I don’t use drugs nor alcohol, but I just turned 18 and I noticed that a lot of people younger than me (high school age so 14-17 even) use alcohol and sometimes drugs from siblings, older friends, etc.
Did you do that when you were younger than me? I don’t plan on doing so anyway.
I started drinking at 13 but never much. It wasn’t until about 15 i finally got blackout drunk. My peer group drank hard in the late 90s and were the binge drinking bar crowd of the early 00s. I’ve lost a few friends to ODs combining booze and pills, accidents while drunk, escalation to heroin, and once had to be resuscitated when i drank so much i quit breathing. It wasn’t until my late 30s that i finally got sick of living like that and reigned in my drinking. Now i never drink at home and maybe go out one afternoon for happy hour and am home by 10 rather than closing out the bar every night.
Alcohol is a rough one because it’s not only an addictive substance, it has a strong social component. When you drink hard your social circle becomes others who drink hard, if you try and quit you have no friends. If you have a hard time making friends while sober but are more at ease with a little buzz, you’ll end up right back at a bar. I’ve been going to the same bar for over 20yrs and there’s regulars who were there before me still on the same barstools.
It looks like the other side needs a bit more representation here. I’m late 30’s. While I’ve had the occasional wine with friends and family, I’ve never been drunk and have no plans to change that. I’ve also never done drugs unless you count stuff like caffeine. I guess my rule of thumb is if a substance makes me not me, I don’t want it.
Fun fact from a psych nurse: you can usually estimate how many years a person has spent abusing substances by how many years behind they seem in their emotional development. A 30y/o who still acts 20ish has probably spent ~10 years using. It’s not necessarily contiguous, they might have started at fifteen, used for 3, got sober for two, used for 7 more then been sober for the last 3, but they’ve probably spent about ten years using in total. Abusing substances lets people avoid the psychological crises they would normally need to confront to grow as a person. When they stop using they don’t get to skip ahead, they have to pick up maturing from where they left off. It can also happen with non-substance behavioral addictions (like gambling) but it has to be real bad.
I started drinking age 14. At first it was like 3 beers per friday. By age 16 I was drinking a 12-pack per firday/saturday. By age 18 I was drinking a few beers every day and got properly pissed on the weekends, about 20-24 beers and some vodka. By age 22 I was pretty much an alcoholic. By age 25 I decided I either stop or die under a bridge with my own shit in my pants. Have been alcohol free now for… I dunno, 13-15 years or something like that.
mad props. alcohol is sneaky and dangerous. I applaud you
Full disclosure: weed helped me out of alcohol. I went from heavy drinking to smoking, then that also got a bit out of hand, spent a few years daily smoking. Then I decided to see if I can get off of that as well, had a 6 month break and was fine. Since then I’ve smoked every now and then, sometimes more, sometimes less. Currently haven’t smoked anything since January 6th.
Only real addiction I have is coffee and bad jokes.
I went to university when I was two weeks away from my 16th birthday. I started smoking weed that summer, and tried alcohol when I was 17.
Yes. But I am Scottish.
In Germany (if your parents agree) its allowed to drink beer and wine from the age of 14. By 16 you are allowed to buy beer and wine by yourself. By 18 you can buy anything.
… So yeah, the first time i got shitfaced i was 13 :|
Pretty much my experience, but I was 14 or so
Im german. My first time I couldn’t walk anymore was 16, first blackout was 17. Normal drunk as fuck since I was 14
Yes
There’s an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in my area called “Never Had A Legal Drink.” It was created by and for people who decided that they were alcoholics and had to stop drinking before they turned 21.
Plenty of people get into drugs/alcohol at an early age.
Once I turned 16, I would have a beer with my parents once or twice a month. Despite being in the US, in my state it’s legal for parents to give their kids alcohol, so it was no big deal.
Personally, I think it can be a fairly healthy introduction to alcohol, so long as the parents aren’t just giving their kids a 30-pack and letting them loose.
Never bothered with weed, I was never (and still not) interested
I was a fullblown alcoholic and habitual stoner by the time i was 16. Started at 14. Im now 2 years sober at 29 and really mourning the lost time.
Think about all the time you gained by going sober. Mad props, hats off
Yeah, i try to. I cant help but feel like i wasted the best years of my life. But i know that isnt true. Its just what society tells us about our 20s. The last 2 years have been better than the last 10 in a lot of ways
I think I’ve always been older than you…
For now…
Is… It’s that a threat?
A minor exceptions, I stole a sip of my a coke without realizing there was booze in it. Felt weird, tasted gross.
0/10. Don’t recommend.
I didn’t really drink until my 21st birthday. My only memories of that night was being bought a shot of Hennessy, bartender telling me to put my shoes back on and then crying to my best friend that I totally loved her in the cab home.
Hilarious. 10/10. Smashing success.
My psrents gave me a sip as a teen and I hated it. I tried it again at 21 and hated it then too. It was only a few years after that I tried something I liked.
About the same here. Friends were drinking soft alcohol constantly at parties. I stuck to one bottle and took all night for it, because I had to force it. Nowadays I gave up on alcohol completely. So I won’t hope for something I like and grab the soft drink straight away.
