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I remember being bored at the first drinking party I went to in high school. All these 14 year old boys throwing up in the garden. Drinking age was a non enforced 18. Is now an enforced 18 with a totally different culture (fortunately about not drinking and driving.)
I have fond memories of the first time I drank red wine when I was 17! Still remember the time and place.
I doubt there are more than a hundred days I've not had a drink in the 48 years since I took my first pint of beer at around 16 years of age.
I also doubt there haven't been many weeks in that time that I haven't drunk multiples of the recommended weekly intake of alcohol.
I love booze more than anything else other than my wife and kids.It has oiled and lubricated the cogs of my life as long as I can remember.I dread to think how much money I have spent but never wasted on drink.
The first drink I ever had - a pint of Tetley's Bitter in the George and Dragon pub.
The VAT 69 the bosomy barmaid in that pub handed to me after cheerfully helping me pop my cherry after her night shift.
Sociable lunchtime pints.
The skinful after work with colleagues chewing the fat about the boss.
The bottles of champagne opened and drunk to celebrate my engagement,marriage and later the birth of my kids.
The oceans of fantastic,full-bodied red wine over barbecued meats in dozens of family get-togethers.
That pick-me-up strong gin and tonic handed to me by my wife when I got home after a bad day at the office.
The cold malty pint of Bass ale in the Ear Inn pub on Spring Street in Manhattan on one of the hottest days I can ever remember.
The bottle of Retsina with a bowl of olives in a beach taverna looking out to sea as the sun sets on another glorious Greek summer day.
The pints of stout around a peat fire on a cold,dark Irish evening in the pub watching a band play trad music.
The bottle of Veuve Clicquot I used to open with my old dad every year for ten years before he died on the anniversary of the day he had a stroke and the doctors said he wouldn't last the night.
The first time I was introduced to a Maker's Mark Presbyterian by a Senator's daughter in a Bronx dive bar.
Those wonderul transatlantic flights in business class on someone else's dime when the ageing flight attendants on American Airlines made it their job to fill your glass every time it was empty.
That feeling each and every time I walk into my local pub wondering who'll be in,what we'll chat and argue about,the gossip and laughter,the rows and reconciliations,the cheering of the sporting events and the drowning of sorrows.
Sitting in a cricket ground in Barbados drinking rum and coke and Banks's beer with the locals as they skin up and pass along the spliffs.
The restaurant lunches with friends that start at 1pm and go on all afternoon and into the evening and then having dinner at the same table before the bill comes late in the evening and the laughter at our extravagance.
The thatched country pub two minute's walk from where I once lived where I could sit on my own in the beer garden on a lovely summer's day with pints of English ale,a Cuban cigar and reading the newspaper from cover to cover without anyone bothering me.
The craft breweries all over the world that all,without a single exception,brew the same disgusting murkey IPA and think it's a world-beater.
Dive bars,cocktail bars,swanky bars,neighbourhood bars,pop-up bars,tequila bars - ah,that fantastic afternoon in Mexico high up in the mountains getting trashed on tequila slammers - hotel bars,gay bars.
The bar last month about 30 minutes from Napa like an old Wild West saloon where,for a bar snack, the Chinese owner knocks out 500 spring rolls a day at $3 a go and the money never goes in the till.
The bar I owned for three years where our youngest son was conceived on the pool table in the early hours after we'd kicked out all the customers and locked the door.
The three pints of gorgeous craft beer I had tonight with a Jameson's chaser.
The pints of rough Somerset cider I'll have with my oldest kid when we fly to the UK to see him tomorrow.
I've enjoyed every single of those drinks and don't regret any of them.
I respect anyone who prefers to live life without alcohol.
But I couldn't begin for one moment to even contemplate it.
Do I have a drinking problem ? I don't think so. I rarely drink at home,never before lunchtime and never because I feel I need one to function.
I've had a great life,I've got a great family,I've had a great career and I'm heading towards the end of my time on this mortal coil happy,healthy and wealthy.
I am,of course,incredibly lucky.There are many others who have slipped beneath the waves of the mighty ocean alcohol.
Last edited by Roscoe Conkling; 09-13-2019 at 04:00 PM..
Regret it? Best years of my life. LOL. I never drank very much though. It was only a phase, thankfully. We used to drink Boonsefarm Wine, which as I recall was the cheapest crap on earth.
OMG - that is what we used to drink! Or TJ Swan. yuck -
I already drank beer at age 14. As far as I remember, I drank Schnaps and Rum also; many kids did. I even smoked at that time; btw, I quit smoking at the age of 35 and my lung is o.k. I still drink, but not all the time, just about 5x / week beer and / or wine, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Regret it? Not even slightly! Some of my most fun times in my youth involved alcohol.
Even in high school, when me and my friends couldn't legally buy it, where there's a will, there's a way. We'd fan out, hit up local grocery stores, and buy many bottles of vanilla extract. We'd check the label, to make sure it says "80% alcohol" on the label. One of us would buy a juice or a Mountain Dew. Then we'd mix it all together in a large container. Of course, it tasted nasty as hell. But when you're 16, you don't really care. Plus, there was the suspenseful walk home, and sneaking past my parents once I got there. (My suburb had a teenage curfew, but it must have been relatively lax, since I never got caught; the cops probably looked for groups of teens.)
Man, those were the days! It got easier in college. I generally knew someone over 21, or I'd get invited to a party, and just drink there. All despite the preachy "you don't need to drink to have a good time" mantra my college kept putting out.
Cheap? "Thirty twice plus nine, sixty-nine." I think that was the Boone's Farm jingle, wasn't it? If not, Boone's Farm was about the same price when I was a teen -- 69 cents for a 5th.
Regret it? Not even slightly! Some of my most fun times in my youth involved alcohol.
Even in high school, when me and my friends couldn't legally buy it, where there's a will, there's a way. We'd fan out, hit up local grocery stores, and buy many bottles of vanilla extract. We'd check the label, to make sure it says "80% alcohol" on the label. One of us would buy a juice or a Mountain Dew. Then we'd mix it all together in a large container. Of course, it tasted nasty as hell. But when you're 16, you don't really care. Plus, there was the suspenseful walk home, and sneaking past my parents once I got there. (My suburb had a teenage curfew, but it must have been relatively lax, since I never got caught; the cops probably looked for groups of teens.)
Man, those were the days! It got easier in college. I generally knew someone over 21, or I'd get invited to a party, and just drink there. All despite the preachy "you don't need to drink to have a good time" mantra my college kept putting out.
Vanilla Extract! You earned any good buzz you got from that.
From my perspective though, this is a unique tragedy. The REAL issue is that brain development doesn't finish until the age of 25 (boys, younger in girls) and alcohol consumption, Especially getting buzzed/drunk, screws that up. Drinking causes brain damage in the very literal sense.
Most European countries had for years drinking age at 17-18 and I don't think they are any dumber that an average American kid. If you're old enough to go to the army and die for your country, you should be old enough to get a beer...
Vanilla Extract! You earned any good buzz you got from that.
I did get a good buzz, at least for the time being. We had no legal access to the proper stuff, so we made do. Where there's a will, there's a way. So the buzz was indeed well-deserved. Failing that, one of us with less-strict parents would probably try to ferment fruits in his room, prison-style.
Russia/USSR once had something similar. Gorbachev had implemented an anti-alcohol campaign circa 1989. As a result, vodka and other liquors became hard to come by. So, being a resourceful people, the population turned to, wait for it... cheap cologne! Doctors and nurses had it slightly better: they snuck alcohol from their workplaces. It got the job done. Since the country still had a centrally planned economy, all refined ethanol for consumer products and hospitals came from the same factories. Other than scents getting added, the alcohol used in colognes was basically the same as that in Everclear or Spirytus.
(Source: a colleague, who's an immigrant from Russia.)
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 11-25-2019 at 10:20 AM..
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Biezer
I already drank beer at age 14. As far as I remember, I drank Schnaps and Rum also; many kids did. I even smoked at that time; btw, I quit smoking at the age of 35 and my lung is o.k. I still drink, but not all the time, just about 5x / week beer and / or wine, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I also started with beer at 14. in the 1960s I worked at a Fish & Chip shop and they had Whatney's Red Barrel (now defunct) which was the first foreign beer imported in kegs for the U.S. restaurant market. Unfortunately it was very temperamental and a lot of foam waste in the 2" deep drip tray got put into empty mayonnaise jars in the fridge, and the owners let me drink it. Apparently drinking age where they came from in the U.K. was 16, and I was close enough for them. It was a dark amber, somewhat bitter beer and later spoiled me for the typical bland American beers like Bud and Coors. I did go home with a little buzz a few times but my father picked me up since I was not driving yet.
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You earned any good buzz you got from that.
