left around the house by my parents and their friends. Then I’d have a wine cooler every so often by middle school. Depending on the day, my parents either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I was drunk on malt liquor at my first high school football game.
The more I drank, the more I relaxed. The less I cared about what other people thought about me. The more I felt like I fit in. The less I thought about the abuse I was enduring at home. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Shannon. I just don’t understand you. You have faith but you’re smart. You’re not just blindly following what anyone else says is true, but you believe it, and I’ve never met someone with hope like yours that was real and not fake.”
It's pretty darn usual. My brother got sober at 22 and his wife got sober at 15. They're still sober, one day at a time, since 1988. There are meetings for teens and young adults in many states. You're not alone. YoungAndFree