Thursday Third Degree, Issue 11
I already answered my questions from last week here.
What, your child doesn’t mix martinis for you? Pity.
On to the questions…
1. When was the first time you drank alcohol without adult consent? I’m talking about more than a glass of champagne at a wedding.
2. Have you smoked cigarettes? Do you still smoke? If not, why did you quit, and how long has it been? If you’ve never smoked a cigarette, why were you never tempted?
3. Do you know anyone personally who has had a drug problem? How did it affect their life and the lives of the people around them? Were they able to quit, and if so, how?
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:52 am
1. In grade 8. My best friend was over at my house and my mom was asleep in her bedroom. My friend was talking on the phone to her boyfriend in my room and I got bored, went downstairs, mixed a whole bunch of liquor into a tumbler and chugged it. It hit me pretty hard and I vaguely remember urinating on myself on my bedroom floor. I got pretty sick afterward and my mom figured it out when she came down to pee and I had my head in the toilet.
2. I tried smoking once. I found it disgusting. I never had an interest to smoke, I think because my mom was a champion smoker and I always was rather disgusted by her habit. She was a dirty smoker and I always noticed when I would go to friend’s houses whose parents didn’t smoke and I stunk. I really feel that my mom turned me off of smoking because she smoked, and I’m glad for that.
3. Yes, I know/knew several people who have had drug problems. Many of them I no longer keep in touch with. Someone very close to me has gone through treatment and therapy for a drug problem and has really turned his life around. And someone very close to me unfortunately succumbed to her drug problem last year. It’s hard to see.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:27 am
First of all, I am loving that picture!
1. 11th grade with two of my girlfriends and a 23-year-old (can we say loser) dude who bought us Bartles & James wine coolers. We drank them one night out in a field. Things started to get weird (nothing happened, but one of my friends started heavily making out with the guy in front of us) and thankfully we all went home. The funny thing is I thought this guy was so “hot” and later I realized what a loser/perv he was for hitting on teenage girls.
2. I have never smoked. My best friend smoked Marlboro Lights briefly in college and I would pretend to be cool and puff on them but I’ve never really had the desire or urge to smoke. Ever. I do occasionally like to puff on one, though, which is probably weird. I hate leaving a really smokey sports bar, though, and coming home smelling like smoke, down to my hair follicles. My husband is a smoking anomaly. He’ll smoke maybe two or three a week and that’s it.
3. Thankfully I don’t know anyone with a drug problem.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:44 am
1. This year. I’m 31. Kind of experiementing outside life of a very structured religious upbringing. Am TOTALLLY LOVING IT!!! See mom - I am still a great person and I can drink alcohol!
2. Never smoked. The thought/smell/site makes me want to puke. I do however, love the smell of pipe smoke. My best friend’s dad smoked a pipe every night after work. There is something comforting about that smell.
3. Yes. My sister was both a drug addict and alcoholic at the age of 14. It not only ruined her life, but our family went through hell as well. She spent numerous stints in rehab, juvie, jail, etc. There were times she’d be missing for months in a row and nobody knew where she was. She ended up having a child and being a mom, well, it makes you want to drink, so that didn’t help things. 15 years later, I think every day is a struggle for her. And every day is a day I try to forgive her for the things she put me through.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:50 am
Here is where I reveal myself as a big nerd…
1. In college. A few sips in high school, but actually a whole plastic cup or bottle of beer? Freshman year in college.
2. No. Find it gross. Tried it once just to see and I couldn’t even get the hang of how to inhale. (See? Nerd.)
3. No. But my uncle is an alcoholic, and it’s very disturbing. I can see his life being shortened by whole decades right before my eyes.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:11 am
WonderBaby is in Bartending School as we speak…
1) Grade Ten - skipped class with friends, went to someone’s house and took beers out of parents’ fridge. Tried it, hated it, dumped mine in plant to not look like total geek.
2) Off and on in my late teens/early twenties (live in Spain, hard to avoid.) Stopped around age 24. Wish (!) that I could be one of those people who has an occasional ciggie (with aperitif on patio, that kind of thing), ’cause I’ve always liked the mood of cigarettes, but cig smoke makes me ill now.
3) My mother is (has been since I was a teenager) exec director of treatment centre for teens with drug/alcohol problems, so, have seen a lot of it close up. But no-one personally.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:20 am
1. My friends and I would swig a few sips of my parent’s stuff during junior high, but since they were too smart, we couldn’t drink enough to get tanked (they would notice the missing booze). It was probably 10th grade where I would go off with my friends and really drink. We might ditch school and drink, or hang at someone’s house when their parents weren’t home. We would usually either take it from a less suspecting parent, have someone buy it with a fake ID or send one of those kids to the liquor store that looked like they were 40. I think everyone knew a kid or two like that.
2. I have only smoked a few cigarettes in my entire life, and it has only been while I was drinking. The first time I tried it was when a bunch of friends threw us a party the week before our wedding. It has been a few years since I smoked a cigarette though.
3. Do I know anyone with a drug problem? Hmmm. Probably just a few aunts, uncles, cousins and all their friends. I would probably need my own blog to cover all the areas where their lives got fucked up. Consequences among these various people have included permanent burnout, Hepatitis C, jail, death, being a victim of violence, accidents involving injury and just an overall poor lifestyle. I grew up witnessing my own personal anti-drug campaign. My mom wishes she could have sheltered me a little more, but I think this was a bit of a good thing to witness, because I had it ingrained in me from the time I was a child that I wasn’t going to be putting coke, heroine, crack, LSD or anything along those lines into my body. You don’t need an anti-drug lecture when you see the consequences right in front of you.
Stacey
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:53 am
Well, if I HAD a child I’m sure it’d make one mean martini!
1. Can’t remember. But I have been happier ever since.
2. In my entire life, I’ve probably only had a handful of cigarettes. Never liked the smell of it on me or on anyone, so I never picked up the habit.
3. Luckily, I never knew anyone who had a drug problem.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:19 am
1.)I was eighteen and at my husband’s fraternity’s Day glow Toga party. He had to carry me home and I still can’t drink Tom Collins.
2.)Tried to inhale but it burned my lungs so bad I never did it again. I was one of those girly girls who got drunk and played with cigarettes.
3.)I do not know anyone with a drug problem
Love the picture!!!!
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:58 am
1. Sixteen or so, after a play. I was a thespian and all the cool thespians drank Mickey’s Big Mouths at the after-party. Does anybody remember those?
2. If it didn’t cause cancer and health problems, I would totally be a smoker. I have smoked a cigarette or two in my lifetime and I like the oral pleasure. I don’t think I have ever inhaled one (don’t call me Clinton - I just choked too much) so I don’t know what the nicotine rush feels like from cigarrettes. I was most prone to smoking when young, single and traveling in Europe. It made me feel cool. I haven’t touched a cig in years now, however, because I want to live.
3. One of my relatives had heavy drug problems in his youth and he became borderline schizophrenic (he’s better now that he’s older). If that isn’t enough to keep you off drugs, I don’t know what is.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Well I am probably the most boring person you can meet:
My first dring of alcohol without adult consent was on my 21st birthday. I got off work at midnight, bought a 4-pack of wine coolers, went home and drank 1/2 bottle and went to bed.
Nope. Never smoked and never had the urge. At some point in high school I realized I liked who I was and if that was not good enough for other, too bad.
I know next to diddily about drugs, but have a few drug stories from when I was a reporter covering criminal courts…
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:52 pm
1) Never drank until I was several years over legal. Only been drunk once — I decided I wanted to do it, since I never had. I just felt really dizzy. Couldn’t quite see why that was fun.
2) Never smoked, probably because none of my friends smoked. Well, and because my parents would have murdered me, and I took that rather seriously. I don’t regret not drinking and smoking. I do kinda regret not getting laid before college.
3) Nobody who was a friend or anything, although living in Vancouver (or any other city, really) they’re easy to find. I’ve seen drug DEALS go down in the park, which just annoys the hell out of me. And I’ve seen plenty of addictive behaviors in friends (and myself). Food is a big one. Internet. *cough* Moving right along…
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:58 pm
1. 6th grade…nasty whiskey with my girlfriends. I still hate whiskey. Why does anyone drink it?
2. Smoked with the same girlfriends (wow…they were really bad examples now that I think about it) in 6th-8th grade intermittently. I was really bad at it. I never held it right and I was always afraid I’d burn myself. Some people smoke to look cooler. I stopped to look cooler. (Now pot on the other hand…)
3. I was a bit of a druggie in college (nothing major - lsd, pot and coke accidentally once) and I never got addicted but I had friends who did. Some are still in that state of arrested development, living with their parents and looking to get “f*cked up”. Very sad.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:11 pm
1. In high school I went to visit my cousin at college on St. Patrick’s Day weekend. I was initiated into a whole lot of things that weekend!
2. I smoked a lot when I lived in Italy for a year. Over there you were practically ostracized if you didn’t smoke. But no more smoking for me these days.
3. Yes. A close relative, who shall not be named. It was extremely difficult on the family and his parents actually sent him away to a boot camp to get “clean”. It kind of worked but really almost ripped the family apart.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:28 pm
1) Um. That is tricky because my dad gave me beer when I was young. I horrified a babysitter when I went to the fridge to pull out a cold one when I was three. Hey, I was thirsty! When my high school Spanish class went to Argentina, I got drunk for the first time (legally there!) but my chaperone was drunk next to me, so there was adult consent. Then I did the drinking wine coolers and such in college even under-aged. Boring, I know.
2) I have smoked a single regular cigarette. I have had two cigars (inhaled accidentally on one – ACK!), some (like 2-3) mini-cigars, and then about ten clove cigarettes. I love cloves. But the last time I had one was ten years ago. I have deliberately not had more than that single regular cigarette because my maternal grandparents smoked and I loved the smell. When I tasted that first (and only) cigarette, I knew if I had a second I would just continue.
3) A cousin of mine had some difficulty with drugs. It took a few rehab programs (all before the age of 18) before he was clean. He is fine now, married, and a father to twin boys. I didn’t observe the process firsthand, so only know the stories my family told about his challenges and eventual success.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
[…] 5. I’m thankful for the women I’ve met through blogging who make me laugh daily. This photo is hilarious (thanks to Julie at Mothergoosemouse) And this post about losing her sanity by the always fabulous Southern R*Belle is great. […]
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:03 am
1. When was the first time you drank alcohol without adult consent?
I didn’t drink until sophomore year in high school. I can’t recall the exact incident because after that one? Many more followed.
2. Have you smoked cigarettes? Do you still smoke? If not, why did you quit, and how long has it been? If you’ve never smoked a cigarette, why were you never tempted?
Oh yes. I probably tried to start smoking freshman year in high school, but I never got the hang of it. I dunno… I smoked sporadically throughout high school and college but I never got addicted. I was lucky. I haven’t had a cigarette in probably five years. My sister, on the other hand, has been smoking non-stop for close to 25 years. She started when we were in high school.
3. Do you know anyone personally who has had a drug problem? How did it affect their life and the lives of the people around them? Were they able to quit, and if so, how?
I’ve known personally lots of people who have had drug problems. Speed, marijuana, and cocaine mostly. Honestly, the ones who smoked dope are the worst because they simply don’t believe that marijuana is an addictive drug that keeps you from your full potential. A friend who had a bad speed problem quit after many years and now we’re friends again. Another friend who had a heroin problem recently overdosed and died. Even though I have known many people who used/abused drugs, I feel fortunate that nobody in my immediate family has ever had a drug problem so bad they took their own life or needed rehab. And I include alcohol in that, too.
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:32 am
Wow, does she cater parties. That’s cool. I recall wine coolers with my friends in high school and i tried a cig from my roommate after college. got dizzy. never did it again. I am a prude.
Lisa
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:23 am
First, that pic is hilarious!
1. Probably in college. I was a good girl in high school and didn’t drink. But my freshman year of college, I drank with wild abandon at parties!
2. Never. I’m actually allergic to cigarette smoke, which causes me to get scratchy eyes, stuffed up nose, and sore throat if I’m around it for only minutes. I’d imagine actually inhaling the smoke from the cigarette just might kill me, so I don’t think I’ll try it.
3. I don’t think I know anyone with a serious drug problem. I know lots of recreational drug users (mostly pot, and mostly my husband’s parents and their friends - they’re old hippies), but no one that has had it take over their lives.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:06 am
Yeah, great picture!
1.) I got into a substance-free dorm my freshman year of college - my own choice. Then at the end of the year, I couldn’t take it any more and went wild. When I was hanging out with some guy friends, they were drinking and smoking pot, so they made me some drinks, too. I stumbled back to my dorm room and my ex came over and forced me to drink a lot of water so I wouldn’t have a hangover. (Nice guy.)
2.) I’ve never smoked anything ever and don’t have any desire to. For some reason, I see it as completely different than drinking - although both are addictive drugs that damage your body. I’ve always thought that people who smoke are weak for giving in to that pressure - and stupid because they must know that it’s not good for them - but then I have to remind myself that drinking is not much different. Now that I’m never around it (my mom used to smoke, then quit), whenever I AM around it, I can hardly breathe.
3.) And finally, as alcohol is a drug, yes, I know people who have (or have had) drug problems. My family, unfortunately, is filled with alcoholics - but I didn’t realize or know about it until THIS YEAR actually. I have to be really careful so that my love of wine doesn’t end up taking over someday. SO SCARY.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:08 am
“What, your child doesn’t mix martinis for you? Pity.”
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:49 am
1. My dad had always let me sip a little of the foam off his beer when I was little and so didn’t have a huge curiosity for the ‘taste’. I was a junior in high school before I had a couple of wine coolers at a time. I was friendly with a guy who was older who had lost his license for DUI for the n-th time and that didn’t interest me. Also he always pushed everyone around him to drink because he couldn’t, and since I was alway super stubborn I didn’t drink to be contrary. My first ugly-drinking event was freshman year in college and it involved WAY TOO MUCH gin. I can’t even think about the smell of gin now without a little-tiny bit of nausea.
2. My dad had smoked cigs his whole life and I never had any interest since it was so gross, though grad school introduced me to cigars that I really enjoyed for a while. Once when we were little, my cousin and I tried to smoke one of my uncle’s cigars and he caught us. He made us smoke it in front of him, she choked like crazy and I didn’t have any problem as I had watched how my dad smoked for 10 years at that point.
3. Most of my friends had a pot issue and nothing much more than that. As to that, a lot of people I knew in college got thrown out of school due to their pot consumption. It was really sad.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:12 am
1. Hmm. My parents had a very well stocked bar, including a three-foot-tall bottle of Smirnoff with a pump dispenser and a M.A.S.H. 4077th IV bottle hanging upside-down with tubing that dispensed vodka. Starting in about 6th grade, my friends and I used to take nips off the IV bottle and promptly spit it out the window. The first time I DRANK drank was probably early 9th grade. Wine coolers. All flavors and brands. Quickly moved on to beer and booze. Was complete pro by early 10th grade. (Summer of ‘88 was a DOOSEY.)
2. I tried smoking in 6th grade with my friend’s Marlboros pilfered from her dead grandmother’s desk. They were probably two or three years old. Blech. But that didn’t stop me. Summer of ‘88 (age 15) I picked it up in earnest and smoked socially until getting pregnant. I could go weeks without a cigarette, but was categorically unable to sit at a bar without one. I still find that hard. Drink goes in one hand, butt in the other. The absence feels weird. Banning smoking in bars helped that a lot. I’ll never be a smoker, but I anticipate having one or two more before I die. (Travelling in Europe is way too tempting. And I plan on doing a lot of that in the future.)
3. I have witnessed many drug problems, ranging from casual pot-head to full-on heroin junkie. Not fun. The long-term effects are the scariest. My uncle died at 47 from complications from abdominal surgery. He was 12 years sober, but the thinking was if he hadn’t been an H junkie for so many years, his body might have been better up for the fight.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:05 pm
1. When I was twelve, and my dad was dumb enough to leave his whiskey in a place I could find it. I still can’t stand the taste of that nast - I drank myself sick, as per requirements.
2. I am a smoker. Have been since I was 14. Would stop, but the idea of quitting gives me the shakes and the sweats and the knowledge that no one would survive my righteous wrath during the quitting phase.
3. I recently posted about the very worst case scenario - my cousin Tina. It still hurts to talk about it, so I won’t.
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:06 pm
1. 12 or 13? I forget. Kids, don’t start drinking young. It will kill all your brain cells.
2. I smoked once and only once when I was 14. I don’t understand the draw.
3. Unfortunately, I know too many people with drug and alcohol problems. I think I’ll save the gory details for a post of my own. When I feel ready.
June 24th, 2006 at 5:53 am
I swear, I looked at that martini shaker and thought it was an urn. Good lord, where’s my head at this morning?
1) I always had adult consent. I suppose my first memory though would be ordering a whiskey sour at a very uptight friend’s bat mitzva at her very uptight country club. The bartender made it for me. I drank half before her parents took it away. Douches.
2) On and off since I was 14. Thank GOD I’m now off for good, since Dec ‘01. I always said it’s easy to quit; I’ve done it lots of times.
3) Yes, too many to recount. From an alcoholic close family member now one year sober (yay!) to pothead friends with too few braincells left, to Nate’s meth-addicted and totally messed up 21 year old brother. We’re praying he finds his way because right now, things don’t look so good for him.
June 24th, 2006 at 7:19 am
1. I was probably 13. Peach schnapps and peppermint schnapps in a field party with friends. Lots of puking ensued. I will never drink that crap again. Seriously.
2. I’ve never smoked, cigarettes or otherwise. My favorite uncle died a horrible death from lung cancer after smoking 3 packs a day for years, so it turned off from it forever. I respect others’ right to smoke, though - I’m not an anti-smoking freak, I just choose not to do it myself. The odd thing is that when I was pregnant and now when I’m super stressed out, I fantasize about smoking. How wierd is that?
3. I have a friend who became a crack addict about 3 years ago. He’s cleaned up now, but just had a horrible accident where he lost most of the fingers on his right hand so I’m scared to death he’s going to backslide. And of course, my father-in-law’s alcoholism is well-known and documented.
June 24th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
1. damn, i really don’t remember–i’ve killed that many brain cells since. i think it was new years’ my freshman year of high school, we had like, 2 wine coolers to split between 3 or 4 of us. oh, yeah, we knew how to party. i don’t remember the first time i got shitfaced falling down balls to the wall hammered.
2. i started smoking in april or may of my senior year of high school. i only quit while i was pg and then immediately took it up again pretty much as soon as they cut the cord. i don’t know why i started. some friends and i were hanging out one night, and me and another girl decided “hey, let’s go buy a pack of smokes” and i was the only one who stuck with it. my friends thought it was gross and gave me endless shit about it. it’s wierd…i can go all day on the weekends or vacation without a cigarette, but at night, and when i’m at work, i could chain-smoke. i’m down to about a pack every other day, but at one point, i was at close to 2 packs a day.
3. my son’s father is a drug addict. he’s done just about everything, but his true drug of choice is pot. yeah, yeah–pot’s harmless. tell that to someone who watched someone else smoke 5 joints a day and spend all of their grocery money and bill paying money on weed. tell that to someone who wouldn’t invite people to their house because it reeked of pot. tell that to someone who worried her kid was going to eventually find out about daddy’s little habit. he claims he’s clean now, and from his psychotic behavior, i’m inclined to believe it–but i don’t think he’s 100% clean.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
1. Drinking — the first time I really remember drinking without adult consent was summer before senior year of high school, which I spent in a precollege program at the local university. Sounds like Jamie might have been there with me — same circumstances, anyway — Bartles & Jaymes and the older guy who bought it for me. Spent most of the time later that night hurling my guts out.
2. Smoking — smoked socially in college — we’d go to this seedy bar and buy a pack to keep our hands busy while we drank beer. Surprisingly I never got addicted, though the nights I drank (which was like 5 nights/week) I’d smoke about a half a pack. Aaah, good times.
3. Drugs — hmm. There’s alcoholism in my family. I have friends whose close family members have had drug problems. The former is still an ongoing situation (though the intensity has leveled off some, I still think about it Every Day) and in the case of the latter, I’m not sure how much has been resolved. I haven’t seen it up close, fortunately, but I know it can be quite ugly.