Yes, I did. Quite a bit.

I don’t judge underage kids who drink. I understand the allure, but I wouldn’t want to see them get in trouble for it or decide that it’s a way of life.

I think the age is fine where it is, although I think if someone is an adult at 18 in all other respects, then maybe they should be allowed to drink as an adult.

I would not buy alcohol for the underage. I would not let my kids drink, but I would be understanding if it happened. Once. Maybe.

I started at 17.

I personally think drinking should be legal at 16 and driving at 18. Might as well get the kids used to the booze before they can drive.

@johnpowell Some people like to link the lower drinking ages in European countries with lower drunk driving statistics, but I think that has more to do with the culture than anything else. I doubt that lowering the drinking age would immediately reduce those sorts of problems, if anything, it would increase them. I do think that raising the driving age to 18 would cause a bit of an uproar though.

I am underaged and have alcohol under my parents supervision or with their consent. both of my parents did and my mom told me that she would rather have me drink in the safety of my home rather than behind her back at a party with no way home.

I plan to have the same rules as this for my children, as it is working very well for me.

I did once when I was in middle school… but I hated it ): It was at a party, which I was kinda forced to go to, and I dunno, it wasn’t fun :/ Just a bunch of kids trying to get some excitement in their life.

I’m okay with kids trying it, to see if they like it. What I am not okay with is kids doing it in excess and trying to look cool with it. It’s okay to drink at a social outing, and enough to just get you buzzed, but thing is, usually kids don’t have enough responsibility and self control to say “maybe I should stop being an idiot and drink less…”

Oh, and as far as letting my kids drink…. I would be okay with sipping wine. But not beer or whisky, or anything they might think would make them feel “cool”. If they did it on their own, okay, but so long as they don’t do it in excess and get drunk n stuff…

Unfortunatlly I did quite a bit. I got a job at a service station owned by a heavy drinker. I worked an entire year before I drank. At 16 I started and drank every day at work. The beer, whiskey and vodka were just “Part of the Job” I was inside the drinking crowd. I drank with Police (on the job) judges, lawyers, and many politicans from our town. Because of my boss I could get served at the local bar where we had lunch every day. All at 16 when the drinking age was 21. That was a long time ago and I hope something like this couldn’t happen today.

I tried it once I think I was 14, I made a screwdriver, except I did it wrong, I used a little orange juce and alot of vodka…not good

Oh yeah. I somehow went to a scotch tasting thing when I was 14. I had about 4 good shots of expensive scotch,malt liquor and something syrup colored. And I was a lightweight.

Not good. There’s a reason theres a drinking age. You’re not missing much kids.

both drinking and driving ages in the US are stupid. Im glad i live in Ireland

At 19, it’s legal here in Canada. I started at 16. I went to house parties where my classmates older siblings bought the booze. I drank like a fool then (all 103 lbs of me pounding them back) and will never drink Jack Daniel’s ever again.

Yes. I’m still underage and I occasionally drink. I don’t enjoy it much though.

Yes I did. The forbidden and illegal aspect made it that much more fun.

It blows that i could be called upon to give my life to defend the US constitution yet be told what I can’t do with it till I’m 21.

My first alcohol “buzz” was at age 14…I would never buy alcohol for kids underage.

I did drink some when I was underage…not really until I was 19 and 20. I also used to sneak in this outdoor bar by myself when I was 20. There was a trail with a sort of back entrance that we could get into. I will buy alcohol for minors, but they have to be at least 19–20.

Beer, age 16, field parties out in the boonies. But that was back in the day when schools built smoking sheds to discourage 60 kids cramming into a bathroom to smoke cigarettes between class, and when the principal had a collection of paddles on his office wall, some of them personalized.

Sure. The occasional glass of sparkling wine in the evening with my parents.

Apparently I’m the only one here that didn’t drink under age. : /

I did, but realized I was only doing it because I could get away with it. After I hit 21, I seldom took a drink and don’t drink at all now—a zillion years later. It’s just not something I want to do after growing up with an alcoholic.

Hmmm, how do I put this???

SHIT YEA!

Drinking age is just fine. I would never sell to minors.

Yes, but not as much as most of these kids.
I like wine.

yes I did and I can see from my son’s wall on fb that he is too, (age 14) I’m pretty upset about it

Nope.

I have, and am not opposed to it. But I only do it under the right circumstances (i.e. within walking distance from where I’m sleeping).
But only if condition that condition (a) is met, and condition b, which is that someone else offers the alcohol.

I did, but I was very surprised to see that I’ve actually been drinking more since turning 21 last summer. Maybe because it’s less of a hassle to obtain, or maybe it’s just because I’ve let loose:)

Technically, yes. But I would hardly consider myself a drinker. I haven’t even had a sip of alcohol since I turned 21 a few months ago.

I drank at the age of 14. Two times. Never trying beer again. It’s nasty. But I do drink those flavored alcohol juice thingies.

Other than morality and issues of legality, apparently the drinking age is set in accordance to the medical fact that a human’s brain begins deterioration at age 20, approximately.
So I think it’s a good idea to have an age requirement for merely that reason, but there are plenty of other valid ones…

That said I first drank at age 14. It’s not that hard getting booze if you really want it, cigarettes really weren’t a problem either. I don’t see why it would be any harder for youths today. It’s like drugs, if you know the people and meet their demands, anybody can get their hands on stuff, whether it’s illegal or not to do so, regardless of age.
All that energy and determination into getting these substances would probably be better spent doing something more constructive though…but there’s a whole evil world out there, and you only learn some things through certain paths. I know, that’s lame, and not saying I’m wise enough to either recommend it or otherwise, but logically, I wouldn’t, if only for health issues.

Yes I did and because I knew what it did to me (and what things I did because of it), I discouraged it with my oldest when he was a teen (he’s 23 now). But, he and is friends also knew that if they were drinking and they needed a ride to call me. I would rather go get them in the middle of the night than identify their corpse in the morgue. I would not buy alcohol for him when he was underage when he was living at home. When he joined the navy, I had no problem sharing a beer with him after that because the way I see it, if you are old enough to put your life on the line for our country, you are old enough to have a beer.

No. My Uncle gave me a taste of his beer when I was about 10 and it was so disgusting, I didn’t even taste another drink until I was about 25 and joined a bowling league.

I had my first drink when I was like 12 or 13, but it was for the holidays. I don’t really drink now, and I never really drank just to drink when I was in high school either.
I don’t necessarily condone the underage drinking, but I don’t condemn it either. I guess you could say that I sit in the middle. But I say this because that is how I was raised, and it was like a shot glass full of wine.

I rarely drank when I was underage. I attended a couple parties in high school. That’s about it.

My parents let me have an occasional glass of wine with meals at home when I was a kid (from about age 13) and it taught me respect for alcohol. I did the same with my daughter, and allowed her to drink at home if she wanted to. Now she’s 21, and she hardly drinks at all.

My parents never made alcohol out to be a taboo. If we were having a meal then dad would let us have a small amount of something but weakened it with lemonade (of course we weren’t aware of that part at the time!) and this was when I figured out that, even though it felt like a grown up thing to be drinking, I didn’t really like the taste of alcohol.

By the time I was old enough to feel peer pressure to do things such as under age drinking, I wasn’t interested and so, for the most part, managed to resist. I remember being drunk once at the age of 15 years old at my friends sixteenth birthday party and did not enjoy myself at all and so that confirmed to me that it wasn’t as much fun as my other underage friends made it out to be.

Now that I am old enough to drink alcohol as and when I please I very rarely do.

Edit: I forgot to answer the other part of the question about how I feel about underage drinkers. I am sometimes irritated by how cool they seem to think they are and then how pathetic they look when they drink too much and can’t handle it. However, each to their own.

I am underage, haven’t drank in almost a year. I have before. My parents told me no when I was about 10 and I ended up going down the street and having a margarita anyway, told my dad a few years later. He just asked me if I liked it. I do think the drinking age should be lowered to 18 at least because at 18 you are an adult who can smoke cigarettes, go to strip clubs, and go into the military and risk your life. I think with all that you should be allowed to drink, even though I don’t think alcohol is good in general when not used in moderation which it is too much. Yes I would let my kids drink, I would rather them be in my own home rather than out at a party as @kayyyyleigh said. I hope they won’t really want to though because we don’t drink very much, mainly on holidays like 4th of July.

Yes, most people begin drinking before the age of 21. Not to do so is actually non-normative.

The real problem isn’t drinking by persons (especially adults age 18,19 and 20) under the arbitrary age of 21 but the abuse of alcohol by anyone of any age. Drinking in moderation is harmless (unless the person suffers legal consequences) to those under age 21.

And no, it does not harm the brain. That research uses rats and young people in treatment for alcohol and drug abuse. If drinking at a young age harmed brains, then Italians, Jews, Portuguese, Greeks, French and many others would suffer widespread brain damage.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/YouthIssues/1104434707.html