Growing up w. alcohol

[Aglifter]

heh... I was "sent" a cousin and her friends when they were getting ready to go to college -- Champagne is a great tool for that -- gives incredibly bad hangovers, and silly little girls think it's the best thing they should try.

[MarkD]

I voted "They did, I didn't" but really it should be "My Dad did, Mom and I didn't". Mom was a lightweight, I recall once at a party she mistakenly drank some pre-spiked OJ and was pretty well sloshed from it.

Dad would come home from work, pop a beer (Old Bohemian, later Piels or Schmidts, it's a wonder I grew up to be a beer drinker!) and I'd get the first sip of his first beer. Dad would often have more than was good for him, but in later years he realized they could make it faster than he could drink it.

I'm actually a rarity among people I know, I had my first "full" beer (meaning more than the sips I'd get from Dad's bottle) legally in a bar when I was in college (the age was 18 then). Now I still drink beer (good stuff though), once in a while a glass or two of wine (especially in an Italian restaurant), and maybe two or three times a year a bit of the hard stuff.

[ZeroGravitas]

We were served wine at dinner, watered down, starting around age 12, and were allowed a cold beer after chores on weekends when I was about 14. Another family tradition (which I am currently engaged in) is not drinking at all during Lent - the thinking being if you can't quit for a month and a half, then you do have a problem.

[Windy Wilson]

My mom was Austrian, she and her brother and sisters had beer growing up, including Grand-dad's home brew.
She made the rules dad went along, and I just didn't want beer until I was around 16. Cheap beer at the college beer busts didn't attract me. I was decidedly unimpressed with the frat brother who told me "I'm drinking the Irish Whisky (spelling) straight.
I can't remember seeing my father drunk, although at a block party once he apparently had too much beer, went home and went to sleep, which allowed my brother to get dressed and wander out to the party when he was supposed to stay inside because he was getting over the flu.
I've never been a heavy drinker, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have been drunk.

[SoupOrMan]

It's no big deal for me. My mother rarely drank and Dad quit drinking altogether when I was very young. When I hit 21 I found that I only really have a liking for beer, as I don't care for wine and distilled alcohols all taste like isopropyl to me.