How old were you when you first

[pixiefairy]

I was pretty young. Italian family, uncle who owned a winery....yeah, it was pretty commonplace. There's a picture of me when I was about 2 drinking from a wineglass that my mom had blown up and given to my aunts and uncles. My mother used to let me have some amaretto and pepsi on new year's eve (more pepsi than amaretto), and when we were sick, my grandma made hot toddies...honey, whiskey and lemon. I am not a big drinker, never have been and pretty much a lightweight when I do. I supposed to some extent, when you are around it and it's not made a mystery to you (and you see family members who act stupid when they do drink too much) it can curb your desire. Not the rule..of course, but that's just how it worked out for me.

DH was 1...he drank his brother in law's beer. And for him....being exposed to it did NOT hamper the desire when he got older. He was in a fraternity...need I say more? However, by the time I met him, his drinking days were pretty much behind him, lol.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I'm another who never remembers a time when I wasn't allowed small sips of my parents' drinks. They were firm believes in removing the mystique around alchhol before I was old enough to go out and overdo it on my own. I was allowed a drink with them as a teenager, and I developed a healthly and responsible attitude, just as they'd hoped.

My first time drinking without them, I think was 17. I still remember how concerned a very sweet classmate at that party was when she saw me with a wine cooler, because I had a rather a goody-two-shoes sort of reputation, and she had no idea it wasn't my first drink.

 

[Planogirl]

15 unless you count the times I tried to snitch sips of my Dad's beer when I was little. I loved the taste of beer when I was young and I used to drive him crazy trying to keep me out of his beer. I suppose that it started when I wanted to drink what Daddy was drinking.

I used to drink an occasional beer when I was a teen but I wasn't really the type to get drunk back then. We could always find people to buy us beer.

 

[Kitty 34]

Not counting wine on special occasions....18 and it was legal at the time in Michigan.

 

[SookieStackhouse]

My first time actually having a drink was when I was 17...my friend's mom gave me a glass of peach schnapps.

 

[disykat]

I was going to say 19 or 20. There were a few times I had some punch etc. in college, never much though. I didn't care for it. Even now I don't. It's tastes like the dentist smells to me. I can't stand beer. I like wine, but with my wood allergies I usually avoid it. I like hard cider, but like wine I need to know if it's stored in wooden casks during processing.

I do remember my dad having me taste creme de menthe once. My mom had bought some for something she was making and dad thought it tasted just like "scope." He got them both out and we did a taste test.

Another time, when I was 15, we went to Mexico and they served us little shots of Kahlua with our dinner at restaurants. My siblings and I all tasted it.

 

[Witch Mountain]

7.

My grandparents were European, and we were raised to have wine with dinner. Not a lot, but everyone had a glass in front of them.

Disnykat, my dad took me to see a Broadway play and dinner when I was ten and I ordered a creme de menthe sundae for dessert. The waiter looked at my dad and he said 'it's okay'. I thought it was going to be a mint sundae, but it tasted like scope to me, too! Thing was, my dad didn't drink, so I ended up eating around the mint stuff.

In high school, my dad was the one who bought me the wine coolers to bring to the parties I attended. His mindset was that if he banned booze, my younger sister and I would sneak it. Better for us to ask and he know that we wanted to drink. As it was, I'd probably have one or two of those coolers and share the rest.

 

[AllisonK]

12 or so? Just wine at Passover.

I'm 22 and not a big drinker. I do drink occasionally, but not often. I don''t like beer, though. Really anything fruity with vodka is my choice of drink - or wine.

 

[tvguy]

Someone always says that. Our boys didn't drink until they were legal, yet they rarely drink now as adults. And before someone says they did, they didn't. They're 25 and 27 now and we've always been very open with each other. They just didn't get the stupid drunk idiots they went to school with. Some of them, allowed to drink at home, under age. So, nice try.

Most of the kids I knew who were hard partiers all through HS and college had parents who allowed them to drink while under age.

???

 

[fall08CP]

I waited until midnight of my 21st birthday. Too many repercussions for Minors In Possession where I lived to risk it.

ETA- I drink socially, probably 2-3 nights per week. I've only been drunk three times in my life- all three were at Disney ironically, but I was safe about it. For reference, I'm in my mid 20s.

 

[JLTraveling]

Like many here, I can't remember *not* being allowed to drink. I grew up in the theater with Jewish grandparents. I started with tiny cups of wine at every meal we shared with my grandparents as soon as I could drink from a cup. Our theater had champagne for every opening night, and the kids were always given about half a glass. At cast parties the rule was "you're 21 if you say you're 21" with a wink and a nudge--all the adults kept an eye on the kids to make sure we didn't do anything too crazy, but tipsy was fine (starting around age 11-12). Of course, in Judaism you're an adult at 13, and wine flowed freely at all the bar and bat mitzvahs.

I've gotten drunk from time to time, both as a teen and as an adult. But I've always made sure I was in a safe place, with a designated driver, and not likely to get in any trouble. And it was never an "all the time" or I HAVE to drink thing--maybe twice a month in my heaviest drinking phase. So being allowed to drink didn't turn me away from alcohol, nor did it turn me toward it. It taught me to handle it responsibly.