Did you start drugs/alcohol in your teens?

If you did I have a question: In retrospect, do you think you would have made different decisions?

I've found in looking back at my choices that the bad decisions didn't really come until later in my life. In my teen years it seemed like I handled my drinking & drug trying in a way that was far more adult than after I was twenty-one. There seems to be a lot behind that for me but it got me wondering if most people dealt with things in the reverse. Meaning your teen years were mispent & immersed in drugs. However, had I made decisions not to try drinking or drugs at all perhaps it would have affected my adult life today.

You started using in your teen years for a reason. Stop the what ifs, and start applying all those leasons you have learned through out those years on your adult life. Now is your time to succeed in all aspects of life, and success happens when you are sober. Once you have learned the leasons of the past, let go of it, and live your today, to complete the picture you want to achieve tomorrow. We can do it

I began drinking alcohol with certain regularity during my late teen years, let's say around age 17, but I never developed an addiction to it.

It was my wrong approach to a problem I had with my father what made my decision to use and abuse alcohol about ten years later from those early social drinks I used to have in my adolescence.

When I was 12 I already was an addict. I didn't know it. And as the years went by the addiction seemed to get worse. When I was 18 or thereabouts I started battling the addiction but still I didn't manage to shake off the addiction. But I kept trying and trying until finally after a really long time my efforts were rewarded with success. So for me things were pretty much the same though I do think the addiction seemed to get worse when I was an adult.

I started when I was 19, and I was much more responsible about it before I turned 21 as well. And there were many contributing factors to that. I don’t know how different my life would have been, though; I think I was hell-bent on making certain mistakes. So I would probably have made them even without booze in my life.

Where I was living, the legal drinking age is 18 years old. I would say that at 18 I was pretty mature, it was more when I went off to university not long after that and got mixed up with a different crowd that things became problematic. Before that, honestly, I'd barely even tasted alcohol save for a few sips here or there - not even enough to get a slight buzz let alone get drunk to any level.

Sometimes age isn't really a predictor of maturity, in my experience anyway!

I was so desperate to fit in when I was a teen, I started chumming along with some of the "cool" kids.
I wish I stayed a geek! I was really into electronics back in the day, but I stopped playing and building cool stuff to drink beer, smoke dope/tobacco and drive around town. Went to a lot of parties and though I found my place in life.
That turned to cocaine usage and decades of terrible decisions. I still remember my first time trying cocaine in the back of a 1974 Mercury Bobcat. How cool I thought I was, how much of a loser I actually was.
I am lucky I found God when I did. I wish I never turned by back on Him.

I wish I never started drinking in the first place. Not even a sip of it. It was all downhill from there. It has brought me nothing but shame and disgust in the way I treated others. I'm vowing never to do it again.

I think most people will be able to say that they first tried alcohol and other substances in their teens. Peer pressure is the main reason people will try something, especially when your at that age when your easily influenced by there's.

When it comes to regret, I don't regret things I've done in my life, in a way it's made me who I am today and regret doesn't help anybody or change things. As long as you learn lessons then that's all you can ask.

Yeah, sadly. I started to drink waaaaaaaaaaaaay earlier than I should've done. Sadly, at that point I didn't really understand how alcohol and drugs can take a toll on your life so I was oblivious to all the dangers.
I wish I never tried it in the first place, even though those experiences made me a much better person.

I did. I was only twelve years old the first time I smoked a cigarette and actually very quickly became a regular smoker. I was only thirteen when I began to drink. Started with vodka and orange juice and never looked back. I was only fourteen the first time I smoked marijuana and that also very quickly became a very regular thing. I dove on into methamphetamine at only seventeen, by smoking "ice" or "crystal meth" in a light bulb.
I now have a daughter who is entering middle school and I am terrified for her, realizing she is the same age I was when I started getting into trouble.
Obviously I look back now as an adult and a parent and wish I had made different decisions but I can't regret things all of my life, just have to build on from it.

I started drinking alcohol when I was about sixteen. Technically, that would be even earlier, because my dad allowed me to taste the foam of his beer when I was as young as 10 or 11, and I tried some wine out of curiosity. However, I did not actually start to enjoy alcohol until I was 18 or 19, and I still drink maybe once 2 or 3 months only.

Like many others, I started experimenting with drugs at about 13. It was just something different to do with a group of friends, instead of the usual movies, mall, beach, etc. It brought excitement because it was new to me. I didn't quite become addicted to anything, but smoking weed became a habit and it was getting out of hand. I began drinking heavily by age 17 and my siblings are also heavy drinkers so it was pretty tough to avoid alcohol. It's still a struggle not to overdo it, but luckily I have a supportive boyfriend who doesn't drink. I don't feel any regret. I believe it's terrible to regret anything in your past. Just know who you are.

I smoked a lot of marijuana when I.was in my teens and dabbled in extacy as well. Insmoked cigarettes and drank alcohol quite a bit. I was one of the lucky ones and was able.to.easilly quit the harder drugs when I got pregnant with my daughter. I still smoked up until a few months ago, and still drink on occassion.

I started smoking cigarettes when I was 13, I started drinking and smoking pot at 14. I started to because I so wanted to fit in and be part of the group. I wasn't well liked and bulled a lot in school, so I wanted to fit in someplace, even if it was with the stoners, I was quite a heavy partyer. By the time I was 25, then I got marred and had kids, I didn't party so much when they were little, however when my oldest was about 16 I started right back up like I was 24 again. I don't know if I was addicted back then, but it seems like I always drank. Maybe I was. I don't know If I regret parting when I was younger, I did have some good times also had some bad times,I guess its how you look at your past. I do regret the cigarettes, I wish I never started those. I guess if I think I would be different probably, but I don't know

I'm a teenager, (I'm 15). I'm in high school and this past year before Summer Holidays started I got drunk tons of times, one time it was very bad, I didn't know what was happening with me, thank God it was only me and my friend there, I threw up about 15 times in the time of 2 hours, it was so bad, I felt like **** really. I didn't do drugs, and I will never do drugs, I hope so, but I do smoke cigarettes and I'm addicted to my e-cig and normal ones. I have been smoking for the past two years.

l was a very innocent teen. I neither smoked nor drank alcohol nor tried any drugs. I was so innocent as to be totally naive. I thought that no one I knew was smoking or drinking or doing drugs either. Of course, I led a pretty sheltered life during my childhood and teen years. I had few friends and never attended parties. I think that this was part of my problem. When I moved away to college, I suddenly had my eyes opened to all that was actually going on out there, and it was so exciting and new that I couldn't say "no."

I started drinking in my teens and I thought it was great fun. I also hung out with a number of older kids who drank and I wanted to be part of the crowd, so I would do what they did. Alcohol became a way of life and whatever it was associated with. I could never go out without having a drink or should I say, as many as I could. Perhaps it was an acceptance thing or it relaxed me, but I thought it was great fun.

I did start drinking alcohol when I was still a teenager. Most of the people I know also did start drinking during their teenage years. I guess it's just the compulsiveness of being in that stage that mainly leads to that. Add the stresses, problems and influences from peers and environment. It's easy to hastily enter into things when you are at that stage of life but once you grow older and more mature, your perspectives change and you begin to see life in a different light. At least to me that's what happened. I never regret anything I did in the past because I consider them as lessons that I now use in living my life.

I smoked weed and cigarettes when I was a teen, due to the influence of the people around me and my friends. Luckily, the older I got the less I used them. I can confidently say that if I get to smoke weed and cigarettes now, after I finish them I would never crave for them.