My friends and i were allowed the occasional small drink whilst being supervised by a parent on special occasions like Birthdays, Graduations etc. It was never excessive, and we never got drunk. When we hit about 17 and starting having parties without adult supervision things started to change and we did start to drink more and often ended up drunk and ill.

I think we all went through binge drinking stages and i look back now and realise how stupid we were, and we were lucky to never get into any serious trouble. I rarely drink now, i had 2 last night for a friends 24th Bday and that was enough for me. I also witnessed and all in drunken brall outside of the nightclub we were trying to get into, the sight of people bashing the living *&^% out of one another is not pretty .

Oops sorry started to ramble a bit .