Terry77

Did you know deep down that you would love getting drunk?

at age 12, I stole beers from my dad because I wanted to experience getting drunk so bad. (i got busted and never did experience till age 17) It felt like it was totally embedded into my DNA even before I experienced the effects of alcohol.

but just wondering if others had similar experiences..

Jimuk

Yes, I remember swigging from bottles in my parents drink cabinet at a very early age. I remember filling an empty bottle with sherry and hiding it in an old chicken shed I was probably about 10. May be I was born an alcoholic, it's strange my parents were never drinkers or any of my family really, just me but why me.

RocketQueen

I remember at about age 10 sneaking some sort of blackcurrant flavored alcoholic beverage out if my parents liquor cabinet, putting it into a drink bottle and taking it to school to share with my friends. I remember thinking that I wanted to try it not because i wanted to get drunk (I didn't really know what being drunk was at the time) , but because the "blackcurrant flavour" sounded appealing to a 10 year old like myself.

Thats part of the reason why im opposed to flavoured liquor, and more recently those liquor popsicles - it's almost as if they are marketed towards younger people.

Joe Nerv

I had no idea I'd love getting drunk. I in fact thought I would hate it, as I got stoned on pot first and it was a bad experience. Thought drunk would be the same only with vomiting, which I hated even more than the pot experience.

First time I got drunk, I didn't vomit, and I thought it was the key to the kingdom of heaven. In retrospect, it actually was. I knew however my 2nd week of drinking that I was either an instant alcoholic, or well on my way. I consciously decided to drink on a regular basis, and welcomed it as it transormed me to the person I always wanted to be. It completely fixed all that was wrong with me, instantly. And then almost just as quickly multiplied all that was wrong a thousand fold.

1stepup

I thought id found the miricale cure for my shyness when i first drank, like popeye and spinach! Remember my dad giving me half his lager and the instant transformation, from aged 15 i was obsessed by the stuff.

Horselover

I started drinking in highschool about sophomore year. Definitely used it to break from my shyness. I just recently met up with an old high school friend and we talked about things. She says she knew I was an alcoholic in high school as her dad was one, and she just could spot it. I wish someone would have said something, BUT I'm sure it wouldn't have changed a thing for me. I did have someone tell me they thought I was a weekend alcoholic in college, but I thought they were crazy. Ha! Guess you can't fix stupid and at that time I was very close minded and guarded. So relieved that was another life ago and things are much calmer now.

laana

Yeah me too, around 12-13 me and some friends started stealing from our parents, bad mixes, I was always the one getting most wasted, throwing up and a mess each time. It didn't put me off though. I guess a bit later i learned to drink lighter stuff like beers which enabled me to dare kissing that boy or in general being outgoing and not shy.

Tammy47

No, never felt that from young age. In fact I went through my life drinking normal, so to speak, (from late teens to late 30s), just drank odd glass of wine if dining out, or few beers in bar. (never drank at home) Never the one to get really drunk, in fact looked after most of my drunken friends. So whats odd is, age 39 (I'm now 47) I moved into my own place. Living alone, I began to have the odd glass of wine and graduated to bottle to bot and half most nights for last years (experiencing black outs, texting/phoning people) UCK and spent most days hungover at work and come home time, mouth salavating for wine! It just crept up on me. Which is why I am finding it so hard to realize now I'm an alki. Is there anyone else here on SR who developed it later in life?

CrossFox

When I was a kid, I would ask my mom not to drink wine anymore (when she passed out on the couch), but she would just laugh and it would break my heart. Even at a young age I could see the destruction that alcohol caused, and it was ghoulish that it made the drinker "happy" during it all.

In high school, my circle of friends and I would go to the drinking parties and bonfires, but I could take or leave alcohol. I guess I was more into certain boys than getting numb or drunk, and the parties were a place to be approached by them.

I didn't develop a taste for beer until I was upset (over a boy) and one night, I drank several bottle illegally obtained beers while alone in my room, after school on a weeknight. At that time it only took about three beers for me to get drunk. I drank and cried and by golly the beer felt like a friend.

I was disgusted with myself afterward, because back then as a teen my personal standards were higher, ugh. It was considered gross to "drink alone".

When I graduated high school and moved out on my own, I was too cheap to spend money on alcohol mostly, but if I had guests I'd make sure that I had some. I did not often drink, but when I did I had a hard time stopping. I did not go out for drinks on my 21st birthday, because I had to get up early for work.

It was again "man troubles" that led me back to beer and wine when I was 25. I am now 31. I had trouble stopping once I got started, and then I'd have trouble not driving myself to the liquor store when sober, so I'm here.

I did not picture myself drinking and liking alcohol more as the years went on, and certainly not ending up like my mother, who is a late stage addict (alcohol). It surprised me.

RocketQueen

I would say I did (28). Even though I took some to school when I was young, that stopped when my parents began hiding the key to the liquor cabinet.
It got serious for me when I started drinking hard core to cope with my alcoholic partners abuse.

Jojo69

I think when I was younger I thought getting drunk would make me cool. Ultimately though I think I drank to deal with a crippling shyness.

I drank as a kid, but I never really drank with any regularity until I'd say I was 19. I'd say then it was pretty obvious that I had a real dangerous taste for the stuff, though I didn't realise it at the time.

kizzy40

Nah, never drank to excess till I was in my mid 20's and suffered some emotional damage. I'm British so I drank to keep my upper lip stiff... haha

nomis

Here's a good story. When I was in grade 3 my friends and I thought it was really cool to steal flour or sugar from home, run into the bushes behind our elementary school and pretend that we were snorting coke. Addictive behavior in elementary school.

I remember in grade 6 or 7 stealing a bottle of whiskey from my friend's old man's liquor cabinet. I had it in my mind that it would taste like gold, took a large swig and spit it right back out.

But yeah, as soon as I hit teenage hood I started obsessing over alcohol and sure enough, as soon as I got my first drunk on, I was hooked. Didn't matter that I passed out on the front lawn of the house party, vomited for two days, and called in sick to my part-time job. I couldn't wait to do it again. Back then, even though in high school I got drunk probably only a 5-6 times over two years my friends said I reminded them of Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.

bigsombrero

Tammy, I sure started late. I did drink a lot in college and looking back I can see some warning signs now - but at the time you could not have distinguished I was abnormal. After college I settled down, slow but steady drinking. I never had problems drinking at home until I was around 35, I also have my own place and for some reason it struck me that I could do whatever I wanted. It got so bad that by the age of 37 (currently my age) I found myself in rehab and out of a job. Terrible timing. Sometimes though, I think about it and there's really no good time to have this creep up on us. We just have to play the hand we're dealt...

Ptcapote

Tammy, I also started late-ish for my friends, around 24 or 25. I grew up in Philadelphia which is very much a binge-drinking city/culture. You have drinks Friday and Saturday (maybe Sunday if there's a game on) but NEVER during the week unless there's some special occasion and even then it's kind of frowned upon. Never at home or alone either. I remember us calling people who drank during the week alcoholics despite the fact that we were going out and getting black-out smashed on the weekends. I started drinking at home and alone when I left a long-term relationship and got my own place in my late twenties/early thirties. But it progressed very quickly from there. In about three years I went from having a glass or two of wine a night to a bottle to two...or more on weekends. I'm 38 now and if you had told me ten years ago what my alcohol consumption was when I decided to get sober, I would never have believed you.

But, yes, from the first time I got drunk I knew I liked it (same reasons of becoming more of who I wanted to be) and can now trace just about every calamity in my life to drinking so even when I was a "moderate drinker," I was a bad one. Think that was a sign of alcoholism early on...and things to come

YouRmySunshine

Never growing up did I think "When I grow up I want to be an Alcoholic"
But as I truly begin this recovery & understanding of what got me here...
I see I have always had addictive tendencies.
Now it scares me because I am picking up on that with my teen daughter.
When she likes somethings, she = LOVES IT, when she doesn't care for something, she = HATES IT! Much like I was as a kid. If I liked a sport I played it & got good at it till I could move. If I liked a song I learned every word with in days, If I liked a boy I pursued him till it was creepy!

I guess all along I was an addict of some kind, just never knew drinking would be one thing that I really grabbed on to & couldn't let go of. At least not on my own.

llastchance8

In my family background , there was not a single drop of alcohol , in my previous seven forefathers. The place I come from, alcohol does not exist. I never drank before I was 23.Alcohol does its job on anyone who abuses it.. Does not matter , at what age, one starts. I have seen cases of people starting to drink at the age of 33 and passing away at age 40.

Eddie2010

Our stepmother got us going when we were really young. Each morning it was a tablespoonful of Father John's Elixir (at the time maybe 50 proof), a tablespoonful of paregoric and sometimes one of sugar with whiskey if we had the slightest cough. I swear I sometimes had a buzz getting on the school bus.

Later it was in high school to overcome shyness.

But I never took any from the wine bottle my father kept to have with his dinner.

FeelingGreat

I first drank in high school when I was about 16. Didn't do much for me and I went right through my young adulthood and when the children were small without drinking much or wanting to. One thing I do remember was that when others would say they would just as happily drink coke, I always said I enjoyed alcoholic drinks. I only started increasing my intake when I moved to Perth and lived on my own at 36, and it took a good 15 years to increase my tolerance and appetite. I finally stopped at a bottle a night.

Lastchance8 - I don't think people like me who think there is a genetic tendency to addiction are trying to duck personal responsibility.
I do think that some people have more propensity to progress to heavier drinking and become addicted than others. A wide variation in physical and mental characteristics is true of every species. I might have genes that pre-dispose me to all sorts of things but unless I encounter them they won't be expressed. It's not a moral issue, it's just the way people are.

MAlan

I just wanted to be cool like my dad. He was always sippin a corona so I wanted to do the same at a pretty young age.