Did you know the first time?
 

Merry xmas eve sr folks. 21 months sober today. I'm sure this has been talked about many times here but did you know the first time you drank that you were going to have a problem? I didn't realize it until recently,but I was one of those people. Apparently my sister was the same. I was 15 and went camping with some friends, got hammered and had a blast. Ever since then, I made it almost a priority to always have a drink in hand during any social situation. In hindsight, I wish I wouldve realized it back then. It might have saved me years of unnecessary misery. Anyhow, just a thought. Hope everyone has a special (sober) holiday.

Looking back on it, I'm not sure exactly when it dawned on me that I had an issue. I do know that I became the "he doesn't drink often, but when he does, he gets REALLY drunk" guy at work. Then I drank all the time, getting REALLY drunk.

I believe it was after my first bad breakup that things escalated and went downhill. That was about 10 or 11 years ago.

Sadly cellar, I was the guy who drank often AND got really drunk. When I got sober, friends and family let me know. Not that I didn't know already.

Oh yeah , first time as a young teen , got black out drunk and loved it. I wish that would have scared me but it didn't.

The best fix for it then and now is no more booze , ever.

I was surrounded by so many people that normalized binge drinking that it took me 20 years to realize.

It's a heck of a thing to look back on, isn't it? I had friends that knew I drank like a fish but didn't really say anything about it. I wonder what would have happened if someone had said "Hey, get your sh*t together. You're an embarassment." By that I mean, I wonder if I would have stopped earlier. A lot of folks seem too polite to provide the honesty required to cause a gut check sometimes. But, maybe that gut check is only meaningful if someone discovers it for themselves.

Not the first time. I poured out my first beer. Hated the taste. Wish I had never had a second, would have save me a lot of trouble.

First time I got drunk, I liked it. Second or third time I got alcohol poisoning and anyone but an alcoholic probably would have never drank again. But I did. I never got so sick I quit drinking.

But it wasn't until I was doing my recovery work, thirty five years later, that I realized I was never a "normal" drinker.

Yip. Very first time I had proper access to alcohol I drank too much. A born drinker really.

Yep, I dove right in at the age of 13. I looked a lot older so I started going to bars at that age. I had some years, when my kids were small, when I drank a lot more socially. However, over time my drinking became a significant problem, and then it became my obsession. Looking back now I see all of the warning signs, and unfortunately I never had a parent who taught me the dangers of extreme alcohol consumption.

I was doomed from the very 1st drink.

Wildflower my parents never sat me down and warned me either. They were very good parents, but were maybe too young or busy. I suppose that could be material for a future post!! It probably wouldn't have done much good.

Trigger-Behavior - Reward-Repeat. Addictions are reward based behaviors.

I don't remember the first time but I do remember the feeling. I felt on top of the world. I felt in control of my emotions in a good way for the first time in my life. That's the strange thing about addictions. You feel in control inside, even if you are not on the outside. Normal drinkers feel out of control when they get tipsy and stop. Alcoholics feel more in control when intoxicated (emotionally) and keep drinking!

The bottom line is addictions are a learned behavior. Addictions always serve an emotional purpose. Addictions are behaviors used to reverse feelings of frustration, helplessness, powerlessness, feeling trapped: to regain control of how we feel. Hence the reward.

The good news is we can all escape the trap and empower ourselves with direct healthy behaviors that enable us to regain control of our lives. The hard part is finding the motivation, the values and purpose that will empower us to re-learn how to live joyful sober lives.

You are living proof it can be done! Change your thinking and relearn your life, with new rewards!

Romans 12: 2: "Don't be conformed to this world, but instead be transformed in your new thinking."

Looking back, yes - the buzz i got the first time I got drunk when I was about 13 years old was something I chased for literally decades. Problem is of course i always kept drinking more than I planned, more often than I planned. And eventually I didn't even get a buzz anymore and simply needed to keep my BAC at a certain level just to hold off withdrawals.

Most folks that think they are normies are addicted.

Drinking a margarita once a month is not enough, but 3 or 4 2 times a week is an addiction.

I started out a binge drinker at 5 years old. I stayed that way. I rationalized I didn't have a problem because I could stop for several days in a row when I needed to most of the time.

But, I messed with booze for too many years and it started to fry my body.

Up until my last day I still got euphoria from my drinking. I almost never drank in the morning except for special occasions.

I was lucky I live in a place where you have to crash your car to get a DUI and that my wifes tolerance was Godlike.

Love y'all.

Thanks.

I would still be a drunk if I hadn't had the hellish brain damage.

No, I did not.

If anything I felt I was ok because some of the guys drank way more than I did.

Ever since I was a little boy I knew I was going to be a drinker. Not an alcoholic but a drinker. Even the Duke boys go to the boar's nest after they give the bad guy's money to the orphanage. It's what men do. I dont know how much of it is the bs society drummed in my head or how much was the way my messed up mind perceived it.

I remember when I was like 12 and getting a beer was a big deal. It seemed like it took forever to drink one. It wasnt that it tasted bad I think it was all the carbon in it. I took swings of whiskey here and there and got a bit of a buzz. The night I remember really falling in love was drinking a 6 pack when I was 14 back in the summer of 89. Actually I found a similar love months earlier smoking angel dust. 2 very different drugs but one thing in common. All I knew is I was no longer restless, irritable, and discontent. Usually I'm filled with anxiety and now I'm not was all I knew.

My first drink felt like a magic potion. As a shy, quiet kid with ADHD, that drink filled me with the self-confidence to break out of my shell. I kept going "back to the well" too many times however and the 'magic' stopped working....

Most people don't have a relationship with alcohol.
I always did - and it's been toxic for years.

We don't talk anymore.

Not sure I 100% agree with this and here's why:

When I was a tiny tot, under six years of age, I vividly remember my mother offering me a choice during an asthma attack. "Would you like to take the medicine? I know it makes you feel terrible." My little inside brain was secretly thinking, "Oh yes, I kind of really like the awful wired feeling that stuff gives me." And my outside little self would say fake-reluctantly reply, "Yes, I'll take the medication."

The medication was Tedral, which contained:
Theophyllyne - which is a combination of a couple of refined plant-derived caffeines
Ephedrine
Phenobarbitol

Now I suppose I could've been learning to control my feelings at such a tender age with these substances, but I'm pretty skeptical about that idea. Though I'm certain I was an extremely sensitive young thing, I'm almost as sure that I hadn't been scarred yet. What I think is that I enjoyed the buzz and somehow knew (or picked up from my mom) that enjoying it was "wrong."

To answer to OP's question, of course I had absolutely no idea where I was headed then!

I'm a rare case, I didn't have my first drink of alcohol until 21.

I noticed within a couple of weeks my mind was focused on the weekend binge, many months later I changed into a heavy daily drinker. Thinking back now I don't how I was able to even get up in the morning, hungover yes but still highly functional and still felt somewhat good. At the end alcohol took its toll, get up in the morning with headache, dry heaves, blood pressure sky high, the runs, dizziness, extreme anxiety, bloated gut, numb toes, and yes focused on my next drinking session.

I seen the problem when alcohol consumed my daily thoughts, and that was within weeks of drinking.