I tried alcohol at age 16 and age 18, tasted like pain thinner. so i haven’t bothered since, am now 60.

A few times in my early 20s friends said try this or that and id have a sip but tasted so bad

Similarly with cigarettes, tried one at 17 or so and was like, what the actual fuck… and never bothered4e since.

Would like to try LSD

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.

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.

Yes. But I am Scottish.

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.

Im german. My first time I couldn’t walk anymore was 16, first blackout was 17. Normal drunk as fuck since I was 14

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.

I smoked weed at 16, more regularly from 17 on. Didn’t have my first drunk till 18. A few beers and sips of wine here and there, but never full on blasted.

If I could go back in time I’d tell myself to stay sober. I never had any huge problems with substance abuse, but it took me to my till my 30’s to realize life was better and more fun with a clear mind.

I only drank underage once at my graduation party

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.

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.

Yes, we have quite an unhealthy alcohol culture here.

The only redeeming factor is that most people make their mistakes learning their tolerance while still being young enough to avoid getting in serious trouble.

If you’ve never touched alcohol at 18, you might want to be extra careful about it. It’s kinda cringe to watch grown ups not knowing their limits, because it’s assumed that they should know by now.

Yes, I was 11-12 and got it from some freshmen/eighth graders who got it from God-knows-who

I think I’ve always been older than you…

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 :|