life led me to turn to the bottle for comfort. Then it got bad. REAL bad.

RobbyRobot

I first picked up, and knowingly drank beer, when I was 9. I hated the taste, and only drank for effect, and at that age, it didn't take much. I wasn't really a drinker much. By age 12, things had changed, and I was an experienced beer drinker. By 15 I was alcoholic and always drinking vodka too. I could even drink in bars, I looked so much older, and so serious, my underage never came up as a problem. I sometimes had long hair and a beard, I looked like trouble.

At 15 the year was 1972. I would constantly and without shame cut classes after lunch, and just hang out at the bar. Needless to say, I eventually dropped out of high school. In my last year, start of grade 11, my drop out year, I was sharing drinks with my home room teacher.

18 I was a chronic alcoholic. Under a collge grant and special scholarship, I tried college twice, two different 2 yr diploma courses, and dropped out of both, of course. I tried to seriously quit, and seriously couldn't. At 24 I forever quit with a supervised detox, 3 month rehab, AA program, gestalt therapy. Sober now since 1981. Awesome

roseblossom

I was 22.

Db1105

I was 12 when I started drinking with the neighborhood derrilics. Then drugs, then a rapid downword spiral, done at 17.

FlyerFan

I started getting really bad at about 17 or 18. I'm sober now at 24.

losingmygrip

I was 13 when I started drinking hard liquor and drank to the point of blacking out right away. Definitely had the "where have you been all my life!" feeling. Hallucinogens at 14 and cocaine at 15. After multiple failed attempts at sobriety, I finally got it right at 24. Been sober for 5 years.

Scolova

8~10 years old I snuk beers out of my Dad's cooler while he and friends were out wade-fishing at the beach, did that on several occasions. Didn't progress very much until 18 (or so) with high school parties on the weekends, these were not causal drink and pick up girls kinda parties, they were binge 'til you puke and drink more kinda parties. Just into my twenties I discovered marijuana and smoked the hell out of that daily throughout that decade (did LSD a few times, but stayed away from the other stuff). Although I would get really drunk during my twenties, pot was my 'go to' drug of choice... When I turned 30 the alcoholic in me woke up and drinking became all I wanted to do. Got serious about quitting & living sober in January 2011 (@40), when through the ringer several times last year, with a 4 month long bender which brought me to my current sobriety date.