My First Drink
Throughout my scholastic career, I have always hung out with the “good kids”. These were the kids that were smart and well behaved, and if anything didn’t act out enough. Your pre-18 years are supposed to be the years where you test the waters, to see what you can and cannot do, find what your limits are. There’s a reason that your records are sealed for crimes that were committed before your 18th birthday.
My friends and I didn’t drink in high school. I guess all of those ad campaigns actually worked. The situation was not without irony as my mom would often tell me tales of when she was 16 she would drive into DC where the drinking age was 18, but she knew a place that didn’t bother to check IDs anyway (which is probably the same place that I go to buy alcohol in DC now).
Throughout high school my friends and I never drank. It seemed normal at the time, since the drinking crowd was a group with whom I simply did not associate myself. Looking back now I see high school kids and it seems as if drinking is all they do, and I suppose that was going on when I was in high school as well, I just didn’t notice it.
I didn’t actually get drunk until after my senior year of high school. My best friend from about 3rd grade or so came down to visit in Virginia Beach. Somehow we managed to get some Smirnoff Ice and Mikes Hard Lemonade and we went to town. I can’t even look at those sugary drinks now, but back then it tasted like soda, and it got you drunk, and it was a lot easier to drink if you hadn’t yet acquired a taste for beer.
It was an interesting night; it was just the two of us in the house by ourselves. We hijacked my little sister’s computer and we played some LAN games since I had just gotten my new computer for college. We ran around the house like a couple of crazy loons, it was a good time, in a safe environment. I think my friend and I may have actually thrown up that night.
I’m pretty sure that my parents assumed that I was drinking before I actually started to drink. This was pretty encouraging since it made it “acceptable” when I did actually start to drink. My parents certainly didn’t condone underage drinking, but it was one of those situations where as long as I did it responsibly, they would sort of look the other way. And as long as I didn’t make enough noise to cause them to look in my direction, I would be fine.
I have heard some stories of parents that do more than just turn a blind eye, though. One of my friends (who actually doesn’t drink that much, so maybe this actually worked for her) had her parents actually buy alcohol for her in high school. They “made” her drink it so that she would learn her limits and tolerance. I see their logic, I would much rather have my daughter learn the limits of her alcohol consumption in a safe environment at home than in some frat house.
Perhaps it was the traumatic experience of drinking with her parents that caused her aversion for drinking heavily in college. I know if I was put in that situation I certainly would not associate alcohol with the good times I currently have from drinking.
I’ve met some kid/parent cominations that are even worse. A girl I met at WMZQfest was only 15, and proud of it was drunk. She said that she had started drinking when she was 13. She mentioned that her step dad bought the alcohol for her. That’s beyond messed up. There’s young, and then there’s too young, and 13 is too young.
It’s interesting that girls seem to start doing these things much younger than guys. But I suppose it makes sense with the idea that girls mature faster than boys (or maybe it’s just that older boys go for younger girls because they are more naïve, and this seems to make girls mature since they are hanging out with older kids). I have found two indicators, which usually correlate with each other, which can tell you how messed up a girl is.
When I say messed up, what I mean is that they look completely normal, more attractive than average, actually, but they have some weird emotional problems. Let’s just say these aren’t the type of girls to bring home to mom. Those indicators are: (1) the age they drank for the first time, and (2) the age they traded in their v-card. The younger a girl is when they do either of those things the more emotionally unstable she will be. Ask any porn star how old they are when they threw caution into the wind for the first time. I would guess about 80% of the time it would be 14 or younger. Ask any stripper and it would probably be about 80% for 15 and younger.
Anyway, the moral of the story is don’t marry a stripper.
Other posts by Justin
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
So - I think I have video still from that night… I’ll see if I can scrounge it up…