I think I had tasted a few sips or a small cup of hard ciders, beer and wine coolers and such a few times at family events when I was a child, because I was a curious child. I can't say I liked any of it. But I liked trying it.
I didn't really drink anything until I was 14, a friend of mine got drunk and her boyfriend took advantage of her a few times. It scared her and it was a bad experience for her.
A week later, She started bringing water bottles filled with Vodka almost everyday afterwards (her 20 year old boyfriend supplied her with all the cheap vodka and beer she wanted). She came to me to talk to about it and I very vaguely admitted to having some bad experiences too. She said, she guessed that I probably had and pressed me to tell her, but I never did.
I really wanted to help her but she outright demanded that I not try to help her with her problems and just shut up and drink with her. Unfortunately I liked the Vodka as a kid, and we sometimes enjoyed mixing it with juice and started to find solace in drinking too. It felt therapeutic at the time, because we'd find a quiet spot in school and drink and talk about some of our problems, listen to music, and what we wanted to do in life, at the time I thought maybe I could convince her to dump that guy, or I could help in some way. She desperately needed a shoulder to lean on. We also laughed at the thought that we did better at speaking Spanish in Spanish class after drinking (I was convinced it helped roll my R's). Later in highschool we both had a hard realization that we were depressed, drinking more and more and just wanted to get drunk every day and weren't functional human beings with hopes and dreams anymore. We stopped caring about anything.
One day we had gone a bit beyond tipsy, and we were hiding from some guys looking for us. It scared us all over again (because we realized it would be hard to protect each other and we didn't like that) and We both immediately cut back to once a week. And she finally dumped her boyfriend for good instead of hooking back up. It took me a few more years later before realizing I needed to go sober to clean up. I didn't like my reliance on it after I was finally free from my parent's home and the lucky thing was that the guys I dated didn't like me wanting to get tipsy before sex (not every time anyway) which helped pushed me to sober up too. Thankfully they were all good guys, and I never got hurt by them. I started sobering up around the time I hit 21. She ended up going to AA when she was 18 and later on became a firefighter. She was so happy with where she was headed in life. I remember celebrating with her and telling her how proud I was of her.
Note to self: I should really go hang out with her sometime. We haven't spoken in years.
Not sure how we never got caught by any adult. As an adult and former teacher, I'd have been immediately suspicious. I guess we were good at flying under the radar.
Anyway, to any kids out there...don't drink to escape or mask your troubles. It's not worth it. You just become dependent on the alcohol and that can cause all kinds of problems. You still have to deal with the original problem.anyway. And most importantly, try to be safe and if shit happens, get somebody to help you! :/
