Drinking Wine at a Young Age

Greetings all,

I was on a date last night and was talking to the guy about how my family grew up drinking wine at the table and so for me, I was never really into getting drunk and neither were my brothers.

My family is Italian and I remember having wine with my gingerale all the time as a young child. I am not sure how old I was when I started drinking wine but I do remember probably around the ages of 9-12 (I really can't be sure so I will give it a good range) and telling my mom at the supper table that I was no longer interested in drinking wine.

And that was the day that I stopped drinking wine at supper.

My parents never made drinking a taboo. I always wondered if this was why growing up I never understood the whole concept of getting wasted and drunk. I remember in high school hearing people talk about how much beers they can drink. I wasn't impressed. They can claim to drink 10 beers at what, 4.5% alcohol? I was drinking approximately 8-14% alcohol when I was a child! Beat that!

Seriously, it never made sense to me to brag about how much beers you can drink before you get drunk. If you really wanted to get drunk, wouldn't it make sense to drink beverages that have a high alcohol content?

I'm an efficient drunk (I've probably only gotten drunk twice but I would rather get a good buzz). I don't waste time drinking all these wimpy drinks. If I want to get drunk, I go for 10% beer. It tastes alright. I usually buy the foreign kind from like Amsterdam or Germany. It gets the job done usually in one and a half bottles, if I drink it quickly enough.

I think I have other relatives as well that served wine at dinner. It looks like most of them as well aren't big drinkers but I'd probably have to ask to find out. I just know in my family we are not.

Since I don't drink wine at the table anymore, maybe I will have to once I have kids so that they don't think drinking is a taboo and will have little desire to become big drinkers!