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both me and my brother were given alcohol from a very young age (i´m talking low single figures here) in all it´s forms. i think this is from coming from a slavic background. my own experience was that i never liked the taste of alcohol and if i ever drank it would be just to get drunk. i started really doing so at about age 12 or 13 and would do so only in country australia where it was fairly safe to wander outdoors being a group or 3-5 early teenagers who were off our faces. my brother definitely had a similar experience with alcohol. when we turned 18 the only difference was the thrill of buying alcohol illegally disappeared. i have chosen to never drink and drive and living 60km from the city meant that i was frequently the only sober person on a night out, which meant my friends had a perpetual designated driver. when i left au at the start of ´07 i spent 3 months in slovenia and averaged 1.5-2 litres of beer a day which took some getting used to. the culture in that country is like what i had at home which is respect for alcohol and introduction at a very young age. my observation was that people were easily able to handle large quantities of alcohol and still remain in control of themselves. the flip side to this is that the same people tend to overestimate their capabilities and drink driving is a massive problem. i´ve seen the exact opposite having moved to iceland where the idea is prohibition. alcohol here is very expensive and people are introduced to it at an older age and thus excessive binge drinking is very common (spend a friday or saturday night in downtown reykjavík to see it all happen) and people drink WAY beyond their capabilites and by about 4am the place and people in general are a mess. just on friday night i saw someone sleeping on the street outside a bar and i´ve seen so many people who can´t walk and also witnessed several fights. the flip side to this is icelanders understand clearly the dangers of drink driving and while i´m sure it does happen i´ve never encountered it and people here will make the choice very early on to drink *or* to drive. i guess when the time comes to deal with alcohol and my own children i´ll do as i see fit at the time as well as analysing how my children develop and adapting my approach accordingly.
*edit* one day i´ll look up the dictionary definition of the work paragraph....
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mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?
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