Thursday, April 3, 2008

the first time i got drunk

i honestly don't remember it well at all, however, there are pictures to prove it. it was beer i think, german beer (cos we were living in germany). there were two couples there and me. there are pictures of me lying on the floor, glassy eyed. pictures of me in the bathroom. i don't remember getting sick but i probably did. i think i probably asked to taste the beer, just out of curiosity, and that was my undoing evidently.

i was wearing blue, footed pajamas. i was four or five years old. one of the couples was my parents and the other was people they knew from back home, another guy in the army. (who later ended up divorcing that woman he was married to--who was my mom's neighbor growing up--and marrying one of my aunts.)

so, my parents were probably about 24-25, i was the only child at that point. i've heard other people joke about giving their dogs or cats alcohol and getting them drunk. laughing at how they responded to the foreign substance in their bodies. this is what my parents did with me.

now, one could argue (if one was stupid and really wanted to even try to justify this action in any sort of rational way) that my parents were young. it was the 70s, people weren't as aware of the effects of alcohol, yada, yada, yada. they were drunk and didn't see the harm in letting their 4-5 year old taste the beer. from the pictures though it was more than a taste. and they took pictures. apparently they even shared these pictures or told other people about it because i remember, many years later, hearing that my grandma was pretty pissed about the whole thing and my parents didn't understand why.

this is just one of many, many things that happened in my childhood that, once i became a parent, made me go wtf? so when you've read all these posts where i've berated my parents, perhaps you'll understand that it's not all me just being a horrible daughter. i honestly have tried to forgive and forget but i struggle with it all the time. as far as i know, neither my brother nor sister experienced the things i did as a kid. luck of the draw of being the oldest i guess.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. That gave me the creeps. Glad you turned out okay! (and yes, you did!)

Sweet T

broad minded said...

my parents let me sip beer, but i was older than that and it was never more than a sip. that does seem a bit f'ed up.

creative kerfuffle said...

yeah, my parents certainly wouldn't win any parent of the year awards, that's for sure.
CK