The Beginning

May 28

A common theme of first drink stories is that many people experience a sensation of “where have you been all my life?” or “THIS is the thing that’s been missing all along”. Warm, fuzzy, bliss. Not me.

My first drink was in high school at the home of one my best friends. It was Bacardi, 151 I think. It was probably fun, as defined by age and interest in being rebellious, but I don’t recall bliss. The photographic evidence suggests bliss wasn’t the primary experience. Looks to me more like chaos with a hint of “this is supposed to be fun?”. It wasn’t fun enough that I felt compelled to do it again, and again, and again from that time forward.

[Funny aside: I remember that my friend’s mother figured out quickly the next morning what had gone on the night before. She figured it out after witnessing us guzzling water. I remember thinking “whoa, how does she know?” I had no clue about the dehydrating effects of alcohol yet, of course. We didn’t actually know more than our parents.]

I DID drink other times in high school but two things about this seem imporant to mention: 1) the quantity on hand — be it a 4-pack or 6-pack of wine coolers (it was the ‘80s!) — was enough, enough even shared with others, and 2) my grades and performance in school didn’t suffer. I did well. This theme would continue through college, graduate school, my first job out of school, and beyond.

Because I did well it’s easy to view my early years of drinking as fairly normal. But at some point, it wasn’t. And wondered to myself “when, exactly, did drinking become THE thing?” I think it was around my early 30s. For me, it was a slow creep to a problem; I didn’t hit the ground running. Or maybe, the slow creep was in the realizing there was a problem because there were early warning signs.