Did you wait until you were 21 to drink?

I just turned 21 and I drank one green apple Smirnoff it was ok. I ask this question because most of the people I know drank before they turned 21. Am I the only one who waited?

I drank for a few years but quit for more entertaining drugs. Now the only drugs I use are those needed to maintain my decrepit body.

.
I decided early on to try everything that crossed my path at
least once. Not just drugs, but they were part of that. I've
lived through some very interesting times. I've lived through
some exceptionally FUN times.
.
Even before AIDS, as a medic, I saw what horrors needles
could inflict on the human body and that was my one and
only boundary. I didn't like some of the things that I tried,
one thing scared the SHIT out of me, I liked much of what
I tried, and I LOVED a few of the things that I tried.
.
Never picked up any kind of habit. I had tons and tons and
tons o' fun.
.
Now, I'm on six "maintenance drugs" (at one point it was up
to TEN) just to keep my aging body (allegedly) functional.
.
Not a goddamn recreational drug in the bunch.
.
.
.
.
.
DON'T THEY REALIZE WHO THE FUCK I AM!?!?!?!?!?!?
.

For days on end. I take it when I just can't handle the pain anymore and have no plans for at least 48 hours. There is an anti-inflamatory that I take more often, but it also leaves me a little fuzzy, but only for 24 hours. The muscle relaxant for my back leaves my eyes unable to focus so I don't use it anymore.

I "only" take three other prescription drugs every day and one that was prescription but is now OTC. Then there is the Glucosamine Chondroitin to keep my knees more comfortable, the calcium for my bones, the B complex that gives me more energy (and makes up for my inability to eat enough fruit), the multivitamin just to be sure, etc, etc.

I scandalized some of the younger people during the campaign when I commented, "Why couldn't I have had access to these drugs when I was young and could have appreciated them more?"

The closer I get to 60, the harder it is to keep on a regular schedule and to just keep going. I don't know how my parents do it - they are 89 and 87. Dad is getting less able to do things, but Mom just keeps on going. Her nickname is the Energizer Bunny!

Yeah, we had lots of fun when we were younger - owned a head shop and indulged in stuff kids these days never heard of. Quit when we got a tip the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was watching us. Never really got back into it, especially after my four concussion and other accidents left me less able to function sober than I had been able to stoned. I pretty much fit the description of "Rode hard and wore out."

I don't regret a moment of it - at least we have good memories!

For days on end. I take it when I just can't handle the pain anymore and have no plans for at least 48 hours. There is an anti-inflamatory that I take more often, but it also leaves me a little fuzzy, but only for 24 hours. The muscle relaxant for my back leaves my eyes unable to focus so I don't use it anymore.

I "only" take three other prescription drugs every day and one that was prescription but is now OTC. Then there is the Glucosamine Chondroitin to keep my knees more comfortable, the calcium for my bones, the B complex that gives me more energy (and makes up for my inability to eat enough fruit), the multivitamin just to be sure, etc, etc.

I scandalized some of the younger people during the campaign when I commented, "Why couldn't I have had access to these drugs when I was young and could have appreciated them more?"

The closer I get to 60, the harder it is to keep on a regular schedule and to just keep going. I don't know how my parents do it - they are 89 and 87. Dad is getting less able to do things, but Mom just keeps on going. Her nickname is the Energizer Bunny!

Yeah, we had lots of fun when we were younger - owned a head shop and indulged in stuff kids these days never heard of. Quit when we got a tip the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was watching us. Never really got back into it, especially after my four concussion and other accidents left me less able to function sober than I had been able to stoned. I pretty much fit the description of "Rode hard and wore out."

I don't regret a moment of it - at least we have good memories!

:(

When I was 17, the drinking age was 18. Didn't matter; I had decided I wasn't going to drink at all anyway. Yeahhhh made it to the end of my first semester of college and my first post-high school heartbreak to kill that resolution.

A month later, when I turned 18, they raised the drinking age to 19.

When I turned 19, they raised the drinking age to 21.

A couple of days after I turned 19, I spent a month in London and had the freedom to drink whenever I wanted. Got back to the U.S. and was illegal till I turned 21. Didn't matter; I was in college. Between frat parties and fake IDs, I had access to alcohol whenever I wished. But it sure was a royal pain in the butt, "chasing" the drinking age my whole young-adult life. :eyes:

I know some folks who had the same thing happen. Tough times. Kind of sad.

I was still getting carded WELL into my 30's so it didn't much matter what the drinking age really was - it was going to be a pain in the a, uh, butt for me anyway you sliced it.

I was in a big university town where finding places to drink while underage was insanely easy, but if I'd been in my hometown, I doubt I would've, as the bars are too small to slip in unnoticed, and there was no one I'd want to drink with at a house party. Of course, if you just waited because you felt like it'd be wrong to break the law, that's okay too - I was 19 before I drank anything, and didn't really go out much until I was 21. Underage drinking citations carried a $250 dollar fine and could result in academic repercussions, so I just didn't want to tempt fate.

Now it'll just take you longer to get used to the taste of alcohol ;)

so never went on a binge..because it was always available..

I consider alcohol an acquired taste. Mostly, I've never enjoyed more than 6 or 8 oz of wine or beer at a time. In my forties, I learned to enjoy scotch and rum a bit: one year, I actually bought a bottle of scotch and two fifths of rum; I never bought any hard liquor in the decade after that. Nowadays, I think I'm drinking heavily if I drink a small bottle of beer every two or three days

but I was drinking long before that, started around when I was 16.

Now I have given up drinking.

Nice pic CC! :hi:

At 18, you could drink 3.2 beer, and then at 19 you could drink 6% and wine. I think it may have been 21 for liquor, but i don't really recall. :rofl:

They raised the drinking age to 21 very shortly after I turned 18. My wife at the time didn't make it and she had to wait until she was 21 to drink. I was grandfathered in.

I hear other states though, straight up midnight..18-year-olds can no longer drink!! That must have sucked!

18 for distilled beverages. It seemed to have worked well in the past, but these past few years a new fashion has developed, and it has become "cool" for teenagers to drink until they drop. What hasn't helped is that certain discos (which don't card properly) charge only a flat rate and you can drink to your liver's content. Too many teens simply don't know their limit - how should they? There are some who have died thanks to that flat-rate drinking, then there's a big uproar but basically all stays the same.

I've seen groups of kids as young as 13 with a case of beer and a bottle of vodka (purchased by older sibling/friend) in corners of subway stations or on park benches, drinking until they puke or end up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning.

Dear ccharles, I knew I'm a few days late and my post may not be all that uplifting, but still... here's a Happy Birthday from me!



:bounce:

My folks always let us have a little bit of beer or wine. Or, if they had a mixed drink, they'd let us have a taste. Usually, we didn't like it. When I hit my teens, I could not understand what the big deal was. My folks never allowed us to have enough to get even a buzz, so it took a while before I figured that part out.

Actually, they passed the law raising the age to 21 before I was 18 but I was old enough to be grandfathered.

When I was a kid, we would occasionally have chianti at dinner. I hated it. My mom often made a cough medicine out of honey, lemon juice and whiskey. That I liked but I can't recall whether it cured my cough. I am told that my grandfather made his own beer and would often give some to my eldest sister when she was a baby. Surprisingly no one in my family is an alcoholic. I drank a lot in college and my early working days but I rarely touch the stuff now.

but I'm from WI :P

from 1976 to 1983 or 1984. :hi:

Nevertheless, I was only allowed to have one drink a week per doctor's orders. I was on meds that would knock me cold if I drank more. If I didn't take meds, I'd have had 2 drinks every other day--I just love the taste of wine. Besides, even before I put on all this weight, I was a large young woman (165 lbs., but not fat).

It was in 1986 when Ronnie Raygun, that small-government conservative, :sarcasm: forced the states to raise the drinking age to 21.

nobody cared. Now legal age is 16. And you can get your driver's license when you're 18, not before. So by then most have their drinking binge experiences behind. Saves on deadly accidents on 21st birthdays here.

In Ohio it was 21.

but I had tasted beer and wine as a youngster per parents permission, and first "with friends" puking drunk at 12 or 13./ Many more times of excess since then. Tendency to alcoholism and other addictions in the family. I don't drink or do much other intoxicants anymore due to inability to handle aftereffects, both physical and social - heh. Plus things have been real tight with money lately so "fun" beverages go to a lower priority level in the budget.

Going to have some wine with my steak for mother's day tomorrow though!

I got it out of my system early.

But I didn't wait until then.
In fact, my family gave me drinks of hot toddies when I was a kid. Can you tell I'm Irish?

I drank like a fish in my late teens. Southern Comfort, straight, was the drink of choice, and my friend and I would kill it by the gallon. Once I turned 21 I went from being a rebel to just being a drunk. It was never the same, and I hardly ever drink at all anymore (though I am today...in fact, it's almost Beer O'clock now!)

Happy Birthday!!!!!!

in high school - if they were having it with dinner.

In college, I just wasn't interested in the getting blotto-drunk and puking activities everyone else seemed so fond of. I didn't buy drinks at a restaurant or wine or alcohol until I was 21.

The whole drinking thing never really interested me ...

I love wine, and good mixed drinks. Just not in excess.

I got drunk for the first time when I was 15. Five and a half warm Coors. It was killer, though. In fact, I spent the next 20 years trying to recapture the moment.

Legal drinking age varied by state when I was a teenager. When I was 20 I went on vacation to FL where I was of legal age so I drank.
In my old home state of PA you had to be 21 so I waited there to drink legally. I never got carded and it made me wish I hadn't waited 'cause no one seemed to care.

When people do not care, or if they do, there is a larger result then just what they accomplish, it also shows the hearts and minds of people.

Some think effect is the only thing that is accomplished in life, but discerning intent seems to also be important.

In that you do not have to be correct in action, only in intent. It is where the idea that those that steal free will are responsible for bad decisions made by people with bad information, and why I think people should think and feel for the best results with the information they have.

It is a difference of beliefs, if you think that only results matter, then ends justify means becomes the mantra, if you think there is a larger justice that does exist, then the method becomes what is important, and the effect can be to find the method used by different types of people sometimes.

I find that interesting.

That's deep for a Saturday morning.

I think the building of a house requires that.

Another reason I like this song, and keep playing it, because some dig.

Draggin the Line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Vp1EGCYlQ


This is one of my favorite songs, I have posted it many times. It is from that movie.
Bill & Ted "In Time"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmZQNG2m39Y

And yes, I know when they are hinted :)

I can get tipsy off a single glass of wine now. lol

I'd sipped my parents' beer, but didn't care for it. Then in Oslo, a friend bought me a beer. Boy, it was good. So my beer drinking leaned towards European beers. And I don't touch spirits - poison.;)

it tasted like, I didn't have my first drink until I was 25.

i was allowed a glass of wine at holiday dinners and other special occasions, but i never was all that interested in drinking back then.

In fact, by the time I was 21, the novelty had mostly worn off. I can count on one hand the number of drinks I've had this year, and on two hands the number I've had this century.

I should point out that using binary, one can count to 1023 on two hands (2^10 = 1024). :D

Seriously, I don't much enjoy drinking these days. Recovery takes longer when you're on the downhill slope. :)

I would received the occasional glass of wine at Thanksgiving and when I was old enough to start working on the farm my dad would let me have the occasional beer. A group of parents even bought us a keg for our senior "sneak" with one rule: no one drives. We set up camp (RVs and tents) in the woods and a couple of the parents stood guard at the road to make sure that no one drove. I think because of this, once I got into college, I didn't develop the drinking problems I saw other kids develop.

I drank for about 18 months then quit for 32 years. Now I drink almost not at all because I've found I just don't care for the taste other than the pop tasting malt liquors.

The legal drinking age was 21, even back then; but I wasn't going to let anybody tell me I could take a bullet for my country, but I couldn't legally buy a drink.

I still don't think a restaurant without a bar and slot machines smells or sounds quite right.

:shrug:

That's okay, though, because I think I really got all the partying out of my system, and now I really don't feel the need to do it much anymore.

The drinking age was 18 when I went to college, though.

I don't drink at all anymore.

Now that my oldestest is nearing 12 (very quickly), that freaks me out.

By the time I hit 21, drinking had lost it's luster and allure. I'm pretty sure I went out and drank anyway though.

*cheers*

(and Happy Birthday!)

made at my sister's house when I was there with friends.

I rarely drink. went for more than a decade w/o drinking b/c my ex couldn't/can't drink because he's an alcoholic. never bothered me.

but the reason I started early (13) was because I was depressed about my mom's recent death. I finally realized that killing myself via beer/booze/whatever was not only no solution, but was in fact an insult to my mother's memory. I temporarily quit for a few months when I was 20, and realized I did not miss it, and from that point I was perfectly capable of going out and having no drinks, a drink, or occasionally getting drunk.

By the time I turned 21, the only thing I was really excited about was that I could go to see more bands and get in better dance clubs. I do drink now, but am a total lightweight and very seldom drink excessively. Part of that is also that when I quit drinking, I started realizing how annoying drunks can be.

m----rf----n' CT kept raising it every year right in front of me. And I didn't even drive. :grr: :banghead: :argh:

I was drinking at 18 in 2000.

I had my first drink at 16.

Before Reagan came along, many states had a sub-21 drinking age.

Let me see...in 1981 I was 18 years old. The drinking age in Idaho was 19, so I didn't drink. But the legal age for active duty servicemembers on military bases was "if you're in the service, you're old enough" so I drank many, many beers in training. After I graduated from training I was 19, and could have a beer when I went on leave after school.

I never drank before it was legal for me to do so, but I did drink before 21.

Stopped at 30 though. I figured I needed to leave a little for others

I had already been drinking for a couple of years anyway. That drinking age also made things easier in college because just about everyone was legal so college events always had kegs. Carding was not relevant. When I was talking to students at my old college in recent years, they said that if they had a party they had to register it with the school and cops had to be present. Such a waste of the great bar my friends had built in the basement of the house when we lived there. We always had a party down there on Friday night, plus other spontaneous parties many other nights.

:rofl:

Heck no, lol.

but I gave in early ;)

:*

:rofl:

heck, I was into Wisconsin Nickel Beer Nights when I was 15

fucking Illinois bitch! :D

To paraphrase the Blues Brothers. :)

that's Illinois NAZIS! And I didn't stay a FIB - I guess I am a TIB now :rofl:

:hug:

:)

:D

I got mad skills! :rofl:

that's why you have the ladies swooning; yes INDEED

:crazy:

My calling them "birds" probably isn't helping the cause. :rofl:

not heavily, but I would go to parties thrown by close friends.

Never had a fake, though. Didn't have the cajones. Plus, it was cheaper to just have someone buy you some beer than pay 4 bucks for a draft

My dad used to mix alcohol with the Fanta soda so mom wouldn't know he was drinking. I drank it by accident a few times when I was 8 or 9 and *hated* the taste. Never really got the appeal and didn't drink deliberately until I was 23 or 24. I still don't really enjoy it, but I'll have a beer when I go out in groups because some people just can't leave it alone if they see you not drinking.

and my parents, like good hosts in the 60s, threw cocktail parties that were the talk of the town. I drank intermittenly through my teenage years, got addicted to coffee, then moved to England at 18 and continued drinking. Seriously, I have given up alcohol for years at a time and felt no effects one way or the other. It doesn't make me gain or lose weight, it doesn't make my brain fuzzy, and at 55 my liver is fine.

I just think Amercians are stupid and puritanical about it, like so much else!